Unspeakable Things

Cass is excited for her birthday. She and her mom pack up the van full of food for the party at the lake. Cass asks her mom what Bauer was like when they were in high school. Cass tells her mom that she is afraid of her dad, but her mom does not want to hear it. Cass feels unequipped to handle the fear of her father as a predator to other children.

They arrive at the lake. Lynn and her mom are already there. Lynn tells Cass that she should have canceled the party out of respect for Gabriel. Barb and Heidi are not coming. Heidi’s mom pulls up and runs over to them to say that a man named Arnold Fierro has been arrested for Gabriel’s kidnapping. He was caught looking in Becky Anderson’s window with his hand in his pants. Cass realizes that the Peeping Tom threatens girls, while the person who took Gabriel attacks boys.

When they arrive home, a police car is in the driveway.

A state trooper asks the family about Goblin. The officer clarifies that the Peeping Tom has been arrested but that they are still looking for Gabriel’s kidnapper. Cass recalls Bauer’s words about Goblin’s stepdad. Cass almost speaks but is held back because Bauer is a policeman, and she does not think her allegations will be taken seriously by any other officer of the law. Cass’s parents relax as the trooper leaves.

Cass’s dad starts drinking. Her mom asks Cass to help her with supper. Cass realizes that she, her mom, and her sister will forever put her dad’s needs before their own. Cass goes to investigate the studio where she spoke to Bauer. She finds a piece of paper with names and numbers, indicating that her dad was selling weed and mushrooms to the partygoers. She takes the piece of paper.

her mom says she is going back to work to pick up her plants. Once her dad is passed out drunk, Cass prepares to watch TV. Sephie tells her she is going to sneak out to meet boys. Cass panics that her dad will wake up before Sephie returns.

her dad wakes up as Cass is watching The Empire Strikes Back. He is very drunk and mean. He asks her if she thinks she is a woman yet. She leaves the room and hears him getting up from his chair. She runs up to her room and hides. Her dad approaches the stairs. She wonders if Gabriel or Aunt Jin would rescue her if they were there. She moves her dresser in front of her bedroom door. Eventually, she falls asleep, but she is woken up by the sound of crying.

Disoriented, Cass tries to figure out who is crying. She thinks the sound is coming from the pantry or the basement. She creeps downstairs and finds her dad crying in the cupboard. He says that he needs to teach her a trick to sleep. She doesn’t think that he is being predatory, so she relaxes slightly. Her dad tells her not to go in the basement.

On Saturday morning, everyone is tired but relaxed. Cass thinks about Gabriel. Her dad says that he sold an upcoming sculpture. The girls are relaxed as they brainstorm ways for her dad to spend his upcoming paycheck. Her dad wants to host another orgy to celebrate the arrest of Chester the Molester.

On the morning news, Gabriel’s mom is crying. Another Lilydale boy was assaulted, so they think that the Peeping Tom is not the person who abducted Gabriel. Lilydale is under complete lockdown; no children are allowed outside unsupervised. Bauer says that they have two people of interest. Cass realizes that Wayne Johnson is the most recent victim.

Aunt Jin arrives for her visit. Cass is elated. Jin and her dad are flirtatious. Cass starts crying as she updates Jin on Gabriel’s kidnapping. Cass watches her mom watching Jin and realizes that her mom is upset that Jin flirts with her dad. Sephie is also upset, and Cass realizes that Sephie has been aware of their relationship much longer than she has. Her dad tells Jin to come to his studio with him. Cass says she does not want them to be alone together. Cass apologizes to her mom. Her mom asks Jin to leave. Her dad yells at her mom. Sephie asks Cass to sleep in her bed.

Their parents fight loudly. Cass tells Sephie that she had thought Bauer was the one attacking the boys until she realized that they all rode the same bus. Sephie recreates the sound that Clam said the attacker made, and Cass realizes that it’s the same sound of Goblin’s throat. She and Sephie discuss telling their parents. They listen to their parents fight. Cass wants to run away, but Sephie doesn’t think that a safe place exists. Sephie reminds her that Frank is neighbors with Goblin.

Cass panics, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before Goblin attacks Frank. She grabs her backpack and sneaks out. She decides to hide in the large bush near Goblin’s house. As she hides, she finds Gabriel’s necklace.

Goblin gets in his car and leaves. Cass runs to his front door. She recalls the note that she found in her dad’s studio and realizes that her dad and Bauer are selling drugs together. She runs to the dirt basement and forces herself to look for clues of Gabriel. She sees his finger poking through the dirt. Goblin arrives home and enters the basement. He starts to strangle her.

As her brain loses oxygen, Cass watches a movie of her life and feels okay with imminent death. Suddenly, she is able to breathe again; her dad is in the basement fighting Goblin. Cass passes out.

Cass wakes up in the hospital. Her mom and Sephie are waiting by her bedside. The doctors think that her life was saved by the scar tissue from her birthmark. Gabriel’s mom arrives. Cass gives her Gabriel’s necklace. She is grateful but returns the necklace to Cass.

Officer Kent and a social worker ask her mom and Sephie to leave the room so that they can speak to Cass. Cass is prepared to truthfully tell her story.

Lourey published the Epilogue of the novel on her blog. She did not include this Epilogue in the novel because she wanted readers to imagine their own ending. Cass sits in the parking lot of a funeral home with her husband. She has two sons, whom she adores. They watch Sergeant Bauer enter her dad’s funeral. Cass wrote a novel called The Lilydale Devil in the Dirt Basement, which drew national attention, but she published under a pseudonym to protect her privacy. Sephie and Cass haven’t spoken in a few years; Sephie notified Cass of her dad’s death by text. Sephie still lives in Lilydale. Cass reveals that when she woke up in the hospital and decided to share everything with the social worker and the officer, her mom left her because she didn’t want to be a part of it. Her dad and Bauer both got three years for drug dealing. She also told them that her dad was sexually abusing Sephie and was about to start on her, but her parents and Sephie all denied this. Her mom got custody of both girls, and they moved to a town 30 miles away. Her mom remarried and appeared happy. She and her mom speak on the phone once a year. Cass still has Gabriel’s necklace. In her novel, she persuades Bauer to search Goblin’s house again because of the boys’ stories about the clicking noise. Cass describes Goblin raping boys as a side effect of him being raped by his stepdad. She never spoke to her dad again after the night that he saved her, and she confessed everything. Sephie moved back in with her dad after he was released from prison. Cass is determined to make Sephie move in with her and her family.