The Burning Read online

  Hannah shook her head. “Only Fluff. He was the only one to eat. And now the poor dog is dead.”

  “Poisoned,” Julia muttered.

  Hannah gasped. “What did you say, sister?”

  “Poisoned,” Julia repeated the word as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Lucy. She poisoned the pies. She had to.”

  “No!” Hannah cried, lowering the dog to the blanket, her features set in horror. “You don’t think—”

  “Lucy,” her sister repeated, shaking her head. “She almost murdered us all.”

  Hannah swallowed hard, her heart thudding wildly against her chest. She climbed quickly to her feet, her expression frightened. “Where are the boys?” she asked, searching the woods. “Julia, go fetch the boys and bring them home. I shall run to tell Father. He must know what Lucy has done—at once!”

  As Hannah ran through the woods toward the house, tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Poor Fluff, she thought. That poor, innocent dog. He looked so frightened, so confused.

  Poisoned.

  Poisoned by that villainous maid.

  If only Hannah had told her father her suspicions about Lucy after finding the shard of glass in her shoe. Then Fluff would still be alive.

  I’ll tell Father everything now, Hannah told herself. And the maid will be gone before—before she can kill again.

  The back of the rambling Fear mansion came into view. Hannah slowed a little as she passed the burial plot. A closed pine coffin had been set down at the edge of the fresh grave.

  Jenkins must be inside it, Hannah realized. The funeral will be held in a few moments.

  Thinking of Fluff, a loud sob escaped her throat. Hannah turned away from the narrow coffin and ran the rest of the way to the house.

  She burst through the door to the back pantry. “Father! Father! Are you downstairs?” she called breathlessly.

  No reply.

  In the kitchen bright sunlight streamed across the floor from the back window.

  “Father? Father?”

  No one there.

  Frantically, Hannah started toward the hallway.

  But a black-uniformed figure moved quickly to block her path.

  “Lucy!”

  Chapter 17

  The sunlight washed over Lucy as she stepped toward Hannah. Her orange hair was secured tightly in a bun. Her eyes locked on Hannah’s.

  “Lucy—why did you poison us?” Hannah blurted out, panting for breath. “Why?”

  “What?” Lucy’s mouth dropped open.

  “Do not play innocent!” Hannah cried angrily. “Why did you poison our lunch?”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about, miss,” Lucy replied, turning up her sharp nose.

  “You murdered my dog!” Hannah shrieked.

  “What is all the noise in here?” Mrs. MacKenzie bustled in from the hallway. “Hannah, what is the matter?” the housekeeper asked with concern.

  “Lucy tried to poison us!” Hannah cried, pointing at the maid, who took another step back. “She poisoned the meat pies!”

  “What?” Mrs. MacKenzie narrowed her eyes at Hannah. “What are you saying about meat pies? The meat pies for your picnic?”

  “Yes,” Hannah cried. “They were poisoned! Lucy has been trying to harm us since she arrived. And today—”

  “No!” Lucy screamed, interrupting. “No! You are telling lies, miss!”

  Ignoring her protests, Hannah turned to Mrs. MacKenzie. “I must get my father. He must know at once. Lucy poisoned the pies!”

  “No, she did not,” Mrs. MacKenzie said firmly, placing her hands on the sides of her long apron.

  “What?” Hannah had started to the door but stopped short.

  “As I am a witness, Lucy did not poison the pies,” Mrs. MacKenzie repeated, frowning, her round cheeks a bright pink. “Lucy had nothing to do with your lunch, Miss Hannah. Your sister Julia prepared the lunch.”

  Hannah felt dazed. The room suddenly tilted. The bright sunlight washing over her made everything go white. “Julia?”

  “Miss Julia made the pies,” Mrs. MacKenzie insisted. “Lucy asked if Julia needed help. But Miss Julia ordered Lucy to stay out of the kitchen.”

  “Julia?” Hannah gasped weakly. “No. Please. Not Julia. Not Julia.”

  “Miss Hannah, are you feeling ill?” Mrs. MacKenzie demanded, tugging on the sides of her apron. “Perhaps I should summon your father?”

