Nightshade

by John Saul

  Three times she’d gone back to the stream, each time allowing herself to hope that some trace of her mother would have turned up.

  Three times she’d come home, her hopes momentarily dashed.

  It was as she was leaving the house for the fourth time that she saw Matt walking up the driveway. Even if he hadn’t been getting home far too early, everything about him — his posture, the shuffle in his step, the way his hands were shoved deep in his pockets — told her that something had gone terribly wrong at school.

  Ten minutes later, after she dragged the truth out of him about what had happened, he at last looked directly into her eyes. “What if it’s true?” he whispered. “What if what they’re saying is true?” Joan reached for his hands, but he pulled away from her. “I had a dream last night, Mom,” he said.

  Slowly, his tone reflecting the pain and fear it had caused him, he told her about the terrible vision that had come to him in the night. “And Aunt Cynthia was there,” he finished, at last lifting his eyes to meet hers. “She kept telling me to do it. To do what I wanted to do.” Even as he spoke the words, Joan could see the terror coming into his eyes once again. “I was pissed off at Dad on my birthday,” he went on. “And I was mad at Gram night before last. What if it’s true? What if I — ”

  Joan clamped her hand over his mouth, refusing to let him even utter the terrible words. “You didn’t,” she said. “You didn’t do anything.” Recalling the accusations that Matt had told her he’d seen on the computer monitor, her sympathy for her son hardened into anger toward his tormentors. “Go up and change your clothes,” she told him. “I’ll fix you something to eat. You hardly touched your breakfast, and without lunch you must be starving.”

  “But I’m not hungry,” Matt protested.

  “Maybe you will be by the time you get back downstairs,” Joan replied.

  As soon as Matt was gone, she picked up the phone and called the school.

  “I wish I knew how kids can be so cruel,” Burt Wing sighed after hearing Joan out. “Jack Carruthers told me about Matt leaving early, but Matt didn’t tell him what had happened.” He was silent for a moment, then: “Joan, I wish I could tell you it won’t happen again, but — ”

  “Then what is Matt supposed to do?” Joan asked. “By the time he got home, he was starting to wonder if maybe what they were saying was — ” She cut herself short, and when she spoke again, managed to keep most of the anger out of her voice. “You’re Matt’s counselor. I’m just asking you to talk to him, Burt. And maybe to the rest of the kids in that class too. Matt should be able to go to school without having to hear that kind of garbage, shouldn’t he?”

  “Of course he should,” Burt Wing agreed. “Nothing like that should happen to any child. But these days — well, you know how kids can be.”

  “I do,” Joan sighed. “I just don’t want them making Matt’s life any more difficult than it already is. And Burt? Don’t tell Matt I called, all right?”

  For the first time since he’d picked up the phone, Burt Wing chuckled. “Don’t worry. The last thing any kid needs to know is that his mother called his counselor. Believe me, he won’t ever hear it from me. And I’ll talk to him first thing in the morning.”

  As she hung up the phone, it occurred to Joan that morning was a long time away.

  * * *

  THE VOICE WHISPERED her name so softly that at first Joan wasn’t certain she’d heard it at all.

  When it came again, slithering out of the silence and creeping around the fringes of her consciousness as if it didn’t want to be heard at all, she told herself it was just the wind. Though the rain had stopped and a breeze had come up, water still dripped from the leaves that clung to the branches of the huge maple just outside her bedroom window. Surely all she heard was the soughing of that breeze.

  But then she heard the sound again, her name breathed in a long, drawn-out sigh:

  “Jo-oan . . .”

  She tried to shut it out, tried to tell herself once again that it was only the wind, or something in her imagination. But even as she tried to close her mind to it, the voice called out again.

  “Jo-oan . . . Joanie . . . Joanie-baby . . .”

  Cynthia!

  Only Cynthia had ever called her Joanie-baby.

  It came again, and now the voice of her sister was unmistakable. “Come on, Joanie-baby . . . come and play with me.”

