by John Saul
After Nancy Conroe steered the insurance agent to the front door, however, Joan wondered which would be harder to bear: spending the evening alone in the house, or trying to make conversation with all of Bill’s friends.
Bill’s friends?
Where had that come from? Of the somewhat more than half-dozen people who had stopped by that afternoon, bringing some kind of casserole, or cold salad or pie or cake, most had been their friends, people she’d known her entire life.
Except that as they passed through the house, squeezing her hand and offering condolences, she’d begun to sense something. At first she thought it was nothing more than the fact that no one knew quite what to say. But then she started picking up on other things.
Little things.
The glances that some of them had shot toward Matt.
Not that anyone said anything — they’d taken Matt’s hand every bit as warmly as they’d taken her own, and murmured the same words they were speaking to her. But after they’d spoken to her and to Matt, they began talking among themselves, their eyes darting toward Matt, then quickly shifting away again, as if they feared being caught doing something not quite polite.
As the afternoon wore on and the first numbness of shock wore off, she tried to tell herself she was wrong — that she was imagining things. But she knew she wasn’t imagining things.
They were talking about Matt.
And about Bill.
They thought Matt had killed him.
Slowly, without quite realizing what was happening, fear for her son began to thaw the terrible cold of Joan’s grief for her husband, and through the tears that still glazed her eyes, she began to see her friends in a different light.
Her friends?
Were they really her friends? Had they ever been her friends?
She kept trying to tell herself that she was wrong, that they were as much her friends as Bill’s. But even as she tried to convince herself, she knew it wasn’t quite true. These were the people who had grown up with Bill, and though she’d always known them too, it wasn’t until she’d married Bill that she became a part of their group.
They’d never been inside the house on Burlington Avenue where she’d grown up.
None of the men had ever taken her to a dance when they were in high school.
She hadn’t been a song-leader at the football games, or part of the homecoming court, or anything else. For most of these people, she hadn’t really existed at all until the first night Bill Hapgood had taken her to dinner with his friends. And that night had been one of the most frightening of her life. . . .
* * *
“THEY’RE STARING AT me,” she whispered. “Bill, why are they staring at me? Am I dressed wrong?”
“They’re staring at you because you’re the most beautiful woman they’ve ever seen,” Bill told her. Then he winked. “It’s when they stop staring at you that you have to start worrying.”
She didn’t believe him, of course, because she’d never been beautiful. Cynthia was the beautiful one, and even tonight, sitting with Bill on a perfect August evening, she’d been sure that if Cynthia were still alive, she herself wouldn’t be sitting here at all. It would have been Cynthia who Bill had come to the house on Burlington Avenue to pick up.
Her mother would have welcomed him, and taken him into the parlor, and made conversation with him while Cynthia put the finishing touches on her makeup.
And Cynthia wouldn’t have been praying that she wouldn’t break out in a sweat and stain the armpits of her best dress.
But it hadn’t been Cynthia — it had been her, trembling in front of Cynthia’s closet as she searched for a dress that might be suitable for an evening out with Bill Hapgood.
And instead of chatting with Bill, her mother had come upstairs and lectured her on making certain she behaved herself. “I already have one grandchild,” her mother had reminded her. “Don’t make me another one tonight.”
Her face burning, she had gone down to greet Bill, and found him playing with Matt. By the time he’d brought her home, he’d actually succeeded in making her feel like the most beautiful woman at the restaurant, and she knew she’d begun falling in love with him.
* * *
AND NOW, TEN years later, with the pain of Bill’s death still so sharp it felt like a knife twisting in her belly, she had the sickening feeling that a need to offer her their condolences wasn’t what had brought all these people to her home.
The real reason they’d come was to find out exactly what had happened in the woods that day.
But now, except for Nancy Conroe, the last of them were gone, and suddenly the only thing Joan wanted was to be alone.
Alone with Matt.
Alone with their grief.
Half an hour later she closed the door behind Nancy too and at last was able to turn her full attention to her son. He was sitting on one of the wingbacks flanking the fireplace, and she knelt in front of his chair, taking his hands in hers. “We’re going to be all right, Matt,” she said softly.
Matt, his sixteenth birthday drawing to a close neither of them could have imagined the day before, looked bleakly into his mother’s eyes.
“I know what they were thinking, Mom,” he said. “I know what they were all thinking. That I killed Dad.”
Should she try to argue with him? Tell him he was wrong? But how could she, when she knew he’d spoken the truth.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, needing to comfort her son even more than she herself needed to be comforted. “What they think doesn’t matter. What matters is that we both know you didn’t do anything.”
Matt said nothing.
* * *
EMILY MOORE WATCHED suspiciously as the last of the cars wound down the graveled driveway and disappeared into the trees. Several cars had come and gone today, but if anyone had asked her exactly how many, or how long any of them had stayed, she wouldn’t have been able to say. All she knew was that ever since Cynthia had come, everything was somehow different than before. Though the memory of seeing her beloved daughter was blurry, she’d been clinging to it, turning it over and over in her mind, trying to absorb every detail. But there was so little to hang on to. All she remembered was that she’d been in the bathroom, and suddenly knew that Cynthia had come home.
