The next moment, Grandma let out a pained groan.
"Oh, my aching back. When you get old, you can't even pick yourself up off the ground."
River's clear eyes brimmed with tears. He pulled my hand down and mouthed silently: It's Grandma.
Thinking of the grandmother who had raised us, who had been our whole world since we were small, two hot lines of tears streaked down my own face.
If belief alone could reshape reality, I wished more than anything that this was a dream, or some terrible prank.
But the stench of dead rats clinging to her body wouldn't fade.
It forced me to believe the mysterious voice.
Something was truly wrong with her.
When neither of us moved, Grandma's voice turned shrill.
"River! Hope! I've doted on you two for all these years, and you won't even come out to help your grandmother up?!"
"Thank goodness I held on until today and was still testing you. I almost went soft and left the old house and all the land to you two. You've truly disappointed me!"
Before, we could hide behind the excuse of the game, pretending we were just playing along with hide-and-seek.
But now that she'd called us out by name, River and I were squirming like we were sitting on hot coals.
Just then, Aunt Deirdre Calloway's gloating voice drifted in from the courtyard.
"Mom, if you want to test the children, just test them. No need to scare everyone half to death on a holiday."
"I've always told you, Hope and her brother are just like their mother. Ungrateful little ingrates, every last one of them!"
"Just say the word, and tomorrow I'll marry Hope off to the village chief's idiot son for a bride price!"
The moment Deirdre's words landed, the same flash of panic shot through both my eyes and River's.
If this really was Grandma testing our devotion...
Then after Deirdre's poisonous meddling, we might lose our last protector in this world.
Our hearts hammered like war drums. Our palms were slick with sweat.
Deirdre was still running her mouth. "When you really can't move anymore, it'll be our family taking care of you—"
But before she could finish, another scream tore through the night.
Grandma let out that strange, low chuckle again.
"Three left. Just three more."
My heart dropped like a stone.
Now it was only Uncle Garrett Calloway, River, and me.
So that was her goal all along—to drag every last one of us out?
I didn't understand. Why would Grandma do this to her own flesh and blood?
Bridget's final, hysterical scream kept circling through my mind: You're not Grandma!
If the old woman outside truly wasn't our grandmother...
Then the real Grandma might have already been gone, back when she'd taken that turn for the worse.
The thing outside was an unknown terror.
But at least the kitchen and the rice bin were the safest places in this house. That much I knew.
Out in the courtyard, Grandma's footsteps gradually faded, disappearing into some distant room.
A fragile thread of hope rose again in my chest.
As long as we stayed hidden, this game had to end eventually. Didn't it?
But the very next moment, a burst of frantic footsteps shattered that hope to pieces.
Garrett's face was twisted into something barely human. His massive hands seized us without mercy and wrenched us out of the rice bin.
"You little brats. Hiding in the rice bin this whole time."
"No wonder the kitchen door was wide open and the old hag never came looking for you."
I shielded River with one arm and grabbed Garrett's sleeve with the other, dropping my voice to a desperate whisper.
"Uncle Garrett, please. He's just a kid."
"It's too dangerous out there. I'm begging you, give us a chance to live."
Garrett didn't flinch. He hurled us both to the ground.