  “No!” Joan whispered, unaware she had spoken aloud. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

  Now she heard a tinkle of laughter, and then, once again, her sister’s voice. “Come, Joanie-baby . . . come and see.”

  Joan tried to resist the voice, but even as she told herself again that whatever she was hearing could be nothing more than an illusion, she found herself getting out of bed, slipping her arms into the sleeves of Bill’s worn woolen robe, and moving to the closed door of the bedroom.

  She paused, listening.

  Nothing.

  But now, though the house was once again silent, she could feel something.

  Something in the hall, just outside her door.

  Her heart quickened, and her fingers went to the key in the lock just below the doorknob. “Matt?” she whispered, so softly that even she could barely hear her words. “Matt, is that you?”

  Nothing.

  She wanted to lock the door to her bedroom, wanted to go back to her bed and wrap herself in the comfort of the down quilt. But as if held in thrall by some force she could neither see nor feel, she turned the doorknob and pulled the door open.

  The corridor was dimly lit by a night-light; both its ends lost in shadows. Clutching the lapels of the robe tight around her throat, Joan slipped out into the hallway.

  Though she knew it could be no more than an illusion, the corridor seemed to stretch away forever in both directions.

  Every door was closed.

  Yet she still felt the presence of someone — or something — lurking close by.

  Very close by.

  “M-Mother?” she stammered, her voice trembling. “Mother, is that you?” But even as she uttered the words she knew her mother was nowhere in the house, and when once more the tinkle of laughter pierced the silence, it stung her like a thousand needles jabbing at her skin.

  Cynthia!

  It was Cynthia’s laugh!

  The same laugh Joan had heard hundreds of times — thousands of times — when she was a child.

  Steeling herself, she moved down the corridor until she stood in front of the door to Cynthia’s room.

  No! Not Cynthia’s room!

  Her room! In her house! It was nothing more than a guest room in which her mother had stored her sister’s things!

  She reached out and gripped the knob, but still she hesitated.

  Why? What was she afraid of?

  She was just tired — exhausted from everything she’d been through in the last few days. And her mind felt as exhausted as her body — her grief, her lack of sleep, all of it had taken its toll. Why wouldn’t she be imagining things? Hearing voices? Feeling things that weren’t there?

  The laughter came again, and Joan shuddered as a chill rolled over her.

  Go back, she told herself. Go back to bed, and go to sleep.

  But even as her mind spoke the order, her hand turned the doorknob and pushed open the door to Cynthia’s room.

  She felt for the light switch; turned it on.

  And saw her sister staring at her.

  A scream rose in Joan’s throat, but as quickly as it came, she stifled it. It wasn’t Cynthia she was seeing at all, only the portrait that hung on the wall. Furious at her own reaction to the picture, she moved deeper into the room, her eyes locking on the image of her sister.

  Cynthia’s eyes seemed to come alive, holding Joan’s gaze; her smile twisted into a mocking smirk.

  “What do you want?” Joan demanded. Though she heard nothing, Cynthia’s eyes continued to grip her.

  Grip her as they had when s
he was a child, and Cynthia was about to tell their mother a lie, warning Joan with nothing more than a look to say nothing.

  An image leaped from the depths of Joan’s subconscious. . . .

  * * *

  SHE WAS FIVE years old, sprawled out on the floor in the living room, poring over one of her books. Cynthia was stretched out on the sofa, leafing through a movie magazine. The phone rang, and as Joan scrambled to her feet, Cynthia reached behind her without looking and picked up the receiver. As she pulled it to her ear, the cord caught on their mother’s favorite vase and it crashed to the floor. When their mother rushed into the room a few seconds later, Joan was still staring at the scattered shards. Then she heard Cynthia telling their mother what had happened.

  “She didn’t mean to do it, Mama. She was just trying to answer the phone, and she knocked it off the table.”

  As the words — and the certain knowledge of what would happen next — sank into Joan’s mind, she tore her eyes away from the shattered remains of the vase. Her mother was glowering down at her, her hand already raised to punish her clumsiness.

