Home Before Dark

by Riley Sager

  That’s why it pains me so much to now think there’s an inkling of truth to what my father wrote. Not just about Baneberry Hall being haunted.

  About everything.

  It’s not safe there. Not for you.

  “Did my father ever mention ghosts?” I say.

  “Of course,” Marta says. “By then, your family’s story had been all over the news.”

  “You two didn’t talk until after we left Baneberry Hall?”

  “It was about two weeks after,” Marta says. “I remember because it was the only thing people talked about when they came to the bakery. They worried I was distressed by seeing Baneberry Hall in the news so much.”

  “Were you?”

  “At first,” she admits. “But I was also curious about what your family had experienced here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it wouldn’t surprise me if this place is haunted.” Marta steps off the porch to gaze up at the front exterior of Baneberry Hall. A reflection of the house fills the lenses of her spectacles, hiding the fearful curiosity I’m sure is in her eyes. “I don’t believe in ghosts. But this house—and what’s happened here—well, it could make me change my mind.”

  I remain on the porch, watching her watch Baneberry Hall. What I need to ask next is a make-or-break moment. One that might cause Marta Carver to think I’m exactly like my father.

  Cruel.

  “Did you ever wonder—even just for a second—if my father was right?” I say. “About those things he suggested in the Book. What if your husband didn’t kill your daughter?”

  I expect Marta to be angry. She ends up being the opposite. Returning to the porch, she pulls me into a fierce hug.

  “Oh, Maggie, I know what you’re feeling right now. I’ve been there, too. Wanting to believe anything other than what’s right in front of you. For months—even years—I harbored this kernel of hope that Curtis didn’t do it. That he couldn’t have been that much of a monster. But he did do it, Maggie.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  “He left a note,” Marta says. “It was kept out of the official police report, which is why it wasn’t in any articles about the crime. Curtis suffered from depression, which wasn’t talked about as much then as it is now. Katie’s illness sent him into a spiral. He wrote that he couldn’t handle it anymore. That all he wanted to do was end the suffering he and Katie were experiencing. The police confirmed it was his handwriting, and forensics evidence proved he killed both Katie and himself.”

  She pauses, as if just saying those words has knocked the air out of her. That’s what hearing them has done to me. I can scarcely breathe.

  “It’s hard coming to terms with the fact that someone you loved was capable of such cruelty,” she eventually says.

  I’m not ready to start that process. How can I, when so much of what happened that night remains unknown?

  But Marta’s mind is already made up, for she says, “I always wondered why your father wrote that book. It always troubled me why someone would go out of his way to spread such lies. It wasn’t until I heard you found the Ditmer girl inside Baneberry Hall that it all made sense. It was his way of justifying it.”

  “Justifying what?”

  “Killing her,” Marta says. “By exonerating my husband in the pages of his book, your father was also trying to exonerate himself. It’s just that, until recently, none of us knew what his crime was.”

  I can’t fault her thinking. In hindsight, much of the Book feels like a secret confession. My father went so far as to point out the spot in the floor where Petra’s body had been hidden, almost as if daring someone to look there.

  “I don’t blame you for any of this, Maggie,” Marta says. “Not the things your father said. Or the things he wrote. I can even understand why you’re doing that thing on the auction sites.”

  For what feels like the twentieth time during our conversation, I give Marta a look of utter confoundment. “What thing? On what auction sites?”

  “You’ve been selling things online. Items from Baneberry Hall. Authentic Baneberry Hall artifacts. That’s what you’ve been calling them.”

  “But I haven’t.”

  “Someone has,” Marta says. “Several people have brought it to my attention, including my lawyer. He advised me to sue for part of the profits on the grounds that it’s exploiting my tragedy.”

  I yank my phone from my pocket and open the web browser. Three search words later—Baneberry Hall artifacts—brings me to an auction site listing at least a dozen items claiming to be from what the seller calls “the most haunted house in America.” I swipe through the wares on offer, seeing a fountain pen, several plates, a pair of candlesticks, and, the most recent addition, a silver letter opener.

  I tap the image to enlarge it, paying close attention to the handle. It’s not until I see two familiar letters engraved in the silver—W.G.—that I realize the seller isn’t lying. This letter opener is the same one that went missing from Baneberry Hall.

  And I know exactly who took it.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell Marta. “I need to go.”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “Not at all. In fact, you helped me more than you know.”

  Marta wears a confused expression as I walk her to her car. I thank her for the pie and tell her I’ll explain everything later. Because right now, I need to talk to a ghost.

  Or, to be more precise, a ghoul.

  JULY 12

  Day 17

  I didn’t tell Jess about the bells or my talk with Marta Carver or my fear that something terrible was brewing inside Baneberry Hall. I knew she wouldn’t want to hear it. She’d made up her mind that everything happening there was, if not normal, then at least benign. Denial was a powerful force, and Jess was fully caught in its grip.

