Daughters of Silence Read online

  When the men reached her, they quickly cleared the smaller pieces of wood away. Then they levered a timber beneath the heavy beam pinning Rob.

  “When we lift the beam, young lady, you pull him out,” one of the men said. “Can you do that?”

  “Of course I can,” Jenna told him.

  He nodded. “All right, men. All together now.”

  Jenna heard them groan with effort as they bore down on the timber. The beam creaked and shuddered. Then it rose. An inch. Two. Up off Rob’s chest. Rob gave a gasp of pain.

  The beam rose higher. Grabbing Rob under the arms, Jenna tugged him out from under. The moment he was clear, she called to the other men. They eased the beam back down.

  “Thanks,” Rob muttered, holding one arm across his chest.

  Jenna knelt beside him. “You’re hurt!”

  “I think it’s just a few cracked ribs,” he protested. His gaze went to the beam. “Right now, I’m feeling very lucky.”

  “You are lucky,” one of the men told him. “Let’s get you out of here so the doctor can look at you.”

  Rob nodded. Then he turned to Jenna and took her hand in both of his. “Thank you. I owe you for saving me, and I always pay my debts.”

  She blushed. “I didn’t do anything, really.”

  “You did.” He smiled. Then the smile vanished as he grimaced in pain.

  “Go get yourself taken care of,” she ordered.

  Two of the men lifted him and carried him away. Jenna got to her feet and dusted her skirt off as best she could. As she did, she spotted something else beneath the pile of wood.

  A hand.

  “Look!” she cried, pointing.

  The men leaped into action again. A whole section of framework had fallen in one piece and they had to lever it away. Finally, they reached the trapped man.

  It was Frank Douglas. He lay on his back, his arms flung wide. His eyes stared blindly upward.

  A two-by-four had pierced straight through his chest. Tattered flesh and bits of bone had sprayed up around the wood. A pool of blood surrounded Frank’s body. Jenna stared, too horrified even to move. The blood spread, staining every board it touched.

  She tried to look away, but couldn’t. The pool grew larger still. She couldn’t believe that a human body could hold so much blood. She saw the crimson pool creeping closer. In a moment, it will touch my shoes, she realized.

  With a strangled cry, she leaped back. She covered her mouth with both hands.

  “Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, oh, oh!”

  Someone laughed. Jenna instantly recognized that high-pitched giggle. Her skin crawled with horror as she turned to Hallie.

  The other girl stood over Frank’s body. Blood had soaked the hem of her skirt, staining it crimson. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her blue eyes glimmered with a wild look.

  She stood over the dead man, laughing.

  She threw back her head and her golden hair came loose from its pins, streaming out over her shoulders.

  “I wanted it to happen, and it did,” she laughed.

  “It did!”

  Chapter

  11

  “Hallie!” Jenna cried. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Still Hallie laughed. She couldn’t seem to stop. She fell to her knees and pressed her hands to her cheeks, laughing and laughing. A circle of onlookers stared at her as though she’d gone mad.

  Jenna couldn’t stand it any longer. She grabbed the other girl by the shoulders and shook her hard. Hallie gasped. Then the giggles turned to sobs. Tears ran down her face in a flood. They ran into her wide-open mouth. Hallie turned her face and pressed it into Jenna’s skirt. Jenna held her head and stroked her hair.

  “It’s all right, Hallie. It’s all right,” she murmured. Jenna gazed around, feeling helpless. She didn’t know what else to do.

  Mr. Sheridan rushed up to them. “She’s overwrought,” he told Jenna. He swept Hallie into his arms and carried her away from the wreckage.

  “Come, Jenna. We’ve got to get her home.”

  Hallie’s mother joined them at the carriage and held Hallie in her arms during the ride home. Hallie soon stopped crying, but she stared straight ahead with a blank, haunted look that made Jenna feel uneasy.

  As soon as they arrived at the house, Mrs. Sheridan led her daughter up to bed. Jenna followed. She watched Hallie fall deeply asleep the moment she stretched out across the bed.

  “Is she going to be all right?” Jenna whispered.

