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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Chapter 1: The Awakening<\/p>\n
The scent of Casablanca lilies will forever be the scent of a lie. It was a
\nsuffocating, aggressively sweet perfume that hung in the air of my son\u2019s
\nexpansive, aggressively modern Chicago home, desperately trying to mask the
\nmetallic, hollow scent of death. But death was not what I was smelling. I was
\nsmelling premeditation.<\/p>\n
My name is Margaret Vance. I am seventy-two years old, a widow for nearly a
\ndecade, and until this freezing evening in late November, I believed the
\ngreatest tragedy of my life was the sudden, inexplicable passing of my
\nsix-year-old granddaughter, Jessi.<\/p>\n
The living room had been cleared of its sleek, Italian leather furniture to make
\nroom for the mahogany casket. It sat in the center of the room like a heavy,
\ndark accusation. A velvet rope kept the mourners\u2014mostly Arthur\u2019s tech-industry
\ncolleagues and Patricia\u2019s country club acquaintances\u2014at a polite distance. They
\nmurmured in hushed tones, sipping expensive Scotch, offering condolences that
\nfelt rehearsed, polished, and utterly devoid of genuine grief.<\/p>\n
I stood alone near the head of the casket. I wore a heavy black wool shawl over
\nmy mourning dress, my hands trembling so violently I had to clasp them tightly
\ntogether at my waist.<\/p>\n
Arthur, my only child, stood across the room. He was playing the part of the
\ndevastated father with the practiced ease of a stage actor. His eyes were
\nred\u2014artificially so, I now realize\u2014and he kept his arm wrapped protectively
\naround Patricia. Patricia, my daughter-in-law, wore a black designer dress that
\ncost more than my first car, a pair of dark sunglasses shielding her eyes from
\nthe subdued, ambient lighting. She dabbed at dry cheeks with a monogrammed
\nhandkerchief. She had never liked Jessi. I knew it. Arthur knew it. The child
\nhad been an accident, an interruption to Patricia\u2019s curated, child-free,
\nhigh-society existence.<\/p>\n
The medical examiner had called it a sudden cardiac anomaly. A congenital defect
\nthat had gone unnoticed until it stopped her tiny heart in her sleep three days
\nago. The autopsy was rushed, the death certificate signed by a private physician
\nPatricia had insisted upon hiring rather than the family pediatrician. I had
\nquestioned it. I had begged for a second opinion. But Arthur had yelled at me,
\ncalling me a hysterical old woman who couldn\u2019t accept the will of God.<\/p>\n
I looked down into the casket. Jessi looked like a porcelain doll. Her blonde
\nhair, usually a tangle of wild curls from playing in my garden, had been
\nflattened and sprayed into submission. Her pale skin was powdered, her lips
\npainted a soft, unnatural pink. She was wearing a white silk dress, the kind of
\nstiff, uncomfortable garment she would have cried over having to wear in life.<\/p>\n
The house was too quiet. Beneath the hum of the central heating and the muted
\nwhispers of the guests, a terrible, vibrating tension hummed in my jaw. A
\ngrandmother\u2019s instinct is not something that dulls with age; if anything,
\nstripped of the distractions of youth, it becomes a razor edge. Something was
\nwrong. The air around the casket didn\u2019t feel static. It felt charged.<\/p>\n
I stepped closer, brushing past the velvet rope. A few guests looked over, but
\nno one dared stop the grieving grandmother from saying a final goodbye. I
\nreached into the casket, intending to smooth a stray lock of hair from her
\nforehead.<\/p>\n
The moment the pad of my index finger grazed her skin, a shockwave of adrenaline
\nblasted through my nervous system, instantly clearing the fog of grief.<\/p>\n
She was warm.<\/p>\n
Not the lingering warmth of a freshly deceased body, nor the ambient temperature
\nof the room. She was radiating heat. A deep, unnatural, chemical fever was
\nburning beneath her powdered skin.<\/p>\n
My breath caught in my throat. I froze, my hand hovering over her face. I looked
\nacross the room. Arthur and Patricia were engaged in a solemn conversation with
\na city alderman, their backs turned to me. No one was looking.<\/p>\n
I leaned closer, pretending to kiss Jessi\u2019s cheek. I pressed my ear millimeters
\nfrom her parted lips.<\/p>\n
A breath. So shallow it wouldn\u2019t have fluttered a feather, but I felt it. The
\nfaintest, most agonizingly slow wisp of warm air brushed against my earlobe.<\/p>\n
My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird. She is alive. Dear God in
\nheaven, she is alive.<\/p>\n
Panic, wild and blinding, urged me to scream, to flip the casket, to demand a
\ndoctor. But a colder, darker realization clamped a hand over my mouth.<\/p>\n
I looked at her posture. Her arms were crossed over her chest in a traditional
\npose, but they looked unnaturally rigid. I slipped my hand beneath the white
\nsilk of her dress, moving down her side. My fingers brushed against something
\nhard, cold, and metallic.<\/p>\n
Straps.<\/p>\n
Hidden beneath the lining of the casket, tightly secured around her tiny wrists
\nand waist, were heavy leather restraints locked with a small metal clasp.