  But Hannah was already running through the back pantry and out the door.

  Her heart pounding, her head spinning from what she had just learned, she ran past the flower garden and across the lawn. She saw her brothers first, coming out of the woods. Their faces were drawn. Julia must have told them about Fluff. The boys nodded solemnly at Hannah, then continued on in silence toward the house.

  Julia appeared next. As she stepped out of the woods, she stopped a few yards from Jenkins’s coffin.

  She was carrying the picnic basket, but set it down when she saw Hannah hurrying toward her. “Hannah, did you find Father? Did you tell him about Lucy?”

  Panting hard, struggling to catch her breath, Hannah stared intently at her sister, studying her face, searching for the truth in Julia’s small gray eyes.

  “Julia—it was you!” Hannah finally managed to choke out.

  As she stared back at Hannah, Julia’s eyes turned cold. She nodded.

  “You tried to poison me,” Hannah accused, her voice just above a whisper.

  Julia didn’t deny it. She stared back, emotionless, her expression a blank.

  “Why, Julia?” Hannah demanded. “Why?”

  “I hate you, Hannah,” Julia replied quietly, calmly. “I want you to die.”

  “But why? Why? Why?” Hannah shrieked. She realized she was more horrified by Julia’s coldness than by her action.

  “Why should you be the hostess?” Julia demanded, her black curls falling forward. She made no attempt to push them back. “Why should I not be the pretty one? The charming one? Why should I not be Father’s favorite? Why should I not take Mother’s place? I am the oldest—and the smartest. And—and—”

  Her normally pale face was scarlet now. Her eyes burned into Hannah’s. Her shoulders trembled. Julia’s hands were balled into tight, angry fists at her sides.

  Hannah shrank back, suddenly frightened. “Julia, you—you put the snake in my bed! You put the glass in my shoe. You—” Hannah’s terrified voice caught in her throat.

  Julia didn’t deny it. “I wanted you to be scared. I wanted you to bleed. I want you to die!”

  With a furious cry Julia attacked Hannah, leaping onto her, wrapping her hands around Hannah’s throat.

  Startled, caught completely off guard, Hannah stumbled and fell backward. She landed hard on her elbows and cried out from the pain.

  Julia landed on top of her, her hands still at Hannah’s throat.

  Crying and groaning, the two girls wrestled on the ground—until Hannah broke free, climbed to her feet, and started to run.

  But Julia was faster and tackled her sister hard from behind.

  Hannah landed on her stomach on top of the pine coffin. She groaned and tried to pull herself up.

  But Julia was on top of her again, pressing her down onto the hard coffin. And again Julia’s hands wrapped around Hannah’s throat.

  “Die! Die! Die!” Julia shrieked at the top of her lungs as her hands tightened viciously around Hannah’s throat.

  Hannah struggled to roll free, to get off the coffin.

  But Julia held tight as she choked off Hannah’s air.

  Chapter 18

  Hannah gasped for breath, thrashing her arms frantically, trying to grab Julia, to push her away.

  But Julia was too strong, too determined.

  Hannah felt herself weaken, felt her muscles go slack, felt her body surrender.

  Everything went bright red. Blood red. Then bright white. Hannah felt herself sinking, sinking into the white nothingness.

  A
nd then—miraculously—Julia’s hands slipped away from Hannah’s throat.

  Hannah stared up at the white, white sky. Color returned slowly.

  She took a short breath. Then another. The air made a whistling sound as it entered her lungs.

  Julia thinks I am dead, Hannah realized. She believes she has murdered me. That is why she has released my throat.

  Hannah sucked in another breath of air.

  A sound in the woods behind them caused Julia to turn her back. Was there someone there? Had someone seen them?

  No, it was only a deer scurrying in the underbrush. Julia bent over, hands on her knees, panting loudly.

  She thinks she has murdered me.

  The words repeated in Hannah’s mind, turning her fear to anger. With a burst of strength she rolled off the coffin and landed on her feet.

  Hannah stood unsteadily, the ground swaying beneath her.

