The Stepsister Read online

  “It’s too cold to camp up here,” Mr. Wallner said, slurping his tomato soup.

  “Hugh got a special bonus this week,” Mrs. Wallner said proudly, as if he had won the Medal of Honor.

  “But why do we have to go camping?” Nancy whined.

  “Because we’re all stir crazy,” Mr. Wallner said, wiping his chin with a paper napkin. “Everyone is at everyone else’s throat. We all have cabin fever, and winter hasn’t really even begun yet.”

  “But why camping?” Rich asked, making a face.

  “It’ll be good for us to have to work together, outdoors on our own, as a family,” Mr. Wallner said.

  “We’re going to fly all the way to South Carolina to do that?” Nancy asked, saying South Carolina as if it were on the moon.

  “That’s how eager Hugh is for us to start acting like a family,” Emily’s mother said, blowing on her soup spoon, then sipping carefully.

  Boy, is he in for a major disappointment, Emily thought. She and Nancy were just waiting for the right moment to expose Jessie to the whole family. After showing the bloodstained knife to Nancy, Emily had hidden it in a safe place. Now she and Nancy were going to organize their evidence, get their story completely straight so that no one would doubt her accusations.

  There’s no way this family is ever going to act like a real family, Emily thought. Not until my psycho stepsister is out of here.

  The argument over whether or not to go camping continued through the soup, through the tuna casserole and salad, and on into the banana-cream pie. By this time Jessie had completely turned around. She was now wildly in favor of the trip. “It’ll be great fun. We’ll be like a pioneer family,” she said with great enthusiasm, looking across the table at Emily for some reason.

  Uh-oh, thought Emily. What has she got in her sick, devious mind? Why has she changed her tune about this camping trip? And why is she looking at me like that, like a hungry shark closing in on a little minnow?

  Jessie’s smile filled her with dread.

  “The woods there are beautiful,” Mr. Wallner was saying, his voice taking on a dreamy quality Emily had never heard from him before. “You’ll see trees and amazing wildflowers they don’t have up north here.”

  “Yay.” Rich sneered sarcastically. He still hadn’t touched his dessert.

  Emily found herself thinking about her father. He had loved camping. Emily remembered how much fun camping trips with him had been, all the joking around, the constant laughing, the excitement of daring to try new things, the fun of staying up really late under a starry sky, talking and singing.

  How warm, how comfortable, her family had been then.

  Emily realized she had tears in her eyes. She quickly wiped them away with her napkin and forced herself to think of something else.

  Voices around the table drifted in and out of Emily’s consciousness. “Well, I just can’t go,” Nancy was saying.

  “Oh, come on, Nancy,” Jessie urged. “Don’t be such a spoilsport. It’ll be great!”

  Nancy rolled her eyes in disgust.

  Finally Mr. Wallner stood up, indicating the end of dinner and the discussion. “I’ve already made the plane reservations,” he said. “We’re all going. And we’re all going to enjoy it. That’s an order.” He laughed as he headed toward the den and his newspaper. That was a really good joke for him.

  The after-dinner cleanup went quickly and quietly. Jessie tried to talk up the camping trip, but Nancy and Emily just ignored her. Finally she gave up trying and left the room.

  “I’m going to flunk out because of this!” Nancy wailed.

  “At least we’ll be a real family,” Emily said sarcastically.

  Nancy stared at her, suddenly concerned. “Bitter, bitter,” she said, as if thinking aloud.

  “What?” Emily asked.

  “Nothing. Are you okay?”

  “Nancy, how can I be okay? I’m sharing a room with a deranged person!”

  “Not for much longer,” Nancy said, staring into Emily’s eyes.

  Their mother came back into the kitchen, ending the discussion.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “How come I have to carry the tent?” Rich whined, bending over in exaggerated fashion and staggering along the path as if he were about to topple over on his face.

  “Because it’s the lightest thing we have,” Mr. Wallner said impatiently, giving Rich a dirty look. “Stand up. Stop goofing around like that. This is a no-whining weekend—remember?”