  Mrs. Sheridan turned to her. “Don’t worry, dear. She’ll be fine once she gets some sleep.”

  “Do you mind if I stay with her?” Jenna asked.

  “That’s a fine idea, Jenna. I know she’d love to find you here when she wakes,” the older woman said.

  She stroked her daughter’s hair gently, then turned toward the door.

  “Mrs. Sheridan?” Jenna called.

  The older woman turned back. “Yes, Jenna?”

  “Did you happen to see a … a shadow move over the barn before it fell?”

  “A shadow?” Mrs. Sheridan repeated, frowning. “No. No one mentioned seeing a shadow. Jenna, dear … you’re not feeling unwell, are you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Perhaps you should lie down—”

  “I’m fine, really,” Jenna insisted.

  Mrs. Sheridan hesitated. Then she nodded. “All right. But if you should feel strange in any way, I want you to tell me right away.”

  “I’m fine,” Jenna said again.

  The older woman studied her. Then she smiled gently and turned away again. Jenna settled onto her own bed with a book. The room was silent except for Hallie’s soft, regular breathing.

  Jenna read the same paragraph several times, then set the book aside. She couldn’t concentrate. An image of the terrible accident ran over and over again in her mind.

  Hallie’s voice echoed through her memory. I wanted it to happen, and it did.

  And that shadow. Why hadn’t anyone else seen it?

  Jenna wasn’t about to mention it again. Not after Mrs. Sheridan’s reaction. People might start thinking she’d gone crazy. But she had seen it. And it had something to do with the barn falling, she felt certain.

  Even more important, what was wrong with Hallie?

  “Ohhhh,” Hallie moaned softly.

  Jenna got up to check on her. Hallie moaned again. Then she flung the covers aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was about to get up, Jenna realized.

  But her eyes remained closed.

  “Hallie!” Jenna exclaimed, rushing to her friend.

  The moment she touched Hallie, the other girl sank back into bed. Jenna heard her breathing slow down. Jenna watched her for a moment. Should she call Mrs. Sheridan? She decided not to. Maybe Hallie just had a bad dream. Perfectly natural under the circumstances.

  “Let’s get you back under the covers,” Jenna muttered.

  She lifted Hallie’s legs back onto the bed and pulled the light quilt up over her. As she tucked the edge of the cover around Hallie’s shoulders, Jenna noticed a dark splotch on her friend’s chest. Jenna leaned over and peered down at the mark.

  She gasped. A horrible bruise marred the skin of Hallie’s chest, right below the hollow of her throat. An ugly mark, so dark purple that it looked almost black. The gold locket gleamed against it.

  Jenna’s mind spun as she stared at the bruise.

  Heart-shaped.

  The exact size and shape of Hannah Fear’s golden locket.

  Chapter

  12

  Jenna chewed worriedly at her lip. She pushed the lace collar of Hallie’s dress back and stared down at the disgusting bruise.

  The necklace.

  Almost as soon as she had put it on, Hallie had started acting strange. Could the necklace have some secret power? Had it taken control of Hallie somehow, forcing her to act so strangely?

  “That’s crazy,” she muttered.

  But was it?

&nbs
p; And what about the crystal bracelet? Jenna wondered. What if I’d kept it on, the way Hallie wore the locket?

  She went to the dresser and opened the top drawer. The iridescent crystal beads sparkled.

  Julia’s bracelet.

  Jenna didn’t want to touch it. She didn’t want to pick it up. But her hand stretched out, as if she had lost all control of her body. Her fingers plucked up the bracelet and gathered it in her palm.

  The beads felt warm against her skin. Warm and pulsing, as if throbbing with a life all their own.

  “You’re imagining things,” she muttered.

  She glanced out the window. The sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky, and she thought she’d never seen a prettier day. That’s what’s real, she told herself. Not enchanted jewelry or haunted crypts.

  The sight made her feel better. Calmer. Then she looked down at her hands. Her breath caught in her throat. Somehow, while she’d been gazing out the window, her hands had been busy.

  Her own hands. They had undone the gold catch and had begun fitting the bracelet around her wrist.