  Behind her stood Cynthia.

  Her eyes warning Joan to keep silent, Cynthia’s lips twisted into a smile so cold that it froze the younger girl.

  In silence, she had borne the punishment that should have gone to Cynthia, and that night, when they were both in their beds, Cynthia asked her how she could have been so clumsy.

  “But I didn’t do it,” Joan protested. “You broke Mommy’s vase!”

  “Me?” Cynthia said. “But Joanie-baby, you were the one that tried to answer the phone. Don’t you remember? As soon as it rang, you jumped up to answer it and knocked over the vase!”

  “No, I didn’t,” Joan objected. “It was you!”

  But Cynthia had gone over it again and again, and finally Joan decided her sister must be right — she herself must have been so afraid of what her mother might do that she’d wanted it to be Cynthia’s fault. “But it wasn’t my fault, Joanie-baby,” Cynthia explained. “It was your fault. It was all your fault.”

  * * *

  AS THE LONG-BURIED memory blazed in her mind another memory stirred in her. The memory of the strange story Matt had told about what had happened the night before last, when his grandmother disappeared from her room.

  And she remembered the terrible nightmare Matt had told her about just this afternoon.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered in the darkness. “Are you trying to blame Matt this time? Are you trying to blame him for what you’ve done?” Her eyes still fixed on the image of Cynthia, she backed out of the room. “Well, I won’t let you! Do you hear? I won’t let you!” Snapping off the light, Joan pulled the door closed behind her, then twisted the key in the lock, jerked it out of the door, and dropped it in the pocket of her robe. Only then — with the door securely locked behind her — did she rest against the wall for a moment while her racing heart slowed.

  And once again, she heard her sister’s laugh.

  CHAPTER 14

  JOAN HAD TO get out of the house.

  It was mid-morning. Matt had left for school three hours ago, and for the last two of those hours Joan had been trying to concentrate on the task she could put off no longer: sorting through the contents of Bill’s desk, deciding which of the stacks of papers needed to be returned to his office, which turned over to Trip Wainwright, and which to either keep or dispose of. But every time she went to the desk in the den, she turned away, unable to bring herself to begin the job. She knew what was holding her back.

  It was the finality of it.

  Even as she’d stood at her husband’s graveside, looking down at his coffin, some small part of her still rejected the reality of it, the cold truth that she would never see her husband again, never be able to talk to him. Never feel his touch.

  That same small part of her still clung to the idea that as long as Bill’s things were just as he’d left them — the clothes, the papers in his desk, even the books and magazines that he hadn’t finished reading — as long as none of those things were touched, he might still come back.

  Like her mother with Cynthia, she told herself that morning when her eyes had fallen on the row of Bill’s suits that still hung in the closet in her bedroom. But even knowing that keeping Bill’s things was as futile for her as keeping Cynthia’s was for her mother, Joan still hadn’t been able to bring herself to take his suits and shirts out of the closet. But she promised herself she’d start with the desk.

  Yet even that proved to be too much, for every time she approached it — every time she sat down at the desk and started to open one of its drawers — she felt as if she were being watched, as if unseen eyes were peering over her shoulder, following her every move.

  The first time, she simply tried to shake it off, but no sooner had she pulled the top left-hand drawer open than she felt it again, and instinctively slammed the drawer shut and whirled around to see who was watching her.

  The den, of course, was empty.

  The whole house was empty, except for her.

  But it didn’t feel empty.

  It felt as if someone were there, lurking close by, stealthily following her as she moved from one room to another.

  Stalking her.

  Finally she left the house, telling herself that she wanted to talk to Dan Pullman, find out if any trace of her mother had been found. But she knew that was only part of it — that just as strong was her need simply to escape from the house.

  The house and everything in it — both seen and unseen.

  There was only one car parked at the head of the trail to the pool below the falls that morning — Dan Pullman’s black-and-white Taurus — and when Joan emerged onto the shelf of rock edging the pool, she found him removing the bright yellow ribbons that had warned the curious away from the areas where traces of Emily Moore had been found.

