by Riley Sager
A rolling cloud of dust filled the kitchen. I closed my eyes and again covered my mouth, blocking the scream that had formed in my throat. The wave of dust hit me. It was gritty, like sand. Small granules stuck to my skin and coated my hair.
When I opened my eyes again, the dust was still settling, revealing the damage in gut-tightening increments. The rectangular hole in the ceiling. The matching chunk on the table, now broken into several smaller pieces.
And more snakes.
A dozen. Maybe more.
They had landed as a single unit—a writhing, hissing knot of snakes so big I worried the table would collapse under their weight. Within seconds, they were untangled and oozing outward.
Across the table.
Onto the floor.
A few more stragglers dropped from the ceiling, sending up their own individual puffs of dust.
The scream I’d been withholding finally broke free and echoed through the kitchen.
I screamed for Jess.
I screamed for help.
I screamed sounds I didn’t know I was capable of just because there was no other way to express my panic and revulsion and fear.
When they died down—settling as surely as the ceiling dust—I realized no amount of screaming could help in this situation. I had to jump down from the counter and run. There was no other choice.
Letting out another scream, I jumped. My bare feet hitting the floor sent the snakes around me rearing up. One struck at me. Its fangs snagged the hem of my pajama bottoms, got caught in the fabric, tugged until it was freed.
Another went for my right foot. I sprang away just in time, missing its bite, only to have a third snake aim for my left foot. It also missed.
I crossed the kitchen that way, jackrabbiting over the floor. At one point I stepped on a snake when I landed. A baby. Its body wriggling sickeningly against the bottom of my foot.
Then I was at the steps, on my way up at the same moment Jess and Maggie were coming down. They’d heard my screams and came running.
I wished they hadn’t.
Because it meant that they, too, caught a glimpse of the horror in the kitchen.
Maggie screamed when she saw the snakes, making sounds similar to my own. Jess let out a horrified gurgle. I thought she was going to be sick, so I took her arm and dragged her up the stairs before she had the chance. I used my other hand to grab Maggie, who’d been standing a few steps behind her.
Together, we climbed the steps and ran through the dining room. Jess and Maggie waited on the front porch while I went to the master bedroom to fetch my keys, wallet, and a pair of sneakers.
Then the three of us fled the house, not knowing where we were going but knowing we couldn’t stay inside.
Two weeks later, we did the same thing.
That time, though, we didn’t return.
Ten
It’s the dead of night and I’m in bed, not quite asleep but not quite awake.
My father had a phrase for that.
In the gray.
That netherworld between deep sleep and full wakefulness.
So I’m in the gray.
Or at least I think I am.
I might be dreaming, because in that fuzzy grayness I hear the armoire doors crack open.
I open my eyes, lift my head from the pillow, look to the armoire towering against the wall opposite the bed.
The doors are indeed open. Just an inch. A dark slit through which I can see into the armoire itself.
Inside is a man.
Staring.
Eyes unblinking.
Lips flat.
Mister Shadow.
This isn’t real. I repeat it in my head like a chant. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.
But Mister Shadow is still there, lurking inside. Not moving. Just staring.
Then the armoire doors open and he’s suddenly by the bed, leaning over me, gripping my arms and hissing, “You’re going to die here.”
My eyes snap open—for real this time. I sit up in bed, a terrified yelp leaping from my throat. I cast a panicked glance toward the armoire. Its doors are shut. There’s no Mister Shadow. It was all just a dream.
No, not a dream.
A night terror.
One that stays with me as I get out of bed and tiptoe to the armoire. Even though I know I’m being paranoid and ridiculous, I press my ear to one of the doors, listening for a hint of noise from within.
There’s nothing inside.
I know that.
To think otherwise would make me just as gullible as Wendy Davenport and any of the other people who believe the Book.
Yet fear tightens my chest as I tug the doors open just a crack. I tell myself it’s vigilance that makes me peer inside. Someone broke into the house last night, and it makes sense to make sure whoever it was hasn’t come back.
But I know the score.
I’m looking for Mister Shadow.
Inside the armoire, I see nothing but the dresses that still hang there, draped in darkness. They brighten once I throw the doors completely open, allowing them to be hit with the gray light coming through the bedroom windows.
The armoire is empty. Of course it is.
Even so, the nightmare lingers. Enough for me to decide to start my day, even though it’s barely dawn. In the shower, each groan of the creaky pipes seems to signal Mister Shadow’s approach. Every time I close my eyes against the spray of water, I expect to open them and find him here.
What bothers me so much about the nightmare is that it didn’t seem like one. It had the feel of something experienced. Something real.
A memory.
Just like the one I had of me and my father painting in the kitchen.
But it can’t be.
I can’t remember something that never happened.
Which means it’s the Book I’m remembering. A sound theory, if my father hadn’t written it in first person. The reader sees everything only through his eyes, and I’ve read House of Horrors too many times to know my father never wrote such a scene.