  “Did anyone bring the mosquito repellant?” Nancy asked, adjusting the heavy backpack on her back.

  “There aren’t any mosquitoes this time of year,” Mr. Wallner said, leading the way through the trees. The sun had been high above them in a clear blue sky. Now it was lowering behind the trees. Shadows played over the path. The grass, still bathed in sunlight, sparkled like emeralds. Evening crept in with the shadows.

  “Those are beech trees,” Mr. Wallner said, pointing. “And those are poplars.”

  “Very interesting,” Nancy said, unable to go a minute without being sarcastic.

  Mr. Wallner ignored her and kept pointing out trees and shrubs. We all look very authentic, Emily thought, in our down vests and hiking boots. She shifted her pack to her other shoulder, suddenly remembering the knife, the bloodstained knife, that she had packed at the last minute.

  Would she and Nancy confront Jessie with it during the camping trip?

  They might.

  If Jessie tried to pull something. If Jessie menaced her in any way.

  “Hey, look—” Rich called, pointing, the first words he had said since they’d started their hike into the woods. A rabbit followed by two fluffy little baby rabbits scampered over the trail. But that wasn’t what Rich was pointing at.

  He had discovered an old cemetery just off the trail, its small, rounded gravestones leaning in all directions. A dirt road led up to the cemetery from the other side.

  They hiked a little ways past the cemetery, then entered a small, grassy clearing. “The perfect camping spot,” Mr. Wallner said, grinning and scratching his head. “Actually, I seem to remember this clearing. I may have camped in this very spot when I was a boy.”

  “Big deal,” Nancy whispered to Emily, pulling off her pack and letting it drop to the ground.

  Emily was a little surprised by Nancy’s openly hostile attitude. She was usually better at keeping her real feelings hidden from Hugh and their mother.

  Nancy used to be a great camper, Emily remembered. She used to be just about the most enthusiastic camper in the family . . . when Daddy was around.

  “Hey, what’s with all the glum pusses?” Mr. Wallner asked, looking at each of them. “Come on, gang. How can I get my harem into an up mood?”

  His harem?

  I’m going to be sick, Emily thought.

  “I’m in an up mood,” Jessie said, helping pull the rolled-up tent off Rich’s back. “I’m loving this, Dad. It’s really great.”

  “Me too,” Mrs. Wallner said, although she looked tired and glad to be unloading the equipment from her shoulders.

  Birds all around began to chatter as if announcing the end of the day. The sun was sinking quickly behind the trees. The shadows brought a damp coolness to the clearing. The grass smelled fresh and dewy.

  “We’d better hurry and gather firewood,” Mr. Wallner said, his eyes trailing a broad-winged hawk across the sky. “Tell you what—you three girls go collect wood. Rich, Mom, and I will pitch the tent.”

  Nancy groaned. Jessie shouted her approval of the plan. Emily silently followed Nancy.

  It was dark under the trees, and much cooler than in the clearing. “What will we carry the wood in?” Nancy asked, kicking at a clump of tall weeds.

  “We’ll just make a pile on the ground here,” Jessie said. “Then we’ll make several trips to carry it all to the clearing.”

  “I guess we’ll need a lot of wood,” Emily said, stepping into a marshy spot, slipping, but catching her balance.


  “It’s going to be a cool night,” Jessie said. “It’s pretty cold already.”

  They started to collect sticks, gathering an armload, then depositing it onto a big pile. A lot of the wood, they discovered, was wet, too wet to burn. They had to wander farther into the woods to find drier wood.

  Stepping through clumps of tall, slender reeds, Emily bent down to examine a branch that had fallen. Maybe I can break it into smaller pieces, she thought, turning it over. She tried to crack it, but it was too thick. She broke off smaller pieces, but they were wet.

  When she stood up, she couldn’t see Nancy.

  “Hey—Nancy?”

  No reply.

  “We should’ve brought flashlights,” Emily said to Jessie, who was standing a few yards away with an armload of gray sticks.

  “It got dark so quickly,” Jessie said, turning her back on Emily and searching the ground for more wood. They walked together along the path.

