Chap­ter 26 begins with Patri­cia try­ing to main­tain her com­po­sure as she gets caught in her own thoughts while dri­ving. Her palms sweat on the steer­ing wheel as she heads up Rifle Range Road, ques­tion­ing her deci­sion to vis­it Mrs. Greene. Patri­cia had hoped that Mrs. Greene might not even be home, and the relief that fol­lowed was almost pal­pa­ble when she con­sid­ered just turn­ing back. The area around her had changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly, with new con­struc­tion begin­ning to take over, and the famil­iar­i­ty she once knew was slip­ping away. Patri­cia tried to shake off her dis­com­fort, but her mind was full of clut­ter, and as she passed famil­iar land­marks, a sense of unease grew. When she final­ly arrived at Mrs. Greene’s house, the con­struc­tion noise from Gra­cious Cay was over­whelm­ing, but Patri­cia still tried to stay focused on her pur­pose.

The ring­ing of her phone inter­rupt­ed her thoughts. It was James Har­ris. He was call­ing to check on Blue, and as Patri­cia spoke with him, a strange sense of dis­con­nec­tion enveloped her. Despite know­ing Blue was safe and in good hands, the con­ver­sa­tion felt tense. Patri­cia found her­self forced to engage in small talk with James, and her dis­com­fort only grew as they dis­cussed Blue’s behav­ior. It was strange to hear James express gen­uine con­cern about her chil­dren, some­thing that felt a bit too famil­iar and unset­tling. As she con­tin­ued her con­ver­sa­tion, Patri­cia couldn’t help but feel like she was caught between her past and present.

After hang­ing up with James, Patri­cia stood in her kitchen, feel­ing the weight of the con­ver­sa­tion set­tle around her. She thought about the ten­sion in her fam­i­ly, the changes she had made, and the things she’d tried to avoid. Her phone call with James had brought back uncom­fort­able mem­o­ries. It remind­ed her of how she’d pushed peo­ple away in the past, espe­cial­ly James, but now she was faced with the real­i­ty that he was still a part of her life, even if she wasn’t ready for him to be. Patri­cia couldn’t deny the grow­ing sense of unease, but she quick­ly shift­ed her focus to her dai­ly tasks. Clean­ing out the kitchen cab­i­nets seemed like a man­age­able way to occu­py her mind, but as she began to orga­nize, she was sud­den­ly over­come by the smell of Miss Mary’s room.

The famil­iar scent of clean­ing prod­ucts used in Miss Mary’s room trig­gered a wave of mem­o­ries, and Patri­cia found her­self stand­ing in front of a locked door that led to the old garage room. The mem­o­ries of car­ing for Miss Mary rushed back, and for a moment, Patri­cia was lost in the past. With the key in hand, she opened the door and found the room emp­ty. No scent lin­gered, no famil­iar clut­ter remained. Patri­cia locked the door again, but the unset­tling feel­ing stayed with her as she moved on to her next task. On the sun porch, the sun’s glare made her pause as she noticed the mag­a­zines Carter had left behind. Walk­ing back through the din­ing room to the kitchen, she had to pass the door to the den again. That’s when she heard it—soft whis­pers.

Patri­cia froze. She heard her name being called soft­ly, and a chill ran down her spine. She glanced through the crack in the door and saw the image of a pair of eyes star­ing back at her. For a moment, she thought she had imag­ined it, but the whis­pered voice, faint and dis­tant, grew loud­er in her ears. Her mind raced, and before she knew it, the whis­pers turned into some­thing far more sin­is­ter. Miss Mary’s voice seemed to echo in the room, her words clear and chill­ing. Patri­cia tried to dis­miss it, but the voice was per­sis­tent, warn­ing her of some­thing ter­ri­ble. Her instincts screamed for her to leave the room, but she couldn’t.

As Patri­cia stood frozen, try­ing to make sense of what she was hear­ing, Rag­tag, the dog, trot­ted past her, break­ing the trance-like state she was in. Patri­cia ques­tioned what was hap­pen­ing. Could she be los­ing her mind? She had always been a skep­tic, dis­miss­ing the talk of ghosts and spir­its as mere super­sti­tion. But the voice, the words, and the eerie feel­ing in the air felt too real to ignore. Miss Mary had always been a fig­ure of mys­tery, some­one who seemed to have pow­ers beyond what Patri­cia could com­pre­hend. And now, it seemed that Miss Mary was try­ing to reach her—again.

Patricia’s grip tight­ened on the mag­a­zines she was hold­ing, and she forced her­self to move for­ward, but the voice did not stop. The words grew more des­per­ate, more urgent. Patri­cia couldn’t tell if it was a hal­lu­ci­na­tion or some­thing more. She thought back to the many times Miss Mary had spo­ken of warn­ings in cryp­tic ways, but this felt dif­fer­ent. It wasn’t just a warning—it felt like a cry for help. She thought of the chil­dren, of the dan­ger they might be in. The voice’s repeat­ed phras­es about “the night­walk­ing man” and “tak­ing the chil­dren” haunt­ed her thoughts.

Despite her skep­ti­cism, Patri­cia knew she couldn’t ignore what she had just expe­ri­enced. She had always dis­missed these things as fig­ments of an over­ac­tive imag­i­na­tion, but today, some­thing had changed. It wasn’t just Miss Mary’s voice she had heard. There was a sense of urgency, a fear that some­thing had to be done. Patricia’s world had always been one of log­ic and rea­son, but now she found her­self ques­tion­ing every­thing. Was it pos­si­ble that some­thing dark­er was at play? She turned away from the door and walked back through the din­ing room, try­ing to shake off the feel­ings that had gripped her. But the thought lin­gered: the night­walk­ing man, the devil’s son—had Miss Mary tru­ly warned her of some­thing much more sin­is­ter than she had ever real­ized?