I survive the shower unscathed, of course, and make my way downstairs. The slip of paper is still jammed in the front door. It’s the same with all the windows.
Nothing has been disturbed.
I’m all alone.
No one here but us chickens.
When Dane arrives at eight, I’m already on my third cup of coffee and twitchy from the caffeine. And suspicious. Deep down, I know Dane had no role in last night’s events. Yet seeing him enter Baneberry Hall without my having unlocked the gate or the front door reminds me of the section of missing wall and the cottage just beyond it. There’s also the record player to consider. No one else knew we had found it yesterday. Only me and Dane, who insisted on dragging it to the desk.
“Which cottage is yours?” I ask him. “The yellow one or the brown one?”
“Brown.”
Which means the one I saw last night belongs to the Ditmers. Dane’s sits on the other side of the road.
“Now I have a question,” he says, eyeing the coffee mug in my hand. “Is there more of that, and can I have it?”
“There’s half a pot with your name on it.”
When we go down to the kitchen, I pour a giant mug and hand it to Dane.
He takes a sip and says, “Why did you ask about my cottage? Were you planning on paying me a visit?”
I note the flirtation in his voice. It’s impossible to miss. This time, unlike on the night of my arrival, it’s not entirely surprising. Or unwanted. But his timing could definitely be better. I have more pressing issues.
“Someone broke in last night,” I say.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I relay the events of last night, sparing no detail. He hears i
t all—the bell, the music, the missing bear, me shouting at whoever it was as they fled through the woods.
“And you thought it was me?” he says.
“Of course not,” I say, massaging the truth so as not to offend him. “I was just wondering if you saw anything suspicious last night.”
“Nothing. Have you asked Hannah if she did?”
“Haven’t had the chance. But do you know about the breach in the wall? There’s a spot where it’s crumbled away.”
“That’s been there for decades, I think. I wrote to your father last year asking if he wanted me to repair it, but he never got back to me.”
That’s because he was enduring aggressive rounds of chemotherapy, even though none of us had much hope it would help things. It was just a stalling tactic. A way to stretch out my father’s life by a few more months.
“Well, someone used it to get on the property,” I say. “They snuck into the house, although I don’t know how.”
Dane grabs a chair and sits down backward, his legs straddling the chair back. “Are you certain of that? The bear could have simply fallen behind the desk. We piled quite a bit of stuff on there.”
“That doesn’t explain the record player. It couldn’t have turned on by itself.”
“Not unless there’s something funky going on with the wiring. Have you noticed anything else weird?”
“Yes,” I say, recalling the night of my arrival. “The light switch in the Indigo Room doesn’t work. Not to mention the chandelier being on when I got home yesterday.”
“How about down here?” Dane looks to the kitchen ceiling and studies the light fixture, a chunky rectangle of smoked glass and gold trim that, like the rest of the kitchen, reeks of the eighties. His gaze soon moves to the bulging, stained swath of ceiling situated directly over the table.
“Looks like water damage,” he says.
“I’ve already added it to the very long list of things that need to be done to this kitchen.”
Dane climbs onto the table and stands beneath the bulge, trying to get a closer look.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking to see if the ceiling is compromised,” he says. “You may need to fix this sooner rather than later.”
He pokes the bulge with an index finger. Then, using his whole hand, he pushes on it. Seeing the ceiling give way slightly under his fingers unlocks another memory I know only from the Book. My stomach clenches as I picture the plaster opening up and snakes pouring out.
“Dane, don’t.” My voice is more anxious than I want it to be. “Just leave it alone for now.”
“This plaster is weak as hell,” he says as he keeps pushing. The ceiling expands and contracts slightly—like the rise and fall of a sleeping man’s chest.
It’s snakes, says the whispering voice I heard yesterday. My father’s voice. You know they’re there, Maggie.
If there are snakes coiled inside that ceiling, I want to pretend they’re not there, just like my parents pretended the Book didn’t tear our family apart.
“Dane, I’m serious,” I say, angry now. “Stop doing that.”
“I’m just—”
Dane’s hand bursts through the ceiling, punching into the plaster all the way up to his wrist. He curses and yanks away his fist.
The ceiling quivers as small chunks of plaster rain down around him.
The seams of the patch job darken, growing more pronounced. Puffs of plaster dust pop from newly formed crevices and spiral to the table.
A small groan follows.
The sound of the ceiling giving way.
Then it falls.
A rectangular section drops away like a trapdoor. It swings toward Dane, who tries to twist out of its path. The ceiling hits him anyway, knocking him over.
He lands hard and scoots backward, narrowly missing the swath of plaster as it fully rips away from the ceiling and breaks apart against the tabletop. Dust blooms from the rubble—a foul-smelling cloud that rolls through the kitchen.
I close my eyes and press against the kitchen counter, my hands gripping the edge, bracing for the snakes I’m certain will start raining down at any moment.
I’m not surprised when something drops from the ceiling.
I’ve been expecting it.
I don’t even flinch when I hear it land on the table with a muffled thud.
