Page 91 of Call Off the Dark
“Oh.”
“Wade thinks his brother is dead,” Helen said. “Do you like Brussels sprouts?”
“Oh, um . . .” Agnes couldn’t hide her surprise at the abrupt change of subject. “Depends how you make ’em.”
“Depends for me too.” Helen’s gaze drifted toward the woods.
“So this thing with Wade’s brother?” Agnes said. “You mean one of his brothers died and another brother came here to tell you?”
“No, Wade just has the one brother.”
Agnes gave Helen a look of confusion.
Helen sighed. “There was some kind of accident. Wade said Isaac was killed in it. But then he shows up here.”
“So Wade lied about Isaac dying?”
“No, he believes that. He thinks Isaac is, you know . . .”
Agnes’s mouth opened. “A zombie?”
Helen gave her a look: Don’t be ridiculous. “No, not a zombie.” After a moment, Helen said, “A ghost.”
“What?” Agnes started to laugh, but then she saw Helen’s somber expression and stopped. As the silence stretched out, Agnes shifted uncomfortably on the bench. Finally, she asked, “Where’s your husband now?”
“Working in the trees.”
“Where’s his brother?”
“With him.” Helen shrugged to acknowledge the strangeness of it all.
Agnes leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. This story was getting more and more interesting. “So he’s happy then—that this brother is back from the dead?”
Helen laughed, but it was a humorless sound. “Oh no, he’s definitely not happy.”
“Is he scared of him?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
There was another stretch of silence before Helen answered. “Yes. But not in the same way.”
Agnes inhaled slowly, and Helen could see a million questions forming in the girl’s mind, so Helen said, “Isaac obviously isn’t dead,” to redirect the conversation. “It’s Wade that I’m worried about.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Agnes said. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s unwell.”
After a pause, Agnes asked, “Are you okay?”
Helen shook her head and looked off into the trees again. “I almost killed a man once, you know.”
Agnes sat up straight. “You did?”
“I wish I’d gone through with it.”
“I wish you had too.”
