Page 145 of The Change
Harriett pulled off her dress, grabbed an empty backpack off the deck, and dove into the water.
When Harriett was twelve years old, she watched her father push her mother down the stairs. She listened to him lie through his teeth when the police arrived. And she knew his friends on the police force would never question a word her God-fearing father said.No one in a uniform bothered to ask Harriett what had happened. She sat with her mother’s corpse until the men from the morgue finally came to collect it.
The night after her mother’s funeral, Harriett cooked dinner for herself and her father. Steak, potatoes, and a side dish of mushrooms that she’d picked in the yard. She ate just enough of the mushrooms to spend the night vomiting. Her father was dead within hours.
Only Harriett knew for sure what had happened to her mother, but everyone in town must have suspected the truth. Men like her father couldn’t hide their real natures from everyone. So the actions she’d taken made perfect sense to her. Her father should have been punished. He’d cheated his way out of it, and she’d made things all fair and square.
The problem was, no one else felt that way. Not Harriett’s grandparents, who escorted her to church twice a week. Not the other churchgoers, who refused to share the same pew. It was her Sunday school classmates who gave her the nickname that stuck with her through high school. Even after she’d learned to keep her head down and play by the rules, they continued to call her the Bad Seed.
After graduation, she’d moved a thousand miles to escape the taunts, but thirty years after she’d gone east, she could still hear them. She’d even avoided having children, terrified of what she might bequeath to them. Then one day, at forty-eight, Harriett found herself all alone in her garden. Everywhere she looked, she saw the fight for survival. Bugs spraying birds with foul-smelling chemicals. Plants that fought fungi with their own brand of poison. And then her eyes landed on a cluster of death cap mushrooms growing near one of the trees. She remembered what she’d been thinking the day she picked some just like them: that her father had to be stopped or someone else would be next. Who knew how many lives had been spared by her act of destruction? How much misery would that one man have spread? Maybe other women would have been ableto steer clear of him, but Harriett knew one thing for certain: she wouldn’t have survived if she hadn’t done what she did.
Other women brought life into the world. Harriett realized at that moment what her gift would be.
Claude made it out of the mansion with mere seconds to spare. When she heard the roof give way, she didn’t look back. She knew the sight would destroy her.
There was enough data on her computer to ensure she wouldn’t suffer. Names, photos, and videos—each worth a fortune. She’d been collecting for years. In the back of her mind, she must have known this day would come. She’d even kept the laptop in a waterproof case.
Claude set the case down in the dinghy they kept where the tide couldn’t reach it. Then she dragged the boat to the water’s edge. She felt a wave of heat hit her back, and she knew the beach grass had caught fire.
The sound of a splash startled her, and she turned to see a woman rising out of the surf wearing only a backpack. Naked and larger than life, Harriett grinned.
“I told you I’d get rid of the bushes,” she said.
Claude knew why Harriett had come. “Let me leave,” she begged. “I swear, I’ll give you anything.”
“Thanks!” Harriett reached into the boat and took the case. “This should do.” She unzipped it and cracked open the laptop. “Password?”
“You’ll really let me go?”
“I always keep my promises,” Harriett said. “The boat is yours.”
“A-M-six-seven-nine-eight.”
“Your father’s initials and the day he died. How poignant.” Harriett typed in the password and nodded. “Thank you!”
She returned the laptop to its case and slipped it into her backpack. Then she turned and walked back into the water. Within seconds, she’d vanished beneath the waves.
Claude dragged the boat to the water and climbed inside. As she rowed away from shore, she was forced to confront the burning house. She saw Leonard’s beloved grill explode, and she watched the propane tank fly through the sky.
Harriett surfaced at a safe distance from the destruction—just close enough to enjoy Claude Marchand’s final scream as the propane tank hurtled straight toward her boat.
Franklin was speeding down Danskammer Beach Road when he saw Nessa and Jo walking toward town, the fire on Culling Pointe raging behind them. He threw the car into park and left it idling with the driver’s-side door standing open as he ran to Nessa and threw his arms around her.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Nessa told him.Better than fine, she thought.
“The girls told me you were out here. Why didn’t you call me?” he asked.
“It was just supposed to be me and Jo out there today,” Nessa said. Like Jo, she now knew it to be true. Harriett had planned it all. “Your part’s going to come soon enough. There are a dozen girls out there who need their names back.”
“Look!” Jo pointed across the water. Someone was swimming toward them.
They walked through the scrub to the beach, where a woman was emerging from the surf, naked but for a backpack. Her body shone like bronze under the sun.
“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Harriett asked.
Epilogue
