"But Mama, I'm telling you, I saw her do it...."

My voice took on a whiny, pleading tone; that one Mama hates to hear. I can visualize her on the other end of the line, wincing and massaging at her temples as if the very sound of my voice gives her a migraine. Maybe it does and I hope it hurts like Hell, but I need her to listen to me, just this once.

She sighs. I hear it, an audible, exhausted hiss of air right into the phone.

"Harlequin, now stop this, okay? Just stop this. You promised me you'd behave for Grandma. I have a ton of things to sort out for the move and I need you to just stay put until I'm done."

"Mama, please...."

I'm begging now. I hate the thought of begging her for anything and making her think I need her, when I know she doesn't need me, but I have to do something, I have to convince her.

"Harlequin Jaden Jones, I don't want to hear another word, do you hear me? You're staying with Grandma for the summer and no amount of tall-tales is going to change that. Put Grandma on the phone."

I freeze. I can't let her tell Grandma. My head swims with visions of her oil-slick eyes in the moonlight and I know I can't let Mama tell her what I saw. Sweat dampens my palms and my throat burns as the panic rises like a tide, flooding my brain and making me feel dizzy for a moment.

"N-no, Mama, please don't say anything to Grandma. I'm sorry." I swallow. "I won't cause any trouble. I just...I miss you, Mama."

The line is quiet for a moment and I'm left hanging there, waiting for something I know she will never say.

"Just be good, Harlequin. Okay?"

And Mama is gone, just like that, and I'm left staring at my cellphone as if she's in there somewhere. Mama hasn't been there for eight years. For eight years, it's just been me, my scrapbook and the ghosts of twelve girls and now it's my crazy Grandma too.

I have to get Mama to believe me about Grandma, but how do you convince someone who doesn't want to listen?

Why, you show them, Quinny. You show them the bait and they'll bite, they all bite in the end.....

***

It wasn't easy catching the spider.

It didn't help that it was a great big ugly one that barely fit under the glass. I found it skittering about down by the barn and it even ran at me at one point, making me squeal, but somehow I managed to get it and congratulated myself for being brave enough to trap the nasty little critter.

The spider sits perfectly still but I feel its many eyes on me as I reach forward, gently pulling on the piece of card, leaving the glass in place on the kitchen table.

Very slowly, I lift the glass and the spider doesn't move. It's probably petrified and I almost feel guilty that it's about to meet its death as Grandma chows down on her favourite eight-legged snack, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

"Grandma!"

I shriek and wail in a way that's worthy of an Academy Award and straight away Grandma comes rushing in to see what all the commotion is about. I point at the table and right on cue the spider begins to run. Grandma moves quickly towards it, her arms outstretched, fingers wriggling and I back off into the doorway. My hand shakes as I hold up my cellphone, camera at the ready.

Grandma scoops the spider up into her hands and I can see one long leg hanging out from between her fingers and think how soon I'm going to see that same leg hanging out of her mouth, twitching against her lips as her teeth bite down on its hairy body.

But Grandma doesn't eat the spider. She doesn't take the bait and she doesn't bite. Instead she heads towards the kitchen door, still cradling the darn thing in her hands and pushing open the screen, she bends down and releases it onto the back porch, prodding it gently to get it moving.  When she turns, I quickly drop my arm and slip my phone into my back pocket.

"Quinny," she scolds, shaking her head and I think I'm for it now, she knows what I did, she knows I tried to trick her. Instead, she breaks out into a warm smile, one that reminds me of the hot summer days of my childhood. "Fancy being scared of an itty bitty thing like that. You better get used to them, my girl, because we get a lot of those out here in the country."

Crossing the kitchen, she grabs my face in both hands and plants a soft kiss on my forehead, then she walks out, humming a tune to herself and I'm left standing there, staring wide-eyed into space and wondering what the heck just happened.

Grandma, devourer of spiders, just rescued the darn thing and now I have no way of convincing Mama that I am telling the truth. Because I am, right? I saw her. I did. I'm not the crazy one here. I'm not.

***

Grandma is outside my bedroom door.

I can see her shadow through the crack, only it's as if she's just standing there, waiting. She doesn't try to come in, she just...waits. I wonder if she knows I'm here, standing on the other side of the door, listening. Maybe she's just checking to see if I'm asleep and after a few seconds, she leaves but I can hear her downstairs, shuffling around, I can even hear her singing. It's Clementine, the song she always used to sing when I was a kid.

'Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine, you are lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Clementine.'

