Follow You Down: Part Thirteen

When I pulled the string and the bulb flared to life in Hugh’s secret basement room, mom didn’t react like I thought she would. In fact, she didn’t react at all.

Her gaze swept over the dozens of articles pasted and tacked to the walls and the stacks of yellowed, moldering newspapers tucked into every corner, and she stilled. Computing, I supposed. Trying to figure out what reason Hugh could have possibly had for doing all of this.

I knew, though.

“I tried to tell you about…” I waved my hands as if to say everything that’s been happening, “but you didn’t want to hear it.”

“He couldn’t have done all this,” she murmured. “Some of these incidents… He’d have been in his eighties, Emma…”

“I don’t think he did. At least, not literally. But I do think it’s his fault.” Mom turned to me, questioning, and I continued, “I think it’s a timeline of what Amara’s done.”

Mom shook her head, but I moved to stand in front of her, locking eyes with her. “You’ve seen her now. You know I’m not crazy. We tried to leave this place and couldn’t. I think she wouldn’t let him leave, either. She made him watch what she did all these years…”

“Because she was angry at him for damming the lake? Drowning the town?”

I swallowed hard. “Because he killed her.”