When the dust clears, Dane and I both open our eyes to see a formless blob sitting on the table like a centerpiece.
Dane blinks in disbelief. “What. The. Fuck.”
He jumps down from the table and backs away. I do the opposite, moving toward it.
It’s a sack. Burlap, I think. Or maybe canvas. The dust covering it makes it hard to tell. I poke it with an index finger, and whatever’s inside shifts, creating a sound I can only equate to Scrabble tiles inside their fabric pouch.
“Maybe it’s hidden treasure,” Dane says, his voice dazed so that I can’t tell if he’s being silly or serious.
Saying nothing, I lift the sack and tilt it. What’s inside pours out in a dusty stream and lands on the table in a dull-gray heap.
They’re bones.
Human ones.
I know because sliding out of the sack last is a skull, which rolls atop the pile. Leathery scraps of tissue cling to the bone, out of which sprout wiry strands of hair. Its eye sockets resemble twin black holes.
Transfixed and terrified, I stare into them, knowing deep down—in a place where only my darkest thoughts and fears reside—that this is why my family left Baneberry Hall.
JULY 3
Day 8
“You tell us, right this goddamn instant, what other problems are hiding inside that house, or I swear to Christ I’ll make sure you lose your Realtor’s license.”
Jess’s voice, already loud whenever she got angry, grew in both rage and volume as she spoke on the phone to Janie June.
“You’re damn right, I’m serious!” Jess yelled in response to something Janie June said. “Just like I’m serious about suing you for everything you’re worth.”
All were empty threats. There was nothing we could legally do. When we agreed to buy Baneberry Hall as is, all of its problems became our problems. We also had the house inspected, which found nothing to indicate there was a family of snakes living in the ceiling. This was simply a case of Mother Nature being an utter bitch.
Yet Jess continued to shout at Janie June for another fifteen minutes, her voice ringing off the wood-paneled walls of our room.
Even for a cheap roadside motel, the Two Pines Motor Lodge had seen better days. The rooms were minuscule, the lighting was poor, and an unpleasant combination of cigarette smoke and industrial-strength cleaner clung to every surface. Had there been anywhere else in Bartleby to call home for a night, we would have gone there. But the Two Pines was the only game in town. And since our house was overrun with snakes, we couldn’t be picky.
Still, we tried to make the best of a bad situation. After checking in the day before, Jess left to raid the vending machines. She returned with an armful of stale crackers, candy bars, and lukewarm sodas. We ate them sitting on the floor, Maggie all too happy to be having candy for lunch. After dinner at a diner a half-mile down the road, we spent the night crowded onto one of the twin beds, watching a TV that flickered with static no matter what channel we landed on.
Now it was morning, and all attempts to make the best of things had completely gone out the window. Not that the windows in the Two Pines could be opened. They were sealed, making the room stuffy as well as loud as Jess continued her tirade.
I was relieved when Officer Alcott knocked on our door right before we were due to check out, telling us the snakes had all been cleared and that we could return home.
“What kind of snakes were they?” Jess asked after hanging up on Janie June.
&nbs
p; “Just a bunch of red-bellies,” Officer Alcott said. “Completely harmless.”
“You didn’t have one swimming in your coffee,” I replied.
“Well, they’re gone now. Animal control rounded them all up. But I have to warn you—your kitchen now looks like a disaster area. Thought I should give you a heads-up before you return, just so you’re prepared.”
“I appreciate that,” I said.
After Officer Alcott left, we said goodbye to the Two Pines and wearily went back to a house we weren’t sure we wanted to return to. I drove us home in silence, feeling stupid for never considering how the reality of owning Baneberry Hall would be far different than the fantasy I’d created in my head. But now we were faced with nothing but reality. It had taken just over a week for the dream of Baneberry Hall to curdle into a nightmare.
And it did indeed feel like a nightmare when Jess and I descended the steps into the kitchen.
Officer Alcott had been wrong. The place didn’t look like a disaster area. It felt more like a war zone. London during the Blitz. The snakes were gone, but the debris remained. Chunks of ceiling. Splinters of wood. Cottony bits of insulation that probably contained asbestos. I covered my nose and mouth and told Jess to do the same before we stepped into the thick of the mess.
A good idea, it turned out, for a strong and nasty odor filled the air. It stank of dust and rot and something vaguely sulfurous that hadn’t been there the day before.
I walked through the rubble with a sinking feeling in my stomach. This would be a major cleanup. A costly one. I wanted to grab Jess by the arm, turn right around, and abandon Baneberry Hall for good. It was too big, with too many problems and far too much history.
But we couldn’t. We’d sunk pretty much all our money into this place. And even though we didn’t have the burden of a mortgage to deal with, I knew we wouldn’t be able to sell it. Not this quickly and certainly not in this condition.
We were stuck with Baneberry Hall.
Yet that didn’t mean we had to like it.
Jess summed up my feelings perfectly as she stared into the gaping hole that used to be our kitchen ceiling.