It's been three days since Grandma saved the spider and since then she's been the perfect Grandma. She made lemonade. She made more apple pie – better this time – and she even took me on a trip to town to buy me some sneakers because the ones Mama bought had a hole in the toe. She muttered a lot when she saw that and said a few choice words about Mama not taking care of me and how it was a darn good job I'd come to stay when I had. She let me watch what I wanted to watch on TV and let me have extra cookies when I asked for them.

I know what I saw. I'm sure of it.

Are you though, Harlequin? You think Grandma is the crazy one, but maybe it's you. You're Ripper Rheemus Jones' granddaughter after all and he was a bat-shit crazy as they come....maybe you're like him, maybe you're JUST LIKE HIM.....

"Shut up," I whisper to no one. "Shut up, shut up, I know what I saw..."

Mama didn't believe you.

"Shut UP," I say, louder this time and downstairs Grandma stops singing. I hold my breath, listening for Grandma's footsteps on the stairs but after a moment, I hear her singing again.

'Ruby lips above the water, blowing bubbles soft and fine, alas for me! I was no swimmer, so I lost my Clementine.'

Grabbing the pillow and clutching it to my chest, I head towards the window and look out back, where the moonlight lights the yard all the way down to the picket fence, all the way down to where Bitter Creek waits, like a dark, inky smudge on the landscape. I hate how hypnotic it feels to look at it. It feels wrong and yet....I still want to go there. Maybe I am crazy, because who would want to go to a place like that and who in their right mind believes their Grandma eats spiders?

"Me," I whisper. "I believe it."

But the horrible truth is that I really don't know what to believe any more. Staring down into those black woods, I decide then and there that tomorrow I'm going down to Bitter Creek. I'm going to show those girls that they won't beat me. They won't make me crazy.

***

The sunshine barely breaks through the gaps between the treetops.

Even in the place where Grandpops and I used to fish – our favorite place – the shadows spread across the water, making it look gray and dirty, instead of the sparkling stream that I remember. Without the sun, the creek seems tainted, ugly and I feel like I'm trespassing and that every footstep is setting off an alarm somewhere deep in the earth.

I wonder if they already know I'm here but I begin to whisper their names anyway, whispering them over and over like I'm chanting a spell. Nothing happens, nothing moves and the creek is as quiet as a morgue, apart from the sound of the water gurgling over the rocks. I don't stop, I can't stop and each time I say their names, my voice gets louder and louder, echoing through the creek and I can hear how desperate I sound – how crazy I sound, standing out here and shouting the names of twelve dead girls. If anyone was to come by and see me, if anyone was to make the connection, I know what they would say.

See that girl? That's Ripper Rheemus Jones' granddaughter, right there. They say she's obsessed by all them poor girls he killed, they say she's as plum crazy as he was. Thirteen years old and as crazy as a loon.

And maybe I am, but I need to hear them say it. I need them to tell me why they wanted me to come here and that if they're going to take me, then they just need to get it over and done with now, because I can't take this anymore. They've won.

But they don't come to claim their prize. They don't come to get their revenge on the one that got away and the tears run down my face in frustration, at myself, at them, at this whole damn sorry mess my Grandpops made when he slit open their bellies right here at Bitter Creek.

I flop down onto one of the rocks with the soles of my new sneakers just touching the water's edge and I grab a handful of small stones and begin to toss each one into the stream. I curse them one by one. I even curse Mama and her stupid meds. I'm about to curse Grandpops when I spot the thin red wavy line of blood, curling and weaving its way along the surface of the water. It splits into two, then again and again, and I watched transfixed as the blood reaches out towards me, like a pattern of gnarled bloodied tree roots spreading out. It's almost at my feet when I follow the trail back upstream, following it all the way to the other side where it stops, just before where the stream swings to the left and disappears into the knotted trees.

It curdles on the bank, thickening like syrup as it trickles down the legs of the dead girls who wait there, watching me, their skirts almost black with all the blood that spills sluggishly from the gaping slash across their bellies. Their skin is greenish-gray with mottled purple patches that darkens their flesh like fresh bruises. Their hair hangs wet and limp over their faces but not enough to hide their milky white gaze that bores into me.

Gasping, I scramble to my feet, almost slipping on the rocks. They watch and wait and the blood continues to flow, connecting from one side of the stream to the other.

"What are you waiting for?" I shriek at them. "I'm here, aren't I? You wanted me to come back and I did, so just do it already!"

Five awful forever-seconds tick by and then they open their mouths but make no sound. Instead a thick gush of silt and mud begins to ooze out, pulsing over their lips and dribbling down their chins in a putrid stream. Their faces twist with pain and I know they're trying to say something, but the silt keeps pouring out.

"What?" I cry out. "What is it?"