  “You—you’re alive?” Julia cried breathlessly, spinning around, her eyes wide. She recovered quickly and lunged at Hannah.

  Hannah grabbed the first thing she saw—the heavy iron shovel that had been used to dig Jenkins’s grave.

  As Julia leapt at her, Hannah cried out and swung the shovel.

  It made a metallic clang as it slammed against Julia’s head.

  Julia’s eyes bulged wide. Then they rolled up in her head as she dropped to her knees. Blood spurted from her nose, flowed down her chin. Finally she dropped facedown into the grass.

  Hannah stared in horror, shaking all over, the heavy shovel still gripped tightly in both her hands. She watched the bright blood, Julia’s blood, puddle on the grass.

  I have killed her, she realized. I have killed Julia.

  The shovel fell at Hannah’s feet. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop her body from trembling.

  Now what?

  She couldn’t think clearly. Everything kept turning red, then white. Flashing crazily in front of her. The clouds overhead appeared to race. The sun dipped, then rose again.

  Crazy. All too crazy.

  Julia is dead.

  Now what?

  Before Hannah even realized what she was doing, she had pulled open the pine lid of the gardener’s coffin. The stale aroma of his corpse floated up to greet her.

  The old man’s purple face stared blankly up at her. The eyes had sunk deep into Jenkins’s skull. The lips were pulled tight in a hideous death grin.

  Sobbing loudly, struggling to hold back her disgust, Hannah frantically grabbed her sister’s body under the arms and pulled it to the coffin. Lifted. Lifted Julia’s body, so heavy in death.

  Shoved it into the coffin. On top of the rotting gardener.

  Shoved it. Sobbing. Trembling. Shoved it. Shoved it in.

  One arm draped itself over the side of the coffin. Hannah grabbed the arm with both hands and bent it into the coffin.

  And slammed the lid shut. And clasped it.

  And ran blindly to the woods to vomit. To spew up the horror. The horror of having killed her only sister.

  Her only sister, who had hated Hannah enough to try to murder her.

  Choking and sobbing, Hannah clung to the cool trunk of a tree. And waited for her mind to clear, for the ground to stop swaying, for the lights to stop flashing in her head.

  Hannah was still at the edge of the woods, still clinging to the solid tree trunk, when the small party of mourners gathered around the freshly dug grave to bury Jenkins.

  Her cheek pressed against the smooth bark, Hannah watched the dark-coated minister, Bible in hand, say a few words over the coffin. The mourners, servants from the house and a few people from the village, bowed their heads as the minister spoke.

  Then Hannah saw the strongest of the men step forward to lift the coffin into the grave. They struggled for a moment, surprised by the weight of it. Then, working silently together, they lowered the box into the ground and covered it with dirt, using the same shovel Hannah had used to kill Julia.

  Julia is in the ground now, Hannah thought, watching the members of the small funeral party walking slowly toward the house. Julia is in the ground with Jenkins.

  Hannah stayed in the woods a long while. When the sun began to lower itself behind the trees and the air grew evening cool, she wiped the tearstains from her cheeks. Then she straightened her dress and slowly walked back to the house.

  “Where is Julia?” Simon asked.

  Hannah pretended not to hear the question. She was slumped in a chair in a corner of the sitting room, watching Brandon and Joseph toss a small ball back and forth in front of the fire.

  “Has anyone seen Julia?” Simon repeated impatiently from the doorway, his eyes on Hannah.

  “I have not seen her, Father. Not since our picnic in the woods behind the house,” Brandon replied, bouncing the ball gently to his little brother.

  “Maybe she is still outside,” Joseph said, missing the ball and scrambling after it.

  “Can you two not find a better indoor activity?” Simon scolded sharply. He disappeared before the boys could reply.

  Hannah shivered in spite of the heat that filled the room from the glowing fireplace. She stared at the boys but didn’t really see them. Instead she saw the pine box. She saw Julia’s arm hanging over the side of it. Then she saw the heavy pine box being lowered into the ground.

  “Julia? Julia, are you upstairs?” Hannah heard her father shout up the stairs.

  No. Julia is not upstairs, Hannah thought dully. Julia is not in the house, Father. Julia is in the ground.