  “You’re giving up, aren’t you?” she asked, biting her lip to hold back the tears that threatened to engulf her. How could they do it? How could they just walk away from the search?

  Pullman couldn’t quite bring himself to meet her eyes. “I just can’t keep my men on it any longer,” he replied as if he’d read her thoughts. “It seems like if we were going to find her, we would have by now.” His eyes moved toward the heavy clouds that seemed to hang just above the treetops. “With this weather . . .” His voice trailed off, but his meaning was unmistakable. “Well,” he went on a few seconds later, shoving the last of the yellow tape into a plastic trash bag, “I guess I’d better be getting back to town.” He hesitated again, then: “Will you be all right, Joan?”

  She took a deep breath and forced a nod. “I don’t have much choice, do I?” When Dan seemed uncertain about whether to leave her, she spoke again. “You go on, Dan. I’ll be all right. I promise.”

  As Pullman started back up the path, Joan gazed out over the pool. Its clear green water — water she’d swum in hundreds of times over the years — had turned gray under the overcast sky, and when she looked up, the naked branches of a huge oak — stripped bare by last night’s wind — seemed to reach toward her, as if to snatch her up and hurl her into the leaden water. As she flinched reflexively away from the tree, she thought she heard a faint sound.

  She was about to call out when she heard something else.

  A voice.

  Cynthia’s voice.

  “Remember Timmy?”

  Joan’s heart skipped a beat, but even before the words had sunk in, her eyes flicked back to the tree she had flinched away from a moment ago. Only now it had changed.

  * * *

  A ROPE HUNG from one of the tree’s branches, and a boy clung to the end of the rope.

  Timmy Phelps.

  Barely six — two years younger than Joan — Timmy laughed happily as he swung back and forth. As he swung toward her, Joan gave him a gentle push so his motion wouldn’t die down.

  But as she pushed, she heard Cynthia — treading water in the middle o
f the pool — call out to her. “Push him harder, Joan. Push him harder!”

  As Cynthia urged her on and Timmy shrieked with excitement, she pushed harder and harder, until each swing took Timmy out over the very center of the pool. Then Cynthia’s urging suddenly changed.

  “Let go, Timmy!” she shouted. “Let the rope go! I’ll catch you!”

  A split-second later Timmy dropped into the water and the rope suddenly went slack, dangling loosely from the branch.

  Cynthia, still treading water, was laughing.

  And Timmy Phelps was gone.

  Joan stared at the water — where was he?

  What had happened? Why hadn’t Cynthia caught him? Everyone knew Timmy couldn’t swim!

  Without thinking, Joan plunged into the pool. Beneath the water, she kicked hard, forcing herself down deeper and deeper.

  Keeping her eyes open, she twisted around, trying to find Timmy. Then her lungs started to burn, and she knew she could hold her breath only another few seconds.

  Where was he?

  Her chest felt like it was on fire, and in a few seconds she would have to give up. Then, she saw him.

  He was reaching out to her, just a few feet away. She kicked, then kicked again, and just as she knew she could hold out no longer, her fingers closed on his hand. She hurled herself to the surface, expelling air from her lungs all the way.

  Her head finally burst out of the water the instant she could resist inhaling no longer.

  Somehow, she managed to pull Timmy out of the pool and start pumping the water out of his lungs. Then her mother was there, and Cynthia was telling her what had happened.

  “Joan was pushing him on the rope, Mama. I tried to make her stop, but she wouldn’t. She just kept pushing him higher and higher. But she didn’t mean for him to fall, Mama. She was just having fun. It wasn’t really her fault.”

  * * *

  JOAN STARED AT the spot where she’d saved Timmy Phelps’s life, Cynthia’s words burning once more in her memory.

  “Is that what you did?” she finally whispered, her eyes moving once more to the dark waters of the pool. “Did you do the same thing to Mother that you did to Timmy?”