Too Scared to Sleep by Andrew Duplessie

Author:Andrew Duplessie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

A Matched Set

These woods had already killed Cole’s grandmother, but they still looked hungry.

Cole stood beside his uncle Baxter, back behind his grandmother’s cabin. The earth beneath their feet looked a little darker than the rest, like it had been forever stained. Like the soil still held the memory of their grandmother’s blood, soaking out of her.

“Is this where you found her?” Cole’s dad murmured.

Uncle Baxter nodded. The brothers were twins, but they couldn’t be more different. According to his dad, Baxter’s slight frame and baby face hadn’t changed since they were five. Cole’s dad, on the other hand, was broad-shouldered, and his Carhartt jacket was always flecked in dry mud.

In arguments, Baxter always shut down. His father always let his emotions rip.

“I told her it wasn’t right for a woman her age, living out here alone like this. Wasn’t safe.” Cole’s dad hooked an arm around Uncle Baxter’s shoulders.

“You did everything you could.”

Baxter glared at the tree line. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.

Cole’s grandmother’s property, eighty acres of pristine woodland deep in western Montana, bordered a national park. She had cleared half an acre for her little log cabin, her woodshed, the garage, the workshop.

Three weeks ago, Baxter showed up here and found Cole’s grandmother dead in her own yard. Cole’s family got the full story from the police report. Her body had been out in the elements for days, scavenged, swollen. But one line had horrified Cole as much as it confounded him.

The victim’s skin was entirely missing, even between her fingers and toes.

Cole couldn’t imagine driving up and finding that.

“It’s not your fault,” Cole’s dad continued. “It’s not anyone’s fault.”

Of course, he had to say that. He had been 3,000 miles away when it happened. He’d fled Big Sky Country as soon as he turned sixteen. Only Uncle Baxter stayed. Only Uncle Baxter checked up on Nana. Only Uncle Baxter really belonged out here.

“It’s her fault for being too stubborn,” Baxter muttered. There was real frustration on his face.

Cole opened and closed his mouth, not sure what to say. He felt wildly out of place, like he was intruding. He decided to just keep quiet.

Cole’s dad patted his brother’s arm. “Let’s get inside and see how everything looks.”

They grabbed their things from the rental car, then went inside. Grandma’s cabin had barely changed since the last time Cole had been here a few Christmases ago. There were the dusty cross-stitch samplers on the wall, his grandmother’s shotgun by the door, his grandfather’s whittled duck collection on every shelf.

But there was something new, too.

There, in the squat single room that served as both the kitchen and living room, sat a leather couch. It was angular, handmade. The leather was patchwork, joined with random curving lines of stitches. The sofa arms were polished wood, the legs ivory, almost like bone. Baxter had thrown one of their grandmother’s old crochet quilts over the back.

Cole pointed at it, questioningly. “Where’s the old pullout?”

Baxter looked over his shoulder. His face split with a reminiscent smile.

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