“Paranormal stuff.” She didn’t look up.

Lucas usually enjoyed the paranormal. He’d watched more than a few ghost hunting shows with his daughter, having sat down just to see what it was all about only to be sucked in for the entirety of the episode. But with the house they were living in what it was, the topic made him nervous. Had Jeanie not already been big into ghosts, had she not known about the history of the house, her interest in the metaphysical wouldn’t have been cause for alarm. But she did know. Had she seen something? He wanted to ask—but no . . . Pandora’s box, he thought, and kept his mouth shut. Despite his own trepidation, he gave her an approving nod anyway. He wanted just one evening without any drama, without Jeffrey Halcomb looming in the background. “Anything cool?”

She shrugged and slapped the book closed, then dropped it on top of the stack she’d already gone through. “How do writers like this make any money? You can find all this stuff on the Internet for free.”

That was a damn good question, one that resonated with him more than she knew. Maybe true crime was losing its profitability for that exact reason—why buy it if you could google it and learn the same thing? It was why Echo’s photographs were so important.

“I guess some people don’t like getting their information that way,” he reasoned, silencing the question that was balanced on the tip of his tongue. If none of the material in the books at Jeanie’s knee was new, it meant she was a veritable encyclopedia on the topic. Why was she researching ghosts so vigilantly? Was there something . . .

“Did you ever play with a Ouija board when you were a kid?” She derailed his train of thought, gathered herself up off the floor, then pulled the stack of books into her arms. Lucas rose as well, taking half the stack from her.

“No,” he said. “I was never into that stuff. But I think Uncle Mark used to have one.”

“Heidi’s brother, Tim . . . he has one hidden in his closet.”

Timothy Steinway. Jeanie hardly ever brought him up. Lucas liked the kid well enough, save for the fact that Jeanie was in love with him. During Heidi’s twelfth birthday party, Tim had come home with a few of his high school buddies and Jeanie had gone pale and silent, as if starstruck. Caroline had thought it adorable. All Lucas wanted to do was corner Tim in the shadows of an empty hall and tell him to not even think about it. Still two years away from high school herself, Jeanie was already giving him nightmares.

Pimple-faced teens with barely broken-in driver’s licenses showing up on his doorstep. Hi, Mr. Graham, is Virginia home?

There would be jokes about her name. Let’s take the virgin outta you, girl.

He’d buy a gun and mount it on the wall just to give the little pricks something to think about.

“Tim used it at his friend’s house once, and his friend said his house was haunted after for like a week.”

“Oh yeah?” Lucas gave her a skeptical look.

“You don’t believe that can happen?” she asked. Lucas raised his shoulders and let them fall in an easy shrug. “What about if you do the Bloody Mary thing?” He shook his head, not remembering the Bloody Mary thing. “Come on, Dad, you have to know what that is. You go into the bathroom and turn off the lights, look in the mirror, and chant her name three times?”

“And what’s supposed to happen? She shows up?”

“Yeah, and kills you,” she said matter-of-factly. “She used to drown kids in rivers or something.”

“Who said this?”

She gave him a flabbergasted look.

“I’m just asking,” he told her. “It sounds like a horror movie. Did you look up where the story came from?”

She blinked at him, and for a second Lucas was sure she was going to insist that he was an idiot. Of course she had looked it up. But rather than telling him he was totally dumb and out of the loop, she wandered back to the shelf where she had left a big empty space without replying.

“Have you talked to Tim recently?” he asked offhandedly. “Or Heidi?”

Jeanie didn’t reply.

“Is that a no?”

“What does it matter?” she asked. “They’re, like, a million miles away. Not like they ever text me . . .”

Lucas frowned. He really did need to take her into town; otherwise the both of them were liable to go nuts in that house. “Did you find anything you wanted?” he asked. She shook her head that she hadn’t. “You can find it all online, huh?” He gave her a faint smile.

“Duh,” she said.

“Okay, let’s jet then,” he said. “We need to pick up the car.”

“Fine, whatever,” she said. “But I’m not staying there, right?”

“Right.” Hopeful that their getaway had gotten him back into her good graces, he draped his arm around her shoulder as they left the paranormal section. “So what’s up with Heidi, anyway?” It didn’t sound like a long-distance friendship was working out for the girls. It was something to talk about, possibly something he could give his kid advice on. He and Mark had maintained a cross-country friendship for nearly twenty years. But Jeanie ducked out from beneath his arm.

“Nothing,” she murmured. “Like you care.”

She left him trailing her, the ghost and apparitions she had been researching left to scratch at his back.

42

Monday, August 2, 1982

Seven Months, Twelve Days Before the Sacrament

AVIS DIDN’T NEED to take a pregnancy test to know. Between feeling sick for what felt like the past three weeks and missing another period, the signs were unmistakable. She was anxious, uneasy, precariously balanced between forced smiles and completely falling apart. She needed to tell someone, so she told Lily, the most levelheaded of the group.

Having been pulled by Avis into the girls’ communal room, Lily sat on the edge of the bed in total silence. She looked befuddled, as though not understanding how pregnancy worked. As if thinking, How could Avis be pregnant? How could that be possible? What Avis wanted to know was how could she be the only one who was going to have a baby? Everyone was sleeping with everyone, and as far as she knew, nobody was using protection. Unless . . . That’s crazy, she thought. Of course they aren’t using protection. Why would the boys not use protection with you, but use it with the other girls? Before Avis could pose the question, a look of revelation crossed Lily’s face. Her eyes grew wide and her lips parted in awe. She had put something together.

“We have to tell Jeff,” she said, nearly gasping at the thought. She jumped up and clapped her hands together in a strange sort of joy. “Avis, this is wonderful! This is exactly the way it’s supposed to happen, written in the stars. Jeffrey promised us, he said the time would come, and now it’s here. It’s here and it’s you. We have to tell everyone—a big announcement, something they’ll never forget.”

Avis’s stomach turned at the thought. She was nervous, but she couldn’t keep it a secret. By Christmas she’d start to show, growing bigger around the middle with each passing day. Besides, to keep something so important hidden was to defy her faith in Jeff. If she didn’t make the announcement, Lily would do it for her, and then it would be less about congratulations, you’re a mom and more about why Avis hadn’t said a word. Why hide it when it could be celebrated? she wondered. This is good. Perfect. Exactly what I want. Because, despite not knowing who the father was, anonymity seemed appropriate.

They shared everything here.

The child would belong to everyone and, in turn, would promise Avis a place among its members forever.