River’s End

house. He’d been in the house. With the thought of that chuckling hideously in her ear, she lunged to her feet, stumbled over the pack she’d dropped. Momentum carried her forward so that she fell on the bed, her fingers inches away from the stem of that perfect white rose.
    She snatched her hand away as if the flower were a snake, filled with venom and ready to strike.
    She reared back, her eyes wide and round, the scream tearing at her throat for release.
    In the house, she thought again. He’d come into the house. And her grandmother was down in the kitchen, alone. Her hand might have shook, but she reached for the knife at her belt, unsheathed it so that blade hissed against leather. And she moved quietly toward the door.
    She wasn’t a helpless child now, and she would protect what she loved. He wouldn’t still be inside. She tried to reason with herself, to follow logic, but she could still taste the fear.
    She slipped out into the hall, keeping her back against the wall. Her ears were cocked for any sound, and the hilt of the knife was hot in her hand.
    She moved quietly from room to room, carefully as she would when tracking a deer. She searched each one for a sign, for a scent, a change in the air. Her knees trembled as she crossed to the attic door.
    Would he hide there where the memories were locked away? Would he know somehow that everything precious of her mother was neatly stored up those narrow stairs?
    She imagined herself going up, climbing those steps, hearing the faint creak of her weight against the old wood. Then seeing him, standing there with the chest lid flung open, and her mother’s scent struggling to life in the musty air. The bloody scissors in his hand, and the deranged eyes of the monster looking out from her father’s face.
    She all but willed it to be so as her fingers trembled against the knob. She would raise her knife and drive it into him, as he’d once driven the blades into her mother. And she would end it.
    But her hand lay limply on the knob, and her brow pressed against the wood of the door. For the first time in two decades, she wanted desperately to weep and couldn’t.
    At the sound of a car rounding the lane, she slid the bolt home under the knob and ran on jellied legs to a window.
    The first fresh spurt of fear when she didn’t recognize the car shimmered into relief when she saw Noah climb out. Her hands curled on the sill as she scanned the trees, the lengthening shadows.
    Was he out there? Was he watching?
    She spun around, desperate to run downstairs now, to let the terror spill out so someone else could take it away.
    And thought of her grandmother.
    No, no, she couldn’t frighten her that way. She would handle it herself. Cautious, she slid the knife back in its sheath, but left the safety unsnapped. She leaned against the wall again, taking slow, even breaths. When she heard Noah’s step on the stairs, she moved back into the hall.
    “She’s starting to warm up to me. Asked if I liked grilled pork chops.”
    “Let me give you a hand with that.” How steady her voice was, she thought. How cool. She reached out to take his laptop case and left him with his bag and gear. “The guest room’s in here. It has its own bath.”
    “Thanks.” He followed her inside, glancing around as he dropped his bags on the bed. “This is a hell of a lot more appealing than a pup tent on a campsite. And guess who’s here?”
    “Here?”
    His eyes narrowed on her face at the thready ring to her voice. “What’s the matter, Liv?”
    She shook her head, lowered to the edge of the bed. She needed a minute, just another minute. “Who’s here?”
    “My parents.” He took a good look at her now and, sitting beside her, took her hand. It was clammy and cold.
    “Frank? Frank’s here?” Her hand turned over in his, gripped like a vise.
    “At the lodge,” Noah said slowly. “They’d booked a room a while back. I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”
    “I will. Frank’s here.” She let her head drop weakly on Noah’s shoulder. “I asked him to come. When I was in L.A. I went to his house and asked him if he could. And he did.”
    “You matter to him. You always did.”
    “I know. It’s like a circle, and it keeps going. All of us around and around. We can’t stop, just can’t stop going around until it’s all finished. He’s been in the house, Noah.”
    “Who?”
    She straightened up, and though her cheeks were still pale, her eyes were level.