Chapter 38

“Of monsters in the woods and the people who fought them.”

“Yes.”

“Those tales became an obsession before Abee’s fall, and something of them, we realized, still lingered in there afterward. Abee had a habit of following her brother about, even when he snuck around in the middle of the night.”

Ewan sat up straighter in his seat. I wondered if he’d gotten an idea as to where Celia’s recounting was headed. I had yet to myself.

“Abee was already then as she is now, you know that, yes?” Celia asked.

I said that I did.

“She had been for a time. We found her in her bed the morning after, covered with blood, her hair sticky, her clothes soaked red, a kitchen knife beside her bed.”

I gasped as the realization cut me like one of our own.