Chapter 8 - THE ASHES OF MAPLE STREET
The light turned green. Annie slammed the gas pedal, the gray sedan’s tires screeching on the wet asphalt as she sped away.
I didn’t hesitate. I wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right, ignoring the blare of a horn behind me, and chased her taillights through the storm.
Maple Street.
The old property had been sold decades ago, the scorched remains of the back half bulldozed to make way for a modern, two-story duplex. But the foundation—the bones of the house where Thomas died and Walter’s life was destroyed—was still the same.
Why was Kayla in the car with her? Did Annie take her hostage, or did Kayla go willingly, thinking this was just a sweet birthday trip for an old man?
I pushed my car to the absolute limit, the windshield wipers frantically beating against the glass. Annie was driving recklessly, running stop signs and weaving through the sparse evening traffic. She wanted to get there before I did. She wanted to finish what she started fifty years ago.
We tore into the older, tree-lined neighborhood. The streetlights flickered in the storm.
Annie’s sedan swerved violently, hopping the curb and skidding to a halt on the overgrown lawn of the property that used to be the Maple Street house.
I slammed my car into park right behind her, blocking her in.
I threw my door open and ran into the pouring rain.
Annie was already out of the car. She had pulled a heavy, metal tire iron from the trunk. She looked identical to the photograph I had of my mother, but her posture, her energy, was coiled and venomous like a striking snake.
“Stay back, Sarah!” Annie shouted over the rain, gripping the tire iron with both hands.
I didn’t stop. I marched straight toward her, the cold rain pasting my hair to my face.
“Where is he, Annie?” I demanded.
“He’s exactly where he deserves to be,” Annie sneered. “He left me in that house with a monster. He let Thomas grab me. He ran away.”
“He left to get the police!” I yelled, stopping ten feet from her. “He came back with a train ticket to save you and Ellen! Margaret locked him out! Margaret covered for you!”
Annie laughed. It was a sharp, grating sound that didn't belong on my mother’s face. “Margaret didn't cover for me. Margaret covered for herself. She didn’t want the world to know she gave birth to a freak. So she locked me in a cage for fifty years while Ellen got to play house.”
Answer one: Annie’s revenge wasn't just against Walter. It was against the entire family that had erased her existence.
“You killed Thomas,” I said steadily, refusing to break eye contact.
“Thomas was a pig who liked to touch little girls,” Annie spat, her eyes flashing with a terrifying, righteous rage. “I did the world a favor. I struck the match. I watched him burn. It was beautiful.”
Before I could respond, the passenger door of the sedan slowly opened.
Kayla stepped out into the rain. She looked terrified, shivering in her thin scrubs. But she wasn't looking at Annie. She was looking at me.
“Kayla, get away from her,” I pleaded.
Kayla didn't move. She reached into her scrub pocket and pulled out a small, familiar silver object.
The bluebird charm bracelet.
Open two: How did Kayla get the bracelet? I had tucked it into my sweater at the nursing home.
Reversal: Kayla didn’t look terrified of Annie. She looked terrified for her.
“I told you we shouldn’t have brought him here, Mom,” Kayla said, her voice shaking as she looked at Annie.
The world stopped spinning.
Mom.
I stared at Kayla. The young nurse. The girl who had ‘helped’ Walter get his birthday cake cleared. The girl who had miraculously found the box of letters in his closet.
“You’re her daughter,” I whispered, the final, devastating puzzle piece locking into place.
“She had me in the facility,” Annie said proudly, stepping closer to Kayla. “A sympathetic orderly. They took her away from me the day she was born. Put her in the system. But blood calls to blood, Sarah. When I got out, I found her. I told her what our family did to us.”
Kayla had taken a job at Oak Creek specifically to isolate Walter. To feed him the returned letters. To prepare him for Annie’s revenge.
“Where is Walter?” I screamed, my patience shattering.
Annie smiled her dead smile. She pointed the tire iron toward the back of the property, where a small, detached wooden garden shed stood in the darkness.
“He wanted to see the house,” Annie said. “I told him the shed is exactly where the sunroom used to be.”
I saw a faint, flickering orange light glowing from the crack under the shed door.
May you like
Smoke began to curl from the roof.
Cliffhanger: “I struck the match, Sarah,” Annie whispered, stepping out of my way. “You have about two minutes before the kerosene catches. Choose. Fight me, or save him.”