  Shuddering, she flung the bracelet away from her. It landed on the wooden floor with a tinkling sound. It glistened in the sunlight, tempting her to pick it up again.

  She knew better.

  “Now to rid you of your problem, Hallie,” she whispered.

  Taking a deep breath, she returned to the bed. The gold locket reflected the sunlight in a buttery gleam. As Jenna stared down at the locket, the light seemed to shift, piercing her eyes. She blinked, forced to look away.

  Jenna didn’t want to touch it. But she had to, for Hallie’s sake.

  She squinted into the blinding light and reached toward the locket. As her fingertips made contact, she gasped and pulled her hand away. Heat pulsed from the metal, singeing her fingertips.

  Jenna set her teeth hard, reached out again and forced herself to ignore the burning feeling as she grasped the golden heart. She tugged on the locket to slide the catch around where she could reach it.

  Finally, she grabbed the catch. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t undo it. It felt as though the clasp had fused into one piece. She tried to tug the necklace over Hallie’s head. But the chain wasn’t long enough. She had to break the chain, Jenna realized.

  Winding it around her fingers, she began to pull. Harder and harder.

  Hallie whimpered.

  Jenna tightened her grip on the chain. Hallie moaned, a deep groan that made Jenna loosen her grip for a moment. Then Hallie thrashed her head from side to side. Jenna stared down at her friend as Hallie’s face crumpled in a grimace of pain.

  Impossible, Jenna thought. It shouldn’t hurt. It couldn’t hurt. And even if it did, she had to get this locket off of Hallie. Jenna believed her very life depended on it.

  Jenna took a deep breath and gripped the chain tighter. She pulled as hard as she could.

  Hallie’s head remained still upon her pillow. Jenna watched her and saw two tears form at the corners of Hallie’s eyes. But they looked strange. Dark. Red. The tears squeezed out of Hallie’s eyes and flowed down her cheeks, dripping into the blond hair at her temples.

  Staining it red.

  With a gasp of horror, Jenna dropped the chain and stumbled backward. She stared down at Hallie. Her face had returned to normal. A small, peaceful smile curved her thin lips.

  Jenna gazed at the two tiny patches of red marking her friend’s hair. No, she had not imagined the whole thing.

  Jenna felt her mouth go dry. Her knees trembled and she sat back on the edge of her bed, staring at Hallie.

  She felt an impulse to call Hallie’s mother. But she couldn’t make a sound.

  She took a deep breath. Mrs. Sheridan hadn’t believed her when she’d mentioned the shadow. She wouldn’t understand about this either.

  Only one person in Shadyside might believe her story.

  And try to help her.

  Rob.

  She had to find him.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Jenna slipped out the Sheridans’ front door and dashed across the lawn before anyone noticed her leaving. Out on the road, she noticed thick gray clouds massing overhead.

  Jenna walked quickly toward the Fear estate. A cool, moist breeze whipped stray tendrils of hair around her face. She could tell that it would rain soon.

  “Just what I need,” she muttered. Running part of the way, Jenna quickly came to the road where the Fears lived.

  She walked as far as the drive that curved up to the Fear mansion. She stopped, staring down that double strip of crushed rock. The gloomy mansion loomed up ahead at the top of the drive. It looked even darker and more ominous beneath the blanket of clouds.

  She didn’t want to see the Fears. Not now. Not ever again.

  So she walked toward the back of the house, through the high grass at the edge of the estate. Rob had told her that he lived in the gardener’s cottage. It had to be around here somewhere, Jenna assured herself.

  She turned and looked back at the mansion. A single gabled window on the second story peered down at her like a Cyclops’s eye. The window in Julia Fear’s room, she thought.

  She kept glancing at it over her shoulder, feeling that someone was watching her. Unease twitched along her nerves. Could someone be up in the window watching her? Jenna stood still for a second and peered up at it.

  “Hello, Jenna.”

  Jenna froze. Her legs turned to water, nearly collapsing under her.

  Slowly, she turned to face Angelica Fear.

