Like Lambs Led

15 Thatcher's House

Mr. Thatcher's eyes cut through me like a blade. They're as steely as the hold he has on my shoulders.

"She's exactly what we're lookin' for." Pulling me from the house by my wrists, he shakes my hands until the clock drops to the floor with a loud bang.

Alex slams the screeching screen door shut behind me.

I'm cornered.

And though I howl and kick, I'm no match for Mr. Thatcher's cuff-like grip.

It's funny the things you think of when you're about to die. When we first moved here, Mom spun around our yard with her palms upturned to the heavens, a laugh bubbling on her lips. I remember it so vividly because it's not often Mom smiles that way. She smiled like no one was in the shadows waiting to chastise her for being happy.

"Can you believe it?" She took me by the shoulders, rocking her hips, attempting to coax a shimmy out of me. "This whole block and we only have one neighbor. Once I take those wind chimes down, it'll be as quiet as a gnat's fart. Not like those cop sirens all the time back home."

As Mr. Thatcher drags me across a half-acre, the hail thumping my head, I remember why I wasn't as excited as Mom was: no neighbors around means no one to hear you scream.

There isn't a fence to separate Mr. Thatcher's property from ours. An open field full of waist-high weeds stretches between the houses.

"Please," I beg him, digging my heels in the mud.

A stripe of lightning zigzags across the sky. It illuminates the bottom half of his jaw as he turns to say, "Stop fightin'."

His voice is as coarse as gravel and carries an accent as thick as heavy cream.

Soaked shrubbery clings to my jeans. I twist my wrists inside his grasp until they sting. Wet curls stick to my face like adhesive. The wind swallows my wail.

Alex follows behind us, shaking his head in disapproval. As if I'm overreacting.

With a grunt, Mr. Thatcher drags me onto his sloping porch steps where the dampened wood is dead and rotting. Alex comes forward to hoist the front door open with his shoulder.

Holding me tight to his chest, Mr. Thatcher covers my mouth with his large hand, his mustiness making me gag.

The dimly lit entryway of his home is littered with magazines stacked in lopsided towers. We sidestep heaps of trash bags and cardboard boxes, our feet making loud suction sounds in sticky carpet. But it's the pungent, rotten smell that brings water to my eyes. It's like being thrown into the bottom of a dumpster.

But Mr. Thatcher and Alex seem impervious to the stench. They speak in low murmurs to each other:

"Where's the mother?"

"Knocked out cold, sir. Those Colbys drugged her."

"Did you lock the storm shelter up?"

"Yessir. But I think that fuckface, Colt, knows about it. He kept telling her to get it checked out."

Mr. Thatcher grunts at this.

The living room is more disgusting than the foyer. A tangle of electric cords snake across the stained carpet. Brown, tattered newspaper clippings clutter the wall like wallpaper. A floor television set with a spider crack on the screen is turned on its side in a corner. A digital clock is mounted on the wall. It says: 11:39

"Are you calm enough to sit down and listen?" Mr. Thatcher asks me, releasing my wrists to remove a stack of papers from the couch's cushions.

I nod, afraid my voice will crack.

"Everything will make sense once I show you what Shannon left you." Mr. Thatcher removes his hat, displaying wisps of silver hair.

His face, taunt as leather, is lined with wrinkles. What he lacks in hair on his head, he makes up with bushy eyebrows and a scraggly beard. His long, angular face is red and splotchy.

Mr. Thatcher nods at Alex and leaves the room.

After dropping his bloody sweatshirt on a wobbly card table in the middle of the room, Alex paces the floors. Staring at me, he asks, "What are you doing in Pachuck if Ms. Shannon never told you nothing about us?"

Averting my eyes from the intensity of his gaze, I shrug. I don't have any answers. But I have a few questions of my own.

Will Mr. Thatcher come back with a knife? Sneak in from behind and stab me while Alex holds me down? Or will he wrap his cold fingers around my neck, squeezing until my skin turns blue?

Will I go out like Mercy?

"I don't even know why we're wasting our time with you." Alex gives me a disgusted sigh.

A rumble of thunder. Gusts of wind rattle the windows. Alex's breath comes out ragged as he narrows his eyes at me.

"You act just like she did," he mutters.

If he's referring to my great-aunt, then I'm proud to be a fighter like she was.

"I knew this day would come," Mr. Thatcher announces as he enters the room, his twang cutting the silence. He plops a leather-bound, black book onto my lap. "Shannon knew, too."

"What is this?" My meek voice makes me sick.

"Words written to you by your Aunt Shannon. She thought you might have a hard time believin' anything me or Alex would say. Figured you'd like to hear it straight from the horse's mouth."

"How did Ms. Shannon know all that stuff about Moriah if they never spoke?" Alex motions with his hands towards the book. "Like that shit about her crazy mom, her sister's murder..."

I take a sharp breath as my stomach pummels to my feet.

"She hired a private investigator," Mr. Thatcher says. "After the mishap with Bella Hardgrove, Shannon knew the Colbys would be looking for a little revenge."

Aunt Shannon knew about us? For how long? And what did she do to Bella?

"So what do we do now?" Alex asks, shoving aside pile of clothes from a plastic chair.

Mr. Thatcher fixes those glinting, blue eyes on me. "That all depends on Moriah."

I flinch. The pressure of the day, Mom left unprotected in the house, the struggle with Alex, it all comes crashing down on me. "What depends on me?"

Mr. Thatcher points a pasty, white finger at the book. "You might wanna start reading. I've highlighted the most important parts because we ain't got much time before the Colbys come back. And when they get here, you'll be ready to do a little whisperin' of your own."

"Whisper?" I wrap my clammy fingers around the spine of the book. "What does that even mean?"

Mr. Thatcher gives me a pointed stare. "Why, conjuring the dead, of course."