Nightshade

talking among themselves, their eyes darting toward Matt, then quickly shifting away again, as if they feared being caught doing something not quite polite.

As the afternoon wore on and the first numbness of shock wore off, she tried to tell herself she was wrong — that she was imagining things. But she knew she wasn’t imagining things.

They were talking about Matt.

And about Bill.

They thought Matt had killed him.

Slowly, without quite realizing what was happening, fear for her son began to thaw the terrible cold of Joan’s grief for her husband, and through the tears that still glazed her eyes, she began to see her friends in a different light.

Her friends?

Were they really her friends? Had they ever been her friends?

She kept trying to tell herself that she was wrong, that they were as much her friends as Bill’s. But even as she tried to convince herself, she knew it wasn’t quite true. These were the people who had grown up with Bill, and though she’d always known them too, it wasn’t until she’d married Bill that she became a part of their group.

They’d never been inside the house on Burlington Avenue where she’d grown up.

None of the men had ever taken her to a dance when they were in high school.

She hadn’t been a song-leader at the football games, or part of the homecoming court, or anything else. For most of these people, she hadn’t really existed at all until the first night Bill Hapgood had taken her to dinner with his friends. And that night had been one of the most frightening of her life…

* * *

“THEY’RE STARING AT me,” she whispered. “Bill, why are they staring at me? Am I dressed wrong?”

“They’re staring at you because you’re the most beautiful woman they’ve ever seen,” Bill told her. Then he winked. “It’s when they stop staring at you that you have to start worrying.”

She didn’t believe him, of course, because she’d never been beautiful. Cynthia was the beautiful one, and even tonight, sitting with Bill on a perfect August evening, she’d been sure that if Cynthia were still alive, she herself wouldn’t be sitting here at all. It would have been Cynthia who Bill had come to the house on Burlington Avenue to pick up.

Her mother would have welcomed him, and taken him into the parlor, and made conversation with him while Cynthia put the finishing touches on her makeup.

And Cynthia wouldn’t have been praying that she wouldn’t break out in a sweat and stain the armpits of her best dress.

But it hadn’t been Cynthia — it had been her, trembling in front of Cynthia’s closet as she searched for a dress that might be suitable for an evening out with Bill Hapgood.

And instead of chatting with Bill, her mother had come upstairs and lectured her on making certain she behaved herself. “I already have one grandchild,” her mother had reminded her. “Don’t make me another one tonight.”

Her face burning, she had gone down to greet Bill, and found him playing with Matt. By the time he’d brought her home, he’d actually succeeded in making her feel like the most beautiful woman at the restaurant, and she knew she’d begun falling in love with him.

* * *

AND NOW, TEN years later, with the pain of Bill’s death still so sharp it felt like a knife twisting in her belly, she had the sickening feeling that a need to offer her their condolences wasn’t what had brought all these people to her home.

The real reason they’d come was to find out exactly what had happened in the woods that day.

But now, except for Nancy Conroe, the last of them were gone, and suddenly the only thing Joan wanted was to be alone.

Alone with Matt.

Alone with their grief.

Half an hour later she closed the door behind Nancy too and at last was able to turn her full attention to her son. He was sitting on one of the wingbacks flanking the fireplace, and she knelt in front of his chair, taking his hands in hers. “We’re going to be all right, Matt,” she said softly.

Matt, his sixteenth birthday drawing to a close neither of them could have imagined the day before, looked bleakly into his mother’s eyes.

“I know what they were thinking, Mom,” he said. “I know what they were all thinking. That I killed Dad.”

Should she try to argue with him? Tell him he was wrong? But how could she, when she knew he’d spoken the truth.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, needing to comfort her son even more than she herself needed to be comforted. “What they think doesn’t matter. What matters is that we both know you didn’t do anything.”

Matt said nothing.

* * *

EMILY MOORE WATCHED suspiciously as the last of the cars wound down the graveled driveway and disappeared into the trees. Several cars had come and gone today, but if anyone had asked her exactly how many, or how long any of them had stayed, she wouldn’t have been able to say. All she knew was that ever since Cynthia had come, everything was somehow different than before. Though the memory of seeing her beloved daughter was blurry, she’d been clinging to it, turning it over and over in her mind, trying to absorb every detail. But there was so little to hang on to. All she remembered was that she’d been in the bathroom, and suddenly knew that Cynthia had come home.

Just knew it!

She’d reached out to open the door that led to Cynthia’s room, but paused before turning the knob. What if she wasn’t there? But she was! Emily could feel her. So she turned the knob and slowly pushed open the door. And there she was — sitting at her vanity table, carefully finishing her makeup, just like she was getting ready to go to school. As Emily watched, Cynthia set aside her eyelash curler, examined herself carefully in the mirror, then reached for her perfume. As she opened the bottle, the musky scent of Nightshade filled the room. Her heart fluttering with excitement, and her knees weakening as the fumes surrounded her, Emily steadied herself against the doorjamb. When she tried to speak, even her voice was so faint it was barely a whisper: “Cynthia? My Cynthia?”

At first she didn’t think Cynthia heard her, but then her beloved daughter turned and smiled at her. “I’m home, Mama,” she said. “I’m finally home!”

One hand clutching at her breast to calm her hammering heart, the other stretched out toward Cynthia, Emily moved toward her perfect child. But she’d gone no more than a step or two when Cynthia, silent as a wraith, had risen from the little chair in front of the vanity and vanished through the heavy mahogany door leading to the hall. Emily tottered after her, but by the time she managed to pull the door open, Cynthia had disappeared.

Disappeared as completely as if she’d never been there at all. Emily had gone after her, making her way from room to room, searching every corner of the house, calling out to her, but it was no use.

Cynthia was gone.

When Joan finally came home, Emily told her about Cynthia, and then the cars started coming. She’d known why they were there right away. Joan didn’t want Cynthia here, so she’d made all these people come to look for her and take her away. Emily watched from the safety of her room, holding the curtain back just enough to peek out, terrified that at any moment they might find her perfect daughter. But now all the people and all the cars were gone, and finally, exhausted from her vigil by the window, Emily unsteadily made her way over to her chair and gingerly lowered herself into it.

Her eyes closed…

Minutes passed.

Perhaps hours.

Emily drifted up from the unconsciousness into which she’d fallen. Her body felt stiff and there was a sour