Chapter 6: Retribution in the Attic

Her hands trembled, clutching the edge of her sweater. Mason’s mother’s aged voice sounded amid the Christmas song: “There’s someone behind you.”

She said, “Rachel’s back.”

Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but it sent a chill down my spine. I shivered, even though the room was warm.

The next day, bad news came from the Keller company.

The newly acquired warehouse caught fire, all inventory burned to ashes.

The warehouse was gone, the inventory burned, and there was a bank loan with an unknown number of zeros to repay. Mason’s face turned ashen as he read the email. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

I watched Mason’s face as he read the email, the color draining from his cheeks. When I was feeding medicine to Mason’s mother, my phone buzzed with a text.

“Hey sis, everything’s done.”

“Paul and I got the money, ready for a trip to Europe.”

I smiled and closed the phone.

I hadn’t done anything truly unforgivable. Or so I told myself.

I just had Paul teach Mason a few lessons, deliberately lured him into gambling.

Then had a temp worker smoke a cigarette while moving goods, and dutifully locked the door.

Compared to what they did to Rachel, this was nothing.

The next day, Mason’s father came to me.

He hoped I could provide money to fill the huge hole for the Keller family, help them get through the crisis.

He said, “Marriage is for better or worse. You and Mason are about to get married, so it’s only right for you to help us with this money.”

He had a habit when talking, tapping his index finger joint on the table. The sound grated on my nerves.

I looked at the hand that once held Rachel down, letting her be hacked to death, and almost wanted to vomit.

“Anyway, after marriage, your assets will all be Mason’s.”

I nodded. “You’re right.”

“But Mr. Keller, don’t you think it’s strange that the warehouse suddenly caught fire?”

He frowned at me.

His jaw clenched, and a vein pulsed at his temple. The tension in the room was almost unbearable.

I tried hard to hold back the laughter in my throat and continued, “Why did Mason suddenly get addicted to gambling?”

“Why was he so unlucky to lose all his money?”

With each sentence, the anger and shock on Mason’s father’s face grew.

He immediately realized everything, trembling as he tried to hit me, but was so furious he clutched his chest and collapsed.

I squatted down and looked into his cloudy eyes: “Don’t you think I look a lot like Rachel?”

He was so scared his eyes rolled up, gasping for breath, unable to speak. His lips parted, but no sound came out.

Watching every change in his expression, I couldn’t help but laugh.

See, when you do wrong, you always have to pay.

Mason’s father had a stroke, became paralyzed, and would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

He gestured with his crooked mouth and eyes for a long time, but no one understood. It was almost pitiful, if I hadn’t known what he’d done.

Mason was busy plugging the company’s hole, couldn’t care less.

Only I would go visit him often. Sometimes I’d just stand in the doorway, watching him try to speak.

The nurses all praised me for being caring and devoted.

They didn’t know.

When I carefully wiped his face, I would, again and again, whisper softly in his ear:

“Don’t worry.”

“Your whole family, not a single one will get away.”

Mason’s mother’s mental state got worse and worse. I watched her slip further and further away from reality.

She knelt day and night in front of the family’s cross, weeping bitterly.

She’d light candles, her voice hoarse from crying. Whenever she had an episode, I would coax her to take her medicine.

From the first day I moved into the Keller house, I switched her medicine. I remember the first time I did it, my hands shook.

What she’d been taking these months was all hallucinogenic drugs I bought overseas.

Long-term use would cause confusion in time and space, more and more hallucinations, gradually turning into schizophrenia.

In her eyes, the house was covered in blood, all the way to the base of the old maple tree.

On the sofa sat a person without a head. Body and head separated, blood and flesh blurred. The image haunted her, haunted me.

Even the soft music I played every day, in her ears, was Rachel’s cries and wails before death.

She was tormented by hallucinations, so frightened by any little movement that she trembled all over.

That day, Mason’s mother stood in front of the sofa.

In her eyes, a large pool of blood was flowing from under the sofa.

I patted her shoulder and softly said, “Mom.”