Together, the girls raise one arm each, fingers pointing in the direction of the house. I shake my head, confused, scared, because if they don't want me, what the heck do they want? I scan their faces, whispering their names again because it's the only thing that I know, the only thing that I'm sure of and the one thing I did whenever things got tough. I'd open the scrapbook and say their name as I looked at each picture one by one. I'm doing the same now and it's then I realise there's only eleven.

Eleven faces full of pain. Eleven open mouths full of mud. Eleven arms pointing. Eleven pairs of dead white eyes, staring.

But who is missing?

When the small cold hand slips into mine, I don't look immediately. I can't bring myself to look down and see her standing there, right by my side, the little girl named Summer McElroy who came to the State Fair with her parents to eat cotton candy on a stick and win a fishy in a bag and instead ended up here, buried under a blanket of water and worms.

She tugs, insistent, and I know I have to look.

"Remember", she says with a smile and it's not the sound of her voice or the touch of her cold dead hand in mine that sends me reeling, but the sight of the spider that stretches one long leg out over her lips, then another and another as it pushes its large hairy body out of her mouth.

My feet slip on the wet bank and I fall, hitting my head on the sharp edge of a rock. The pain explodes in my temple and my body slides into the shallow water. Darkness blots my vision and I'm fading slowly. Summer leans down and removing the spider from her face, she places it carefully on mine.

"Remember," she whispers.

The last thing I feel before I'm pulled into the black depths of unconsciousness, is the probing touch of the spider's leg as it forces its way into my mouth.

***

I stumble into the house after dusk, leaving a trail of muddy footprints behind me.

I'm soaked through to the skin and I stink of dirty water and damp earth. Grandma is nowhere to be seen but I can hear her singing and I follow the noise, all the way upstairs. My bedroom door is open and I can see Grandma from where I stand in the hallway. The laundry basket is on my bed and she is removing the carefully pressed clothes one by one and laying them out in order on top of the duvet.

Remember, whispers Summer.

Remember, they all whisper and I do. I do remember.

It's eight years ago and I'm watching Grandma just like I'm watching her now, only she's not in the bedroom, she's in the barn. Grandpop's barn. And straight away I think it's weird, because Grandma hates the barn because it's full of 'man stuff like tools and grease and women ain't got no business hanging out in places like that.' But she's here and I'm watching her through the crack where the board is loose on the side wall. Grandma is standing over the trunk, the lid is open and she is carefully folding up the clothes and placing them inside. Sometimes she stops and holds a dress or shirt to her face and breathes in deeply. When she's done, she runs her fingertips gently over her souvenirs and closes the lid, locking the trunk and placing the key inside her apron pocket.

"It was you," I say. "You did it. You killed those girls."

Grandma doesn't stop sorting the laundry, but she does glance my way, still humming Clementine with a contented little smile on her face.

What big eyes you have, Grandma!

I'm dripping dirty water onto her polished wood floors and there's a dark stream of blood trickling down the side of my face from the split-skin on my temple, but she doesn't ask me what happened or seem to care. She just goes on sorting the clothes into piles.

"It wasn't Grandpops. You made him own up to it, but it wasn't him. It wasn't him!"

Grandma stops, her head jerking to one side before she reaches down and grabs one of my pressed t-shirts, holding it to her face and inhaling long and deep.

"Oh Quinny, darlin', don't be silly now," she smiles sweetly, but her eyes are black. Pure oil-slick black. "That man fessed up of his own accord. I never made him do a darn thing."

I clench my fists but I'm scared right down to the bone.

"Liar," I hiss. "Why would he do that? Why would he confess to something he never did?"

Grandma clutches the t-shirt over her heart and her face twists into a mask of fear. "Please Rheemus," she mock-pleads. "I never meant to do it. I never meant to hurt all those poor little girls. I-I think I'm sick, my darlin', I think I'm real sick and I'm so very scared. Don't let them take me. Please Rheemus, I couldn't bear it, please help me!"

She smiles again only now there's nothing sweet about it. "That poor old fool would do anything for me. Even let them strap him onto that bed and inject death right into his veins while all the parents of those poor babies cursed him as he died."

"You're not Grandma," I gasp. "I don't know what you are, but you're not my Grandma."

Her black eyes widen and her bottom lip trembles. "Quinny, how can you say such a thing? How can you be so mean to your ol' Grandma when all I do is give you a roof over your head 'cause your good-for-nothin' Mama don't want a little brat like you no more? I make you apple pie and lemonade. I clean your room and I wash and press all your cockamamie clothes and it's still not good enough!'