  “Where’s Nancy?” Emily asked, suddenly a little worried.

  Jessie didn’t answer for a while, just kept walking. “I dunno,” she said finally. She dropped her pile of sticks beside the path. “Let’s start a new pile here.”

  Emily dropped her sticks onto the pile and looked for Nancy. She couldn’t find her. She suddenly realized that she had lost her sense of direction.

  Which way was the clearing? Were they walking toward it or away from it? Emily wasn’t sure.

  Something bit at her arm, a bug. She jumped, startled, and then slapped at it. She suddenly felt nervous. Jessie was a few yards away, pulling up more sticks.

  Here I am in the middle of the woods, alone with her, Emily thought. She looked for Nancy, making a complete circle. But Nancy was not in view.

  Jessie’s been trying to kill me, first with fire, then by pushing me down the auditorium balcony. And now here we are, far away from the camp, out in the dark woods. Just the two of us.

  She looked up to see Jessie staring at her strangely, intensely.

  I’ve got to get away from her, Emily thought, suddenly overcome with fear.

  I’ve got to slip away.

  Jessie will kill me. Just the way she killed her friend Jolie. And then she’ll come back with some lie. She’ll come back to camp crying her eyes out. And everyone will believe her because she’s such a good liar.

  And she’ll get away with murder—again.

  Jessie broke eye contact. Emily had the feeling that Jessie had been reading her mind.

  She knows that I know what she plans to do, Emily thought, struggling to think clearly despite her fear.

  Look at her face, look at that grim expression, that fixed determination. She’s planning how to do it. She’s planning how to kill me.

  Jessie turned away again and stepped off the path in search of wood.

  Keeping her eyes on Jessie, Emily slipped behind the trunk of a wide tree, stumbling over its thick, upraised roots. Jessie bent to pick up more sticks, and Emily moved quickly.

  She began walking quickly in the other direction, turning back to make sure Jessie wasn’t following her. It was too dark to tell. She stopped. She heard footsteps crunching over the twigs and dead leaves.

  Jessie was following her.

  Jessie had read her mind. Jessie knew she was trying to escape.

  Choked with fear, Emily tried to run. But the weeds were too tall, and it was too dark to see the stones and logs that littered the ground. She stumbled once, then slowed her pace.

  Nancy, where are you? she thought.

  How could you leave me alone in the woods with this crazed killer?

  She walked quickly, kicking clumps of weeds and low shrubs out of her path. Suddenly she realized she had walked into the old cemetery. The crooked gravestones appeared much larger from this close vantage point.

  She wandered in among the graves, thinking maybe she could hide from Jessie here. The ground was soft in spots. Her boots slid in the marshy mud, and for a moment she felt as if the ground were collapsing and she was about to slide down, down into one of the old graves.

  A smell came up from the ground, a powerful smell of decay. Emily gasped and then tried to hold her breath. Her heart pounding, she held on to a gravestone for support and turned to see if Jessie was still following. She didn’t see anyone. The gravestone suddenly made a creaking sound, tilted, and fell. She cried out and nearly toppled over with it.

  “Oh!”

  She backed away.

  “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  She turned, trying to decide which direction to go, and nearly stumbled into an open grave. Two shovels lay beside it on the ground, forming an X, their handles crossed.

  Which direction, which direction, which direction?

  The moon floated up into the navy-blue sky, an eerie ring of feathery gray clouds around it. The pale light made the slanting gravestones seem to come alive, their shadows sliding and shifting.

  Emily was squinting into the near distance, searching for the trail, when someone pushed her hard from behind.

  Uttering a strangled, startled cry, Emily plunged forward into the open grave.

  Chapter

  19

  “Jessie—Let Me Out!”

  The dirt at the bottom of the grave felt soft and wet, like pudding. Emily landed hard on her knees, sending a shock of pain up and down her legs. Then both hands hit, plunging into the thick, cold mud.

  She stood up quickly, wiping her hands against her jeans.