  Chapter

  13

  Dressed in a long, white gown and a trailing shawl, Angelica seemed to glow in the muted light. Jenna noticed leaves and twigs clinging to the hem of her dress and guessed that she’d been walking in the woods.

  She carried a basket over her arm and Jenna spotted some spiky-looking plants inside.

  “I gathered some wild mushrooms for dinner,” Angelica murmured, shifting the basket to her other arm. “I’m so glad you came to visit, dear,” she added with a smile.

  “I, ah—”

  “But why didn’t you come straight up to the house? What are you doing wandering around back here?”

  Jenna’s heart thumped wildly. “I … I knocked on the door, but no one answered,” she stammered. “I thought maybe you were out in the garden, so I—”

  “And where’s your sister?”

  Jenna blinked. “Don’t you mean my friend, Hallie?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” Laughing, Angelica waved her bejeweled hand. “Dear me, I think my memory is playing tricks on me these days. Of course, I mean your friend. Now, come in and join us for tea.”

  Jenna didn’t move. She stood there, trying to think of an excuse not to go inside the Fears’ awful mansion again. Angelica clasped her arm and turned her toward the house. Jenna felt her thin, cold fingers digging into her flesh. Jenna willed herself to remain still. But her feet moved forward, defying her will to resist.

  One halting step.

  And then another.

  “That’s my girl,” Angelica murmured. “Only a few steps more. You seem a little tired, dear. Some tea and scones will refresh you,” she promised.

  As the house drew closer, Jenna felt her stomach twist into a knot. If she ever came out of there alive, she’d never, ever go near the place again.

  “Do your hosts know you came to visit us?” Angelica asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Jenna lied. “They’ll be expecting me home soon, so I can’t stay long.”

  “That’s a shame,” Angelica murmured.

  As they trudged up the stone staircase that led to the porch, Simon came out of the front door. His dark eyes glowed in his sharp-featured face. His thin lips twisted into a smile.

  “Why, our pretty visitor has come again,” he greeted Jenna.

  He peered down at her. Jenna ducked her head, not wanting to meet his gaze.

  “Her friend couldn’t come,” Angelica told him.

  “Ah,” he murmur
ed. “Why not?”

  “She’s not feeling well,” Jenna began to explain. “She got very upset today—”

  “Not feeling well? Upset?” Angelica exclaimed. “What happened?”

  Surprised, Jenna stared at her. “Didn’t Rob tell you?”

  “I didn’t know you were acquainted with our Robert,” Simon replied sharply.

  Jenna felt like kicking herself. She never should have let them know that she knew Rob. She decided to make light of it.

  “I met him this morning, at the barn raising,” she told them. “He told me that he worked for you, so I assumed he’d tell you what happened.”

  “What barn raising?” Simon asked. Jenna heard a cold, hard edge in his words. “I thought Rob had been out in the woods all morning. Chopping firewood.”

  Jenna suddenly felt heartsick. She hadn’t meant to get Rob in trouble with the Fears. What kind of hold did they have over him? He said he worked for them. Was he some sort of slave?

  “Uh—the barn raising at the Millers,” Jenna replied. “Maybe Rob forgot to tell you about it. There was an accident there. The barn came crashing down on top of the workers.”

  “How terrible,” Simon sighed and shook his dark head.

  “Simply awful,” Angelica murmured. “Come have some tea and tell us all about it”

  With her fingers still firmly wrapped around Jenna’s forearm, Angelica led the way to the drawing room. The draperies remained closed again today and pockets of shadow clung to every corner.

  The silver tea service and china dishes of cake stood on the wooden cart next to the sofa. Jenna knew she wouldn’t be able to eat a thing.

  She didn’t think she’d dare eat anything.

  “Sit right here next to me,” Angelica softly ordered her. “I’ll fix you a plate.”

  Jenna settled on the very edge of the sofa, as far from Angelica as she could manage. Simon sat down on the chair opposite her. His dark gaze settled on her and she felt as though he’d touched her with cold, clammy fingers.

  “Why, Jenna, you’re not wearing your bracelet,” he observed. Jenna thought he sounded alarmed. She noticed Angelica’s head pop up. Then she stared at Jenna’s bare wrist.