Nightshade

taste in her mouth. The room was dark, but she wasn’t aware of it. Slowly, her old bones protesting, she lifted herself from the chair and shuffled into the bathroom. Fumbling in the medicine cabinet, she found a can of powder and shook some into the palm of her left hand. Her fingers found her toothbrush; she scrubbed it in the powder, then put it in her mouth. It didn’t taste quite right, and felt dry, but she kept brushing anyway, trying to rid herself of the sour taste.

Then, in the mirror, she glimpsed something. A movement, all but lost in the shadowy darkness.

Dropping the toothbrush, Emily turned and peered into the darkness.

The door to Cynthia’s room stood open.

And she could feel Cynthia’s presence. Her senses came alive. Her ears, weakened by the passing years, were filled with unfamiliar sounds: the ticking of a clock, the low hooting of an owl beyond the window, the rustling of a prowling animal.

Her eye, its focus softened with age, now caught every beam and flicker of light, and her daughter’s room was filled with a silvery glow.

Cynthia sat once more at the vanity table, her blond hair flowing in gentle waves over her shoulders, her diaphanous nightgown shimmering around her like a cloud.

Barely trusting the vision not to vanish before her like a mirage, Emily took an unsteady step forward.

Then another, and another.

Finally she stood behind Cynthia, gazing into the angelic face reflected in the mirror. Her hands trembling, she held them above her daughter’s shoulders, afraid to touch her child’s flesh lest it dissolve away to nothingness.

“I’m so glad, Cynthia,” she whispered, her voice as palsied as her hands. “I’m so glad you’ve come home.”

In the mirror, Cynthia’s eyes met hers, and a smile curled her lips. “Do you love me, Mama?” she asked softly.