  “Julia? Where is Julia?” She heard her father calling. “Has anyone seen Julia?”

  Chapter 19

  Muttering to himself, Simon Fear pulled his cloak around himself as he stepped into the evening darkness. Having searched the entire house for his daughter, he decided to try the garden.

  Sometimes Julia would completely lose track of the time, and Simon would find her on a bench in the garden, dreamily poring over a book of romantic poetry.

  A pale crescent moon rose above the woods at the end of the back lawn. The sky was still a royal evening blue. A cool wind picked up and blew against Simon as he crossed the yard.

  “Julia? Are you out here?” The wind threw his voice back to him. He pulled the cloak tighter.

  The roses on the tall trellises bobbed in the gusting breeze. The wind howled through the trees.

  Or was it the wind?

  Simon stopped and stood perfectly still, holding his cloak in place, his head tilted as he listened intently.

  What was that horrible howl? That pained cry?

  Simon took a few steps toward the frightening sound. He stood near the family burial plot, his eyes narrowed, listening.

  There it was again.

  A frightening shriek. Like the cry of a trapped animal.

  Another shriek, high-pitched. A moan.

  Simon turned toward the gardening sheds at the fence. Has a wild animal gotten itself trapped in one of the sheds? he wondered.

  Another mournful howl.

  No. The sound was too close.

  So nearby.

  Simon grasped his cloak as another shrill cry rose on a gust of wind.

  He stared down at the ground. It seemed as if the sound was at his feet.

  “But that’s impossible!” he cried.

  And then he realized that he was standing beside a freshly dug grave, the dark earth still mounded loose over the coffin.

  Mr. Jenkins’s grave.

  Another pitiful cry, a desperate animal shriek.

  From the ground. From the grave.

  Someone crying out from the new grave.

  A girl.

  Julia!

  “No!” Simon uttered, terror choking him.

  Before he realized what he was doing, he had picked up the shovel and begun digging into the earth.

  His heart pounding, Simon frantically shoveled, the blade cutting easily into the soft dirt. Working feverishly, he tossed the dirt over his shoulder, digg
ing down, down—until finally, when he felt his chest was about to burst, the shovel hit something solid. The lid of the coffin.

  “Yes!” Simon cried and began digging wildly, scraping and shoving the dirt out of the hole.

  So close! So close!

  “I’m coming!” he screamed in a panic-filled voice he didn’t recognize. “I’m coming! I’m coming!”

  He didn’t try to lift the coffin. Instead he tossed the shovel aside and leapt down into the hole.

  With trembling hands he lifted the latch. Then, gasping loudly, his heart thudding against his chest, he pulled up the coffin lid.

  Chapter 20

  “Julia!”

  Simon cried out when he saw his daughter sprawled on top of the gardener’s corpse.

  Her black hair had fallen over her face. He brushed it back gently, his hand trembling, loud sobs escaping his throat.

  Dead. She was dead.

  So pale. Her face was locked in a grimace of terror, her lifeless eyes wide. Dried blood was caked over her nose and chin.

  “Noooooooo!” The howl erupted from Simon. It echoed against the dark walls of the grave he had opened.

  He gaped in horror at his daughter. Her fingernails were torn and bloodied. Simon saw long scratch marks along the inside of the coffin lid.

  Buried alive, he realized. Julia was buried alive.

  The wind howled above him. He gazed up at the sliver of pale moon. He couldn’t bear to look at her any longer.

  “Who?” he cried, scrambling out of the hole, scrabbling over the soft dirt, his arms thrashing wildly. “Who did this? Who?”

  Back up on solid ground, he staggered toward the house. “Who did this? Who murdered my daughter?”

  He tossed the cloak to the ground and began to run.

  The house loomed ahead, a dark blur. The whole world had become a dark blur.

  Moments later he stood in the kitchen, struggling to catch his breath, struggling to stop the painful pounding of his heart.

  “Mrs. MacKenzie! Mrs. MacKenzie!” he screamed frantically. Where was she? Where was everyone?

  He grabbed on to a sideboard to keep himself from collapsing.