Dead to Her by Sarah Pinborough

Author:Sarah Pinborough
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-02-10T16:00:00+00:00

35.

Elizabeth had gotten her a glass of water and put a cool compress on her forehead, the two women sitting side by side on the dead wife’s bed. “Are you all right?” Elizabeth asked. “You look pale. I hear you nearly fainted at church too?”

Keisha still couldn’t speak but sat trembling as the damp cloth and the icy air-conditioning fought the heat that raged in her.

“Are you maybe . . . ?” Elizabeth smiled and then looked down at Keisha’s stomach. “You know.”

Keisha tried to laugh but it was close to a sob. “No, I don’t think so.” She smells like she’s been drinking. “I wouldn’t drink if I was pregnant.” Would she? Maybe she would. Maybe she didn’t deserve a child of her own. Would the child be cursed too? She broke things, that’s what she did. She was selfish. She was KeKe and always would be, not Mrs. William Radford IV.

The conjure ball.

She shivered again. She’d wished harm on William—more than wished it—and now the bad juju had come for her, the cursed girl. She’d die here, she knew she would.

William appeared in the doorway, brow furrowed and cheeks redder than normal. His expression screamed, I don’t need this shit, not in front of all these people. “It was nothing. Just some ball of mud. They’ve thrown it out.”

Mud. Dirt. Graves. Keisha was sure she could taste rot in her mouth.

“A ball of mud?” Elizabeth frowned. “Who would have brought that into the house?” She wasn’t as dismissive as William. It gave Keisha a thread of sanity to cling to. Something to stop her from drifting into the terrifying darkness. The ball wasn’t normal. It wasn’t an accident. Someone had brought it in here on purpose.

“Zelda says two of the maids had their children with them today. They were playing outside earlier. I guess they made it.” He paused. “They won’t be working here again.” He looked at Keisha but didn’t come any closer. “You feeling better?”

She nodded. What else could she do?

“Good. I’m going to get dressed, then decide what to do while all this chaos reigns. This party had better be worth it!” It sounded like a threat rather than a joke. “Come find me in ten minutes.”

It was a command, as if she were the assistant, not Elizabeth. Maybe they were all bought and paid for. Interchangeable. Robots with different function settings. He paused, his eyes catching on something to his right, and then he frowned. More than frowned. If an expression could growl, that’s what William’s face was doing. His skin paled, leaving only two red blotches high on his cheeks.

“Did you do that?” Each word was a quiet hissing drop of acid. It took a moment before Keisha realized what he was talking about. She followed his eyes and her mouth dropped open. The photo. The one she’d taken out of the dresser. Eleanor looking happy with her arms wrapped around Lyle, when he was just a smiling boy thinking he had decades of the world ahead of him.

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