With that, Grandma swings her arm round in a wide arc and sweeps the piles of laundry off the bed, basket and all, before whirling back to face me, her lips curled back from her gums.

"See what you did now? Now I'm going to have to start all over again." She steps towards the doorway, her gnarled finger pointing accusingly at me. "Your Mama is right about you. You're nothing but a whiny attention-seeking brat. Always was, always will be. Hey, Grandpops, look at me! Hey, Grandpops, watch me do cartwheels! Hey Grandpops, play horses with me. Me, me, me, ME!"

"It's all his fault, you know," she continues. "I begged and begged him but he wouldn't let me. I told him, this will be it, this will be the last one, but he always said no and so I'd take another one and another and soon there were so many that the police just had to come snooping around. If only he'd let me, if only he'd let me have what I wanted."

I take a step back. "And what was that, Grandma?"

She grins, a wide awful grin full of crooked sharp little teeth and she might not have a face full of worms, but when she grins like that, Grandma's face is something far, far worse than any wriggling worm mask. It dawns on me right then and there that you don't need to look like a monster to be a monster. And that's what she is, only I don't know if she was always like this, or whether the monster got inside her and made her like this, all I know is I don't like the way she is looking at me or the way she runs her long black tongue over the sharp points of her teeth. I don't like it one darn bit.

What big teeth you have, Grandma!

"Why, it was you, Quinny dear, it was always you I wanted."

And the thing that was once my Grandma lets out a howl so loud and rushes straight at me, but I'm turning and running, skidding on my wet sneakers and tumbling down the stairs, hearing her thunder and curse behind me. I hit the back door and stumble out into the yard. My feet pound the dirt and I'm running blindly with snot and tears streaming down my face but I don't stop.

I reach the fence and slide down the slope into the creek. It's dark and twisted here at night but it's nothing compared to what's behind me, so I don't think about the things that squelch under my feet or the branches that reach out to whip my skin. I don't think about the things that creep and brush against my face or how the cobwebs are getting caught in my hair. I just run. And I keep on running, until my throat hurts like someone has their hands wrapped around my neck.

I'm running deeper and deeper into the creek and I know I shouldn't because Grandpops always said not to go there.

No, Quinny, you need to stay here, because that's where she bites, that's where she bites them all....

I hide in the hollowed out trunk of a dead tree and wait for her to pass me by so I can double-back. Somewhere not far off, I can hear Grandma crashing about through the trees, sounding a lot bigger than she actually is.

"Harleeeeeeequiiiiiiiin," she calls, sounding too much like the Grandma I know. "Harleeeequiiiiiin. You come on home now, do you hear? Don't be scaring your poor ol' Grandma like this. Come on now, darlin'. You'll get yourself lost out here." She giggles. A bubble of wicked, manic laughter echoes around the creek. "You're going to get yourself aaaaaallllll lost out here."

I see her now. Her head jerks about like it did that night in the yard and she scurries here and there, chasing noises in the dark. Suddenly, she juts her head forward, her eyes boring into the gloom and she's gone, darting off into the dense trees in front of her and I know I have to go now before she comes back.

Hurtling through the creek, I head back towards the spot where Grandpops and I used to fish and I'm almost there, I can see the faint light from my bedroom window and I grin in spite of everything because I'm going to make it. I just know I am.

***

Mama was right about me, you know. Not about me being a brat, but I was always stupid. Stupid Harlequin Jaden Jones. So stupid and so darn naïve. If I wasn't stupid, I would have known that this was her place. Grandpops had his barn and Grandma had the creek and that's just the way it was, the way it always was.

There I was thinking I was going to get away, that after all this time, I would still be the one that got away from Bitter Creek but I was always destined to become another face in the scrapbook.

Grandma always knew where I was, maybe it was my scent that gave me away or maybe she just wanted me to get so far, to hope I had a chance, because ripping that hope away from me gave her a thrill bigger than ripping a hole in my gut would. Or maybe not, because she sure looked pretty darn happy when she started ripping.

She caught me of course, that grand prize she'd been wanting to win all those years. Just when I thought I'd made it, I felt her sharp talons digging into the scruff of my neck, dragging me back down, down, into the stream. I struggled, clawing at the arm around my neck that was way too strong to be just a little old lady's arm. I still struggled when my head was plunged under the surface and when the thing that had once been Grandma held me down and the filthy water filled my mouth.

I would have screamed of course, but by then it was too late.

I don't scream now, but if you come down here, where the water gurgles over the rocks and you stand real still, you might just hear me whispering through the trees.

We all whisper down at Bitter Creek you see, and if you stay too long, Grandma will make you whisper too. Oh god, she will make you whisper.