\nSomeone hadn\u2019t just prepared her for burial. Someone had secured her so she
\ncouldn\u2019t thrash when she woke up underground.<\/p>\n
The horror of it was so absolute, so profoundly evil, that for a fraction of a
\nsecond, my brain refused to process it. My son. My own flesh and blood.<\/p>\n
Daddy said if I woke up, I would ruin everything.<\/p>\n
The voice was a ghost, a vibration against my collarbone. I looked down. Jessi\u2019s
\neyes were still closed, but her lips had barely moved.<\/p>\n
As the small metal lock clicked open beneath my trembling fingers, I slid my
\nhands under her back and pulled Jessi\u2019s trembling body against my chest. Her
\nskin was dangerously hot, radiating that chemical, unnatural fever. She clung to
\nmy neck with whatever microscopic strength she had left, her breathing shallow
\nand ragged.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was good, Grandma,\u201d she whimpered, her voice muffled by my thick wool shawl,
\nhidden from the room. \u201cMommy gave me the bitter juice so I could sleep for the
\nangels. But it burns. It burns inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every memory of the past three months\u2014Patricia\u2019s sudden insistence on isolating
\nthe child, the withdrawal from school, the fake private doctors who only visited
\nwhen I wasn\u2019t allowed over, and Arthur\u2019s averted, guilty eyes\u2014suddenly
\ncrystallized into a horrifying mosaic of premeditated murder. They were going to
\nbury her alive to avoid a trace of poison in her blood.<\/p>\n
I held her tight against me, turning my back to the room, pretending to be
\novercome with sobbing. I pulled my smartphone from my purse, my thumb shaking
\nviolently as I dialed 9-1-1. I hid the screen beneath my shawl, holding the
\nphone near my collar.<\/p>\n
\u201c911, what is your emergency?\u201d the dispatcher\u2019s voice crackled faintly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am at 4400 North Lake Shore Drive,\u201d I whispered, barely moving my lips, the
\ntears now flowing not from grief, but from a terror so profound it felt like I
\nwas drowning. \u201cThere is an attempted murder in progress. My granddaughter is
\nalive. They are trying to bury her. Please, send the police, send an ambulance.
\nThey are in the room with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I waited for the reassuring response, the promise of sirens, the command to stay
\ncalm.<\/p>\n
Instead, there was silence.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello?\u201d I whispered frantically. \u201cHello, do you hear me?\u201d<\/p>\n
Nothing. Not even static.<\/p>\n
Then, the silence of the house was shattered.<\/p>\n
From across the room, I heard Arthur\u2019s voice cut through the polite murmurs.
\n\u201cMom? What are you doing? Let go of her. You can\u2019t hold the body like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t turn around. I gripped Jessi tighter, wrapping the heavy shawl
\ncompletely around her small frame, hiding her. I began to back away from the
\ncasket, moving toward the hallway that led to the rear of the house.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom!\u201d Arthur\u2019s voice escalated, shedding the velvet tone of a mourner and
\ntaking on the sharp, frantic edge of a panicked criminal.<\/p>\n
As I whispered my location to the dead phone one last time, a heavy thud echoed
\nfrom the floorboards. Arthur\u2019s footsteps, frantic and heavy, began sprinting
\nacross the hardwood, heading straight for me. I turned and ran, the weight of
\nthe child in my arms threatening to throw me off balance. I reached the hallway,
\nslamming the heavy oak door behind me, knowing full well that the dispatcher on
\nthe phone hadn\u2019t said a word because in this district, with this much money,
\nArthur likely owned the dispatch system too.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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