He glanced over at his father and saw that his father appeared frightened as well. He'd put down the jewelry box he'd been holding and stood staring at the servant.
'You can't go,' Billingsly said quietly.
Daniel's father said nothing.
'You have a responsibility to uphold.'
For the first time since his mother's death, Daniel saw tears in his father's eyes. The sight made him uncomfortable and, on some level, frightened, but though he wanted to look away, he did not.
'I can't,' his father said.
'You must,' Billingsly insisted. He looked at them.
'You both have to stay.'
They did stay. For several more years. Until Daniel entered high school. They remained in the house, battered and victimized by the same unseen forces that had killed his mother, each of them maintaining three bedrooms, never sure when one bed might be overrun by colored worms or stained with black water, or when the furniture might decide to shift shape or a room disappear altogether.
They never talked about it--any of it--this was simply the way they lived, and his mother's death became by unspoken agreement a secret memory, not discussed or referenced or even alluded to, part of an alternate history that did not conform to the lie they lived.
And then, one day, they left. They packed nothing, took nothing with them. Daniel just received a call slip from the office on the first day of his freshman year in high school, and when he walked over, his father was waiting for him.
The two of them got in the car and left.
To Pennsylvania.
They found an apartment, his father found a job, and although Daniel wanted to ask his father what had happened, how they had been able to escape, he was afraid to do so.
His father died several years later, when he was a sophomore in college. They'd never mentioned or discussed the house after they'd left it, and by that time the memory of his other life had been completely buried and repressed.
As amazing as it seemed, he'd forgotten all about Billingsly and Doneen and what had happened to his mother, and when he thought about his mother, which was rarely, his mind skipped over her death. If pressed, he would have had to admit that he did not know exactly how she'd died.
It seemed strange even to him, and while most of the circumstances of his childhood had been buried in his memory over the years, not all of them had been completely forgotten. He had, for example, been dimly aware on some level that they'd had a servant in their house. It had never occurred to him to wonder how his family had been able to afford a servant, however, and even now the specifics of that arrangement eluded him.
Probably the same way the Brady Bunch could afford their maid.
No. It was nothing so benign as that.
AndBillingsly had been much more than just a servant.
Daniel stood before his wife, adamant but ashamed, dead set on the course of action he'd chosen but embarrassed by the melodrama of its origin, the potboiler nature of its cause.
'I have to go,' he said.
Margot simply stared at him.
'I know it sounds irrational. I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, that's what happened, and . . . whatever it was, it's starting again. And it's trying to involve Tony.'
She was silent for a moment. 'I believe you,' she said finally. 'That's the scary part.'
He looked at her, stunned. 'You do?'
'Well, not completely maybe. But enough so that I
trust your instincts.' She paused. 'Don't forget, I saw that doll, too. I know something's going on. And if you can somehow . . . exorcise this whatever-it-is and keep it away from Tony, well then I'm all for it.'
Daniel stared at his wife. It wasn't supposed to work this way, it wasn't supposed to be this easy. In books and movies, things worked out like this, but in real life it was supposed to be tougher. No one believed in ghosts and demons and the supernatural, and they didn't just accept someone's word on something like that. He tried to imagine what he would do, how he would react if Margot came to him with some wild story about seeing a UFO or something. He wasn't sure he'd buy into it or even if he'd automatically be on her side. He'd probably agree with her for love's sake, but he'd figure out some way to test her--or some way for her to get help. He doubted that he would completely change his worldview and suddenly believe in things he had never believed in before merely on the word of someone else.
Even if that other person was Margot.
He understood for the first time how truly lucky he was to have this woman for his wife.
'It's in Maine,' he said. 'The town's called Matty Groves and I'm not even sure exactly where it is, but I know it's probably a day's drive from here. I know I shouldn't--'
She put a firm arm on his, looked into his eyes.
'Go,' she told him.
It was indeed almost a day's drive, and Daniel reached MattyGroves just as the sun was setting. He should've left earlier--he'd set the alarm for five this morning-- but he hadn't wanted to part from Margot and Tony, and he'd ended up staying through breakfast.
He was filled with the absurd conviction that this was the last time he'd ever see them.
Although maybe, he thought as he approached the house, the idea wasn't so absurd.
Against its cheerful forested backdrop, the three storied building looked even gloomier and more gothic, like a stereotypical haunted mansion. Its slatted wooden walls were a dark gray; the trim, door, and shutters black. Even the glass in the windows seemed dusky, although that may just have been a trick of the dying light.
It was an imposing structure, with some of the same off putting air of impenetrability as a medieval fortress or cathedral, and Daniel stood in front of it, goose bumps on his arms. He had not seen the house since he and his father had fled, and had managed until now to block out all memory of it entirely, but once again he was here, and it was as though the house had been waiting for his return.
So it could punish him.
That was ridiculous.
Was it? Whatever it was, whatever lived here, whatever made this house its home, had found him, over distance, over time, and it had reached out to his son, to Tony, had introduced the boy to Billingsly and Doneen, had taught the boy how to make the doll.
It was crazy. All of it.
But there was nothing there he doubted.
He got out of the car, stared up at the dark building, taking it all in. The twin chimneys. The gables. The high window of his mother's corner bedroom. The wrap around porch where he and his friends had so often played, remaining always in the front because they were afraid of the sides and back of the house.
Where were his friends? he wondered. What had happened to them? What did they remember?
Something caught his eye. Movement in one of the lower windows. A dark face?
A dust doll?
He wanted to leave, wanted to turn tail and run, and if it had not been for Margot and Tony, he would have done exactly that. But he was not here only for himself.
He was here to find out what was infiltrating his life and put a stop to it, to intercept and end the supernatural harassment of his family.
Supernatural He hadn't thought of it in precisely those terms before, but that was exactly what was going on.
He supposed, on some level, he'd always been subtly aware that despite his comfortably normal mainstream existence, there was more to the universe than the material, physical world, that despite the life he had made for himself, there was something else that was somehow . . .
influencing him, guiding him. He'd repressed all memory of his childhood and had never seen any overt example or evidence of the supernatural, but all along there'd been small instances of deja vu, coincidences and