  “Jessie—let me out!” To her surprise she felt more anger than fear. “Do you hear me? Let me out!”

  She could hear Jessie walking around the sides of the grave. She looked straight up, trying to see her. The eerie trails of clouds appeared to be draped around the full moon, making it look shapeless, stretched out, like a moon in a bad dream.

  So this was it. Her fears about Jessie were coming true. Jessie was making her move, her final move.

  I won’t let it be her final move, Emily thought.

  “Jessie—let me out!”

  Emily stretched out her arms, stood on tiptoes, and grabbed the top of the grave. She tried to pull herself out, but the dirt was too soft. Clumps came off in her hands.

  She dug her sneakers into the side of the grave, kicking the soft dirt free until she was standing on a low pile of it. This gave her a better grip on the top of the grave. She took a deep breath and leapt up—grabbing the graveside, using all of her arm strength to pull herself up and out.

  Yes, yes.

  She dug her knees into the side, scrambling up, pulling herself up.

  She was almost out when the soft dirt gave way again, and she slid right back down to the bottom of the hole.

  I won’t give up, she thought. I won’t give up.

  But what was that disgusting smell? It smelled like rancid meat.

  Emily looked down. The corpse of a rabbit, its fur eaten away by insects, lay at her feet. “Ugggh!” The rabbit must have fallen into the grave and starved to death.

  Now I’m the rabbit, Emily thought.

  She heard sounds above the grave, boots scraping against the ground. “Jessie—do you hear me?”

  One more try at climbing out. She kicked more dirt onto the pile on the grave bottom. It was at least a foot high now. She stepped onto it, grabbed the top of the grave, and started to lift herself out.

  Watch out, Jessie. This time I’m coming out.

  She didn’t see the shovel coming down on her until it was too late. Even as the metal blade of the shovel swung down onto her arm, she didn’t realize what was happening.

  She heard a loud crack, like someone breaking a celery stalk, and started to slip back down into the grave even before the pain arrived. The pain shot through her entire body, as if she’d been struck by lightning, and then stayed in the arm the shovel had hit, throbbing, throbbing.

  On her knees in the dirt, she grabbed the arm with her other hand. But the pain was too intense. She immediately let go.

&n
bsp; She tried to raise the arm, but couldn’t. It wouldn’t move. She couldn’t swing it or raise it.

  It’s broken, she realized.

  Jessie swung the shovel and broke my arm.

  Now I’m helpless.

  Now the terror swept over her, driving out her anger.

  Jessie really does plan to kill me. And leave me in this grave.

  Her entire right side throbbed with pain.

  I’m trapped now. I can’t climb out. I can’t get away from her.

  She looked down at the dead rabbit.

  “No! Jessie—I’m coming out!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, screamed so hard it made her arm throb even more painfully.

  The shovel swung down again, narrowly missing her head.

  Emily threw herself against the side of the grave and looked up.

  Another shovel swing. Another near miss.

  And then, illuminated by the eerie, pale moonlight, a face peered down at Emily.

  Not the face Emily expected.

  Nancy’s face.

  “Nancy!”

  Her sister glared down at her, her features frozen in grim determination, her eyes wild with hatred.

  “Nancy—it’s you?”

  Emily suddenly felt so confused. Her fear mixed with hurt and surprise.

  Holding the shovel in both hands, Nancy raised it high above her head.

  “Nancy? What are you doing?”

  Nancy stood frozen above her, the shovel poised.

  “Nancy—answer me!”

  Nancy glared down at her, her skin gray-green in the moonlight.

  “Nancy—please!” Emily was so frightened, she didn’t recognize her own voice.

  Finally Nancy broke the pose. “I hate you, Emily!” she called down, her features cold, expressionless.

  “But, Nancy—why?”

  Nancy, still holding the shovel high, loomed menacingly above Emily, looking like a statue, a graveyard monument.

  “Why, Nancy?”

  “You killed Daddy!” Nancy shrieked.

  She swung the shovel down with both hands.

  Emily dived to the ground, and the metal grazed the top of her hair and then hit dirt.