The hallway seemed to tilt. The scent of rotting horsehair insulation and damp lath from the broken wall mixed with the cheap lavender perfume my mother always wore.
"What?" I turned my head slowly, my fingers still embedded in the fabric of my father’s coat. "Mark... what is she talking about?"
Mark’s phone slipped from his hand. It hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud, the screen cracking into a spiderweb pattern. He looked at his boots, then at the wall, then at me. His face was the color of skim milk. "She... she was already gone, Rachel. Before we even got to the food court. They told me it was an accident. They told me if the police found out what Nana did, the state would take the house, the money... everything."
"You lied to me," I whispered. The air left my lungs in a cold rush. "For ten years, you sat at my kitchen table and watched me drink myself to sleep. You helped me print the flyers, Mark. You held my head while I threw up in the bushes outside the police station!"
"She wasn't supposed to be alive!" Mark screamed, his voice cracking into a high, pathetic whine. "Nana said the ritual failed! She said she took the girl to the well behind the orchard and it was over! We thought she was just an old woman losing her mind to the dementia, Rachel! We didn't know she put her in the foundation!"