wild displays and bizarre juxtapositions, and acceptance had been achieved long before understanding.
There was a noise behind him, a tapping. He turned And it was Carole.
Seeing her ghost was almost like seeing an old friend.
In life, they hadn't gotten along particularly well. At least not for the past half decade or so. And after her death, seeing her ghost around their home and last night, especially, had been frightening and disturbing. But his life had taken a 180-degree turn, and here, in this House, he was glad to see her ghost. It was comforting, a pleasant surprise, and he looked at her naked form and found himself smiling. 'Carole,' he said.
She did not smile back. 'Your family is waiting for you.'
He shook his head as though he had not heard correctly.
'What?'
'You need to talk to your family. Your parents. Your brother. Your sisters.'
There was no expression on her face, only a dispassionate blankness, and his own smile had completely disappeared.
The last thing he wanted to do was talk to his family. 'Why?' he asked.
'That is why you are here.'
'To meet with them?'
The ghost nodded.
'I will,' he said. 'Eventually.'
'No you won't.'
He met her eyes. 'Maybe I won't.'
'You can't keep avoiding them,' Carole said.
'Watch me.'
The two of them faced each other, and he realized suddenly that the reason he was so apprehensive about meeting his family again was because he felt responsible for their deaths. It was his fault they had been killed. If he had not stopped seeing Donna, if he had not dumped her, she would not have taken this revenge on him. Hell, if he hadn't gotten involved with her in the first place, if he had not stoned seeing her, he would not have had to stop seeing her. No matter which way he sliced it, it was his fault that his parents, his brother, and his sisters had been murdered, and that was why he had been unwilling to talk to them, to meet them, why he had been so uncomfortable even seeing them again. He didn't know if this version of his family knew what had happened to them or what would happen to them, but he was afraid that they'd confront him about it, that they'd blame him, and while he could handle supernatural snakes and recurring ghosts and book-faces, he did not think he would be able to handle that.
'Talk to them,' Carole urged.
Norton cleared his throat, and though all of those years, all of those decades had gone by, he felt like a little boy again, nervous and afraid. 'I can't,' he said.
'You have to.'
'I can't.'
'Have you seen Billings?' she asked.
He shook his head. Where was the hired hand? he wondered.
'He's dead,' she said, and he heard a tremor of fear in her voice. 'She had him killed.'
'She?'
'Donna.'
Norton felt the cold wash over him.
'Talk to your parents,' Carole said. 'Talk to your family.'
She left then, not floating away, not fading into nothingness, but somehow . . . dispersing, her form devolving into separate elements and components that were absorbed into the floor, the walls, the ceiling, changing color, changing shape, blending in and disappearing.
He looked around, then stared at the spot where she'd been. Was she real? Or was she a part of the House?
Or both?
He didn't know, and he supposed in the end it didn't really matter. He believed her, she'd spoken the truth, and the important thing was that her message had gotten across. As much as he dreaded the idea, as much as he didn't want to do it, he knew that he had to meet with his family, he had to talk to them. About what, he didn't know. But he supposed that would work itself out.
As if on cue, he heard the sound of voices coming from up ahead. He recognized Darren's laugh, Estelle's whine. He moved forward, walking slowly, wiping his sweaty hands on his pants and trying desperately to think of what he would say to them.
Light spilled into the hall from an open doorway up ahead, and taking a fortifying breath, he stepped into the light.
They were all in the family room now: his sisters and brother on the floor in their pajamas, gathered around the radio; his mother in her chair next to the unlit fireplace, crocheting; his father in his chair next to the light, reading a book. In his mind, he saw their heads in the oven, blackened, peeling, stuck together, and he closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, trying to will the image away.
When he opened his eyes, they were all looking at him. His mother's crocheting had stopped in mid- weave;
his father had put down his book. He knew this couldn't be real--a few minutes ago, they'd all been upstairs playing Parcheesi in the empty library, and there was no way they could have gotten downstairs and changed their clothes and settled into these new positions that fast-- but it felt real, and he understood that even if the physical specifics weren't what they were supposed to be, the underlying emotional realities were. He looked from his father to his mother. 'Hello,' he said.
'Where've you been?' his father asked gruffly. He picked up his book, settled down to read.
'Fibber McGee's on,' his mother said, motioning toward the radio.
He was thrown a little off balance. He'd been expecting something . . . different. But his parents were treating him as though he were still a child and this was an ordinary evening, and he'd simply shown up late to listen to his favorite radio show. He wasn't sure what he should do, how he should react. Should he play along, pretend as though he were a child and try to fit into this cozy little scene? Or should he break the spell, be who he really was, say what he wanted to say, ask what he wanted to ask?
He thought for a moment, then walked across the family room to the radio, turning it off. His brother and sisters looked up at him, annoyed, but he ignored them and turned to face his parents. 'We need to talk,' he said. 'We need to talk about Donna.'
Once again, his father put his book down. His mother let her crocheting fall into her lap.
'She's a bad girl,' Norton said.
His father nodded.
'She's nasty,' Bella piped up. 'She likes to play sex games.'
He expected his parents to shush his sister, chastise her, tell her not to talk about such obscenities, but they did not even flinch, and their serious gazes remained focused on his.
He swallowed hard. 'She is nasty,' he said. 'She does like to play sex games.'
His parents looked at each other.
He was an old man, older than his father had ever lived to be, but he felt as embarrassed saying this in front of his family as he would have at ten years of age.
He felt hot, flushed, and he knew his face was beet red.
'I know because I've done it with her,' he said, not meeting their eyes. 'But I ... I stopped. She didn't like that. Now she plans to--' He cleared his throat. 'She plans to kill you. All of you.'
'She likes to play blood games,' Bella said.
He looked from his father, to his mother, to his brother and sisters. 'Don't you understand what I'm saying here? You are in danger. If you don't do something, you'll end up dead, your heads chopped off.'
