I think of all the bad things this man could do to me with them nails. He’s madder than I’ve ever seen him. I brought out the devil in him when I went and stabbed him with my spoon.

I hear the lady’s voice hissing from the other side of that shed wall. She’s calling for the man, telling him to stop making such a racket ’cause someone will hear.

“You see her?” the lady asks. “She in there?”

The man lets out a big long breath, then says, “Not in here.”

The flashlight light falls away from me. His footsteps retreat and he goes outside.

On the other side of that wall they’re talking quiet-like, making a plan about how they’re gonna find me. He’s gonna go one way, she’s gonna go the other.

I make a plan, too. I’m gonna stay right here.

The man asks, “Everything good back home?” and I know that’s when he’s talking about Gus.

“All good,” the lady says, and I know then that that lady did snatch Gus and bring him back. Now Gus is locked in the dungeon without me. Or maybe he’s dead. ’Cause that’s the best way they could punish me for what I’ve done, by hurting or killing Gus.

I want to cry, but I can’t cry ’cause crying would give me away. I could give myself up and go back to living in that dungeon of theirs with Gus, but I can’t. One of us has got to live through this ordeal and tell the rest of the world where we’ve been all this time. For Gus’s sake, now more than ever, I’ve got to live.

* * *

Light noses its way into the shed with me. It comes in through the slats of the wooden boards. It’s a golden yellow, something I ain’t seen in years. Seeing the sunlight nearly makes me cry, but I don’t cry ’cause crying won’t do me any good. I’ve got to keep my wits about me if I’m going to try and find my way home.

The shed, now that I see it in daylight, is old and rickety. There’s a lawn mower and a ladder in here, and a bunch of broken bikes. I rise up to my feet, try and step around them, but my legs are half-asleep on account of the way I’ve been sitting. I never did sleep, all night long. I spent the whole night crouched into a ball, waiting for that man to come back.

At some point in the middle of the night, it started raining. I heard them raindrops pounding on the roof and, every now and again, a stray raindrop snuck into the shed with me, landing on my arms and face. I tried to gather that rain into the palms of my hands and drink it, but there wasn’t ever more than a couple drops of it. I’m so thirsty. My throat is bone dry. I ain’t drank in days. My lips is dry, too. They’re split so that, on them, I feel blood. I run my tongue over that blood and taste it.

SADIE

There’s something off about the house. Something that nags at me, makes me feel uneasy, though I don’t know what it is that makes me feel this way. On the surface, it’s perfectly idyllic, gray with a large covered porch, one that runs the full width of the house. It’s boxy and big, a foursquare farmhouse with windows aligned in rows, symmetrical in a way I find eye-pleasing. The street itself is charming, sloped and tree-covered, each home as lovely and well kept as the next.

On the surface, there’s nothing not to like. But I know better than to take things at face value. It doesn’t help that the day, like the house, is gray. If the sun were out maybe I’d feel differently.

“That one,” I say to Will, pointing at it because it’s identical to the one in the picture that was given to Will from the executor of the estate. He’d flown in last week, to Portland, to take care of the official paperwork. Then he’d flown back, so we could drive here together. He hadn’t had time to see the house then.

Will pauses, bringing the car to rest in the street. He and I lean forward in our seats at exactly the same time, taking it in, as do the boys in the back seat. No one speaks, not at first, not until Tate blurts out that the house is gigantic—transposing his soft and his hard g’s as seven-year-olds have a tendency to do—and Will laughs, overjoyed that someone besides him can see the advantage of our move to Maine.

The house is not gigantic, not really, but in comparison to a 1,200-square-foot condo, it is, especially when it comes with its own yard. Tate has never had his own yard before.

Will gently steps on the gas, easing the car into the driveway. Once in Park, we climb out—some more quickly than others, though the dogs are the quickest of all—stretching our legs, grateful, if for nothing else, to be done with the long drive. The air outside is different than what I’m used to, infused with the scent of damp earth, salty ocean and the woodsy terrain. It smells nothing like home. The street is quiet in a way I don’t like. An eerie quiet, an unsettling quiet, and at once I’m reminded of the notion that there’s safety in numbers. That bad things are less likely to happen among crowds. There’s a misconception that rural living is better, safer than urban living, and yet it’s simply not true. Not when you take into account the disproportionate number of people living in cities, the inadequate health care system in rural parts.

I watch Will walk toward the porch steps, the dogs running along beside him, passing him up. He’s not reluctant like me. He struts as much as he walks, anxious to get inside and check things out. I feel resentful because of it, because I didn’t want to come.

At the base of the steps he hesitates, aware only then that I’m not coming. He turns toward me, standing still next to the car, and asks, “Everything all right?” I don’t answer because I’m not sure if everything is all right.

Tate goes dashing after Will, but fourteen-year-old Otto hovers like me, also reluctant. We’ve always been so much alike.

“Sadie,” Will says, modifying his question, asking this time, “are you coming?” He tells me it’s cold out, a fact of which I was unaware because of my focus on other things, like how the trees around the house tower high enough to block the light. And how dangerously slick the steep street must be when it snows. A man stands up at the top of the hill, on his lawn with a rake in hand. He’s stopped raking and stands perched, watching me, I think. I raise a hand and wave, the neighborly thing to do. He doesn’t wave back. He turns away, goes back to raking. My gaze goes back to Will, who says nothing of the man. Surely he saw him as well as I did.