  Once Jess left for work, I walked with Maggie to Elsa Ditmer’s cottage to again convince Petra to babysit. But instead of Petra, it was Elsa herself who answered the door. We hadn’t spoken since the night of the sleepover, and I detected residual traces of anger in her pinched expression.

  “Do you need something, Mr. Holt?” she said, looking not at me but at my daughter.

  I explained that I needed to do some work in my study and wondered if Petra could watch Maggie for a few hours.

  “Petra’s being punished,” Elsa said, not elaborating why. But it was clear how she was being punished. Petra’s voice, coming from somewhere deep inside the house, drifted out the open door.

  “Lord have mercy on me,” I heard her murmur. “Do not look upon my sins, but take away all my guilt.”

  Elsa pretended not to hear it. Instead, she finally looked my way and said, “I can watch Maggie, if you’d like. But only for an hour.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

  Elsa retreated inside the house for a minute before returning. As she closed the front door, I could still hear Petra’s feverish prayer.

  “Create in me a clean heart, and renew within me an upright spirit.”

  Together, the three of us left for Baneberry Hall, strolling up the twisting, wooded drive in relative silence. Elsa spoke only when the roof of the house popped into view.

  “Your daughter is still seeing things, yes?”

  “She is,” I replied. “Her doctor says she has a very active imagination.”

  “If only that were true.”

  I looked to Elsa, surprised. “You think Maggie’s lying?”

  “On the contrary. I think she can see things most of us aren’t able to.”

  Ghosts.

  That’s what Elsa was talking about. That Maggie was seeing ghosts. I already knew that. What I didn’t know—and what I had failed to learn from Marta Carver—was if I needed to be worried. As we reached the house, it was clear I had talked to the wrong pers
on. I should have gone to Elsa Ditmer all along.

  “Do you think my daughter’s in danger?”

  Elsa gave a solemn nod toward Baneberry Hall. “In this house, all daughters are in danger.”

  I thought about the articles I’d found at the library. “You know its history, then?”

  “I do,” Elsa said. “My mother worked here. As did her mother. We’re well-acquainted with the tragedies that have taken place inside these walls.”

  “What should I do?”

  “You want my honest opinion?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would leave as quickly as you’re able,” Elsa said. “Until then, watch your daughter closely. And be as careful as possible.”

  Rather than go inside, Elsa suggested that she and Maggie play in the backyard. After what I’d just been told, I thought it was a great idea. Part of me wanted to forbid Maggie from ever entering that house again, even though I knew that was impossible.

  While they played, I went to the study and sat at my desk, sorting through the articles I’d photocopied at the library. Not just the ones about the deaths of Indigo Garson and Katie Carver, but all the others, too. Those unnerving incidents no one had bothered to tell us about.

  The accident in 1926 happened when a car curving its way down the hillside suddenly veered off the driveway into the woods. The driver claimed a white blur had streaked in front of the car, forcing him to swerve to miss it. The car hit a tree, killing the passenger—William Garson’s fourteen-year-old granddaughter.

  The man behind the wheel was her father.

  In 1941, the person who drowned in the bathtub was the daughter of the Hollywood producer who had bought the place from the Garson family.

  She was four, far too young to be in a bathtub on her own.

  Which is why her father had been there with her.

  He told police he had, for no ascertainable reason, suddenly blacked out. He woke up to the sight of his daughter’s lifeless body floating in the tub. The police had considered pressing charges, but there hadn’t been enough evidence.

  Then two deaths in two years, after Baneberry Hall became a bed-and-breakfast. One guest, a fifteen-year-old, inexplicably climbed out a second-floor window and fell to her death. Another—a thirteen-year-old girl—was found dead in her bed, the victim of an unknown heart condition.

  Both girls had been staying with their fathers.

  The death in 1974 was another apparent accident. The victim, the only daughter of the family who bought the house after its bed-and-breakfast days had ended, tumbled down the main staircase.

  She was five.

  The same age as Maggie.

  The only witness was her father, who couldn’t provide a good reason why his daughter, who had gone up and down those steps hundreds of times, would fall.

  Adding in Indigo Garson and Katie Carver, seven people had died in or near Baneberry Hall.

  All of them girls.

  All of them sixteen or younger.

  All of them in the presence of their fathers.

  Something entered the room just then. I sensed it—an additional presence imperceptibly felt.

  “Is this Curtis Carver?”

  Silence.

  “If it is you, give me a sign.”

  The record player next to me switched itself on. I watched it happen, my eyes not quite believing what they were seeing. One moment, the turntable was still. The next, it was spinning, the grooves on the album atop it blurring as it picked up speed.

  Even more incredible was when the record player’s arm moved by itself, as if pushed by an unseen hand. The needle dropped on the usual spot, and the music began to play.

  “You are sixteen, going on seventeen—”

  I scanned the room, looking for a glimpse of Curtis Carver himself. If Maggie could see him, then it seemed reasonable I could, too.

