Chapter 2
Out in the courtyard, Grandma’s voice ground through the air again, low and grating like a millstone turning.
“Five more. Just five more to go. Grandma’s been searching so hard. Where are you all hiding?”
Bridget Callaway’s sweet voice rang out from somewhere in the house.
“Grandma, I’ll come out on my own so you don’t have to tire yourself.”
Grandma let out a strange, croaking laugh at the sight of Bridget walking out to show her devotion.
“Good girl.”
The next instant, Bridget released a scream so shrill and agonized it didn’t sound human.
“You’re not Grandma!”
River and I stared at each other, wide-eyed with terror. This was the old woman who had raised us since we were babies. If she wasn’t Grandma, then who was she?
We clung to each other in the darkness of the bin. River’s small body trembled against mine.
“Hope, Bridget went out on her own. Grandma didn’t even catch her. So why did she scream like that?”
My mind was a tangle of static. I couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Then that mysterious voice spoke again, answering River’s question for me.
You two are lucky. You have more fortune than sense. You climbed into this bin right when that thing started hunting for substitutes. The kitchen. God is on duty tonight. That filthy creature won’t dare set foot in the kitchen. And the five grains are sacred things of heaven and earth, a natural barrier that purifies and wards off evil. As long as you stay inside this rice bin, she won’t be able to smell you. Not for a while.
This time, even River heard it clearly.
“Hope, who’s talking?”
I clamped my hand over his mouth and pulled him back down into a crouch inside the bin. But his foot slipped, and he landed hard on the bottom with a dull thud that echoed off the ceramic walls.
The sound of slippers shuffling across the ground drifted closer, closer.
My heart hammered so violently I could feel it in my throat.
Grandma’s face appeared at the kitchen window. She peered in at us and let out a low, rattling laugh.
“Found you.”
I slapped both hands over our mouths, one on mine, one on River’s, and shoved our screams back down our throats.
Silence. Absolute, suffocating silence.
Then Grandma let out a long, disappointed sigh.
“Oh, just a mouse.”
Before River and I could even exhale, something heavy slammed into the ground outside. The next moment, Grandma let out a pained groan.
“Oh, my aching back. When you get old, you can’t even pick yourself up off the ground.”
River’s clear eyes brimmed with tears. I pulled my hand down and mouthed silently, It’s Grandma.
Thinking of the grandmother who had raised us, who had been our whole world since we were small, two hot lines of tears streaked down my own face. If belief alone could reshape reality, I wished more than anything that this was a dream or some terrible prank.
But the stench of dead rats clinging to her body wouldn’t fade. It forced me to believe the mysterious voice. Something was truly wrong with her.