Just knew it!
She’d reached out to open the door that led to Cynthia’s room, but paused before turning the knob. What if she wasn’t there? But she was! Emily could feel her. So she turned the knob and slowly pushed open the door. And there she was — sitting at her vanity table, carefully finishing her makeup, just like she was getting ready to go to school. As Emily watched, Cynthia set aside her eyelash curler, examined herself carefully in the mirror, then reached for her perfume. As she opened the bottle, the musky scent of Nightshade filled the room. Her heart fluttering with excitement, and her knees weakening as the fumes surrounded her, Emily steadied herself against the doorjamb. When she tried to speak, even her voice was so faint it was barely a whisper: “Cynthia? My Cynthia?”
At first she didn’t think Cynthia heard her, but then her beloved daughter turned and smiled at her. “I’m home, Mama,” she said. “I’m finally home!”
One hand clutching at her breast to calm her hammering heart, the other stretched out toward Cynthia, Emily moved toward her perfect child. But she’d gone no more than a step or two when Cynthia, silent as a wraith, had risen from the little chair in front of the vanity and vanished through the heavy mahogany door leading to the hall. Emily tottered after her, but by the time she managed to pull the door open, Cynthia had disappeared.
Disappeared as completely as if she’d never been there at all. Emily had gone after her, making her way from room to room, searching every corner of the house, calling out to her, but it was no use.
Cynthia was gone.
When Joan finally came home, Emily told her about Cynthia, and then the cars started coming. She’d known why they were there right away. Joan di
dn’t want Cynthia here, so she’d made all these people come to look for her and take her away. Emily watched from the safety of her room, holding the curtain back just enough to peek out, terrified that at any moment they might find her perfect daughter. But now all the people and all the cars were gone, and finally, exhausted from her vigil by the window, Emily unsteadily made her way over to her chair and gingerly lowered herself into it.
Her eyes closed. . . .
Minutes passed.
Perhaps hours.
Emily drifted up from the unconsciousness into which she’d fallen. Her body felt stiff and there was a sour taste in her mouth. The room was dark, but she wasn’t aware of it. Slowly, her old bones protesting, she lifted herself from the chair and shuffled into the bathroom. Fumbling in the medicine cabinet, she found a can of powder and shook some into the palm of her left hand. Her fingers found her toothbrush; she scrubbed it in the powder, then put it in her mouth. It didn’t taste quite right, and felt dry, but she kept brushing anyway, trying to rid herself of the sour taste.
Then, in the mirror, she glimpsed something. A movement, all but lost in the shadowy darkness.
Dropping the toothbrush, Emily turned and peered into the darkness.
The door to Cynthia’s room stood open.
And she could feel Cynthia’s presence. Her senses came alive. Her ears, weakened by the passing years, were filled with unfamiliar sounds: the ticking of a clock, the low hooting of an owl beyond the window, the rustling of a prowling animal.
Her eye, its focus softened with age, now caught every beam and flicker of light, and her daughter’s room was filled with a silvery glow.
Cynthia sat once more at the vanity table, her blond hair flowing in gentle waves over her shoulders, her diaphanous nightgown shimmering around her like a cloud.
Barely trusting the vision not to vanish before her like a mirage, Emily took an unsteady step forward.
Then another, and another.
Finally she stood behind Cynthia, gazing into the angelic face reflected in the mirror. Her hands trembling, she held them above her daughter’s shoulders, afraid to touch her child’s flesh lest it dissolve away to nothingness.
“I’m so glad, Cynthia,” she whispered, her voice as palsied as her hands. “I’m so glad you’ve come home.”
In the mirror, Cynthia’s eyes met hers, and a smile curled her lips. “Do you love me, Mama?” she asked softly.
“More than anything,” Emily whispered. “More than anything in the world.”
Cynthia rose from the chair and turned so Emily could gaze up into her perfect face.
Her eyes glowed in the silvery light.
Her smile widened.
Both her hands came up and rested on Emily’s thin shoulders.
A warmth she hadn’t felt in years suffused Emily’s body, washing away the cold that constantly gripped her. She reached up to touch her daughter’s cheek.
And in an instant, everything changed once more. Cynthia’s fingers suddenly felt like talons sinking painfully into Emily’s withered skin and flesh.
The silvery light that had magically filled the room faded away, and the gentle sounds of the night that a moment ago had filled the old woman’s ears died out.
The talons on Emily’s shoulders tightened, and she felt a stabbing pain in her chest. Then, as if impelled by some terrible force, she staggered backward.
Her balance failed her.
She struggled, fought to stay on her feet, reached out to grasp something — anything — to break her fall.
“Cynthia!” she cried out. “Help me, Cynthia!”
But it was too late. Her body crumpled to the floor, a flash of blinding pain shot through her, and in an instant she sank back into the unconsciousness from which she had emerged only minutes ago.
* * *
EMILY AWOKE SOMETIME before dawn, her body aching, her mind muddled. Struggling to her feet, she groped in the darkness until she found the bed, then dropped onto it. The pain in her body easing slightly, she drifted back into a fitful sleep. When next she awoke, the gray light of dawn filled the room, and she heard a voice speaking to her.