  I saw nothing.

  Still, Curtis was there. The record player confirmed it.

  “Did you kill your daughter?” I asked him.

  The music continued to play.

  “Baby, it’s time to think.”

  I took it to mean his answer was no. Maybe because I had started to believe he was innocent. After all, he hadn’t been around for all those other deaths. But William Garson had been. He had been at Baneberry Hall since the very beginning, even if for most of that time it was just literally in spirit.

  “Was it William Garson?”

  “Better beware, be canny and careful—”

  The record began to skip, a single word repeating itself.

  “careful”

  “careful”

  “careful”

  Curtis’s message was clear. William Garson was making fathers murder their daughters, just as he had.

  And if I couldn’t find a way to stop him, Maggie was going to be next.

  Twenty

  Hannah Ditmer doesn’t appear surprised when she finds me pounding on the back door of her mother’s cottage. She seems more impatient than anything else, shooting me a look that says, What took you so long?

  “Since I arrived, how many times have you been inside Baneberry Hall?” I say. “And how long have you been stealing from us?”

  “It’s not stealing if no one wants it,” Hannah says.

  “Just because that house sat empty didn’t mean those things were yours to take.”

  Hannah gives an agree-to-disagree shrug. “I can give you back the stuff that hasn’t sold. But most of what I took from that house is long gone. And good luck trying to get it back.”

  She drifts away from the open door, giving me the choice to enter or not. It’s obvious she doesn’t care. I opt to follow her, past the living room—the TV now blaring a cooking show—and into the kitchen.

  “You never answered my question,” I say. “How long has it been going on?”

  “A couple years.” Hannah sits at the kitchen table and reaches for her pack of Marlboro Lights. “Since my mom got sick.”

  That also answers my second question—why. And I get it. Elsa Ditmer was sick, they needed money, and Baneberry Hall was just sitting empty. A house-shaped treasure trove at the top of the hill.

  “And how many times did you sneak in since I’ve been there?”

  I know now it was her who kept entering Baneberry Hall and not some random ghoul from town. She’s the shadowy figure I saw outside the night I arrived. And the one I saw fleeing the house the night after that. The ringing bells and the chandelier and the record player—all of it was Hannah.

  She lights a cigarette. Smoke curls from her parted lips. “Enough that I’m surprised you didn’t catch me earlier.”

  “Why’d you do it?” I say. “I don’t care about most of the junk in that house. If you wanted it, all you needed to do was ask. You certainly didn’t need to distract me with ringing bells and a record player.”

  “It wasn’t a distraction,” Hannah says. “It was more of an attempt to get you to leave. That house has been a gold mine. I didn’t want to risk losing it.”

  “So all of this was just some Scooby-Doo trick to scare me away?”

  “I figured I’d give it a shot.” Hannah exhales a stream of smoke, pleased with herself. “And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.”

  “I assume that’s why you also told me what my father wrote about that sleepover was true.”

  “Some of it was,” Hannah says. “You really did think someone was in that wardrobe and started freaking out. And you did punch me. Although I was being a little bitch that night and probably had it coming. So, yeah, your father made up a lot of it, but the result was the same—we left early, and my mother was so pissed that she forbade us from going to your house again.”

  “You didn’t need to lie about that,” I say. “Nor did you need
to do all that haunted-house shit. The record player and that stupid teddy bear.”

  Hannah stubs out her cigarette. “What bear?”

  “You know what bear,” I say. “Buster.”

  “I haven’t seen Buster since the night Petra vanished.”

  I stare at her, looking for signs she’s lying. But Hannah’s face is now like a mask, hiding all emotion.

  “I think it’s best if you give me your keys,” I say. “To the gate and to the house itself.”

  “If you insist,” Hannah says.

  She leaves the kitchen and disappears upstairs, her footfalls heavy on the steps. Moments later, a shadow slides across the kitchen wall, darkening the Formica countertop. I spin around to see Elsa Ditmer in the doorway, wearing the same nightgown she had on the night I returned to Baneberry Hall. The crucifix around her neck glints in the kitchen light.

  “You’re not Petra,” she says, shuffling toward me.

  “I’m not,” I say. “I’m Maggie Holt.”

  “Maggie.” Elsa’s upon me now, her hands cold on my cheeks as she stares into my eyes. “Don’t stay in that house. You’re going to die there.”

  Hannah enters the kitchen, a key ring in her hand. Her face drops when she sees her mother.

  “Mama, you should be resting,” she says, gently pulling Elsa away from me.

  “I want to see Petra.”

  “I told you, Petra’s gone.”

  “Where?” Elsa’s voice is so full of heartbreak it makes me want to cover my ears. “Where has she gone?”

  “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Hannah looks my way, concerned I’m going to judge her for not telling her mother the truth. I wouldn’t dare. I know full well how much the truth can hurt. “Now let’s get you into bed.”