“Mother? Mother, are you all right? What are you doing in here?”
Her body aching, Emily pulled herself up to rest her back against the pillows. For a moment nothing around her looked familiar, but then, slowly, some of the fog began to lift from her mind.
“Cynthia?” she asked. “Is that you?”
“No, Mother,” Emily heard. “It’s not Cynthia. It’s Joan. Let me help you back to bed.”
Too tired and too sore to protest, Emily let Joan take her back to her room, half carrying her. Barely aware of what was happening, searching in the mists of her memory for some fragment of the beautiful vision that had come to her last night, she let herself be put in her own bed. Then, struggling to hold on to the memory of Cynthia, she fell once more into a restless sleep.
* * *
MATT FELT AS if he hadn’t slept at all; though the clock by his bed insisted it was eight-thirty, both his mind and his body were as exhausted as if he’d been up all night. A grunt of frustration boiling out of his throat, he turned over, punched at his pillow, and jerked the covers tight over his head, as if by shutting out the morning he could shut out not only the nightmares of the early hours before dawn, but the even worse nightmare that had been his birthday.
But it wouldn’t go away, because what had happened yesterday wasn’t a nightmare at all — it was real.
His stepfather — the only father he’d ever known — was dead, and there was no way that pulling the covers over his head could shut out the image he would carry in his mind for the rest of his life: the image of his stepfather’s expressionless face when Pete’s dad had turned the body just enough so they could see it.
The empty eyes that had stared straight at Matt.
The hole in the forehead.
The neat, oddly bloodless hole, that looked as if it had been made with a drill rather than a bullet.
Matt’s hand went to his own forehead, and a whimper of pain escaped his lips as he imagined what it must have been like. But it couldn’t have felt like anything, could it? His dad wouldn’t have even heard the shot, let alone felt the bullet entering his brain.
Alive one second.
Dead the same second.
The image of his stepfather’s face — and the hole puncturing his forehead — had stayed with Matt all day long, and he’d barely been aware of the steady stream of people who passed through the house all afternoon. But he had been acutely aware of some of the people who hadn’t been there.
Eric Holmes.
Pete Arneson.
Even Kelly Conroe.
He was pretty sure he knew why Eric and Pete hadn’t come — they were probably still telling the police what had happened. Or at least what they thought had happened. And they thought he’d killed his dad.
But why had Kelly Conroe stayed away? He kept looking for her, kept waiting for her to come in the front door. She wouldn’t even have had to say anything — it would have been enough if she’d just sat with him, and let him hold her hand. But she hadn’t come, and most of the time he’d sat by himself while people came through the house, telling his mother how sorry they were about what had happened.
Some of them had spoken to him, but he could tell by the sound of their voices — and the way they looked at him when they thought he didn’t see them — what they were thinking: You killed him. You killed our friend.
You killed your dad.
But mostly they didn’t speak to him at all — mostly they just whispered to each other, and looked at him.
Looked at him like he was some kind of strange insect.
But if he didn’t even know what had happened, how could any of them?
The whispering and staring went on and on, and the terrible image of his stepfather’s face hung before his eyes, and a numbing coldness began to fall over him.
By the tim
e he’d finally gone to bed, he knew his life was forever changed.
He felt cold.
He felt alone.
He lay in the darkness, trying to shut it all out, trying to drive the image of his stepfather’s face from his memory, trying to protect himself from the cold by wrapping the blankets tightly around his body. But there was no escape from the image etched in his mind, or the chill that had imbued his soul. Yet finally he’d slept.
And in his sleep, his aunt had come. A whimper emerged from his throat as the memory of his dream — for it had to have been a dream — rose into his consciousness:
The blackness around him receded until everything was suffused with a silvery light. He was still in his bed, still in his room, and it was still night. Dimly, he could hear a clock chiming, but when he tried to count the hours, he lost track, and the chiming went on and on. Then, at the door to the room, a figure appeared. A woman, her long blond hair flowing over her shoulders, a beautiful gown billowing around her body. As the silvery light fell on her face, he recognized it at once.
His aunt.
His aunt Cynthia.
But how could she be here? She was dead, wasn’t she?
She came across the room, her arms stretched out to him.
He lay perfectly still, watching.
She stood by the bed and smiled down at him.
“I’ll take care of you,” she whispered. “I’ll always take care of you.”
The nightgown fell from her body, and a musky perfume filled the air. As Matt breathed deeply of the scent, his aunt reached down and gently pulled back the blankets and the sheet.
Her fingers brushed against the skin of his chest.
The scent grew stronger, and a faint moan drifted from Matt’s lips.
Then his aunt was on the bed, her body pressing close to his, and he could feel the heat of her flesh finally driving the cold from his soul. He drew in his breath, sucking the musky aroma deep into his lungs, and his body began to respond to her touch.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him.
Her hands moved across his back, caressing him, then moved lower.
And lower still.
He felt her fingers between his legs now, felt the warmth in his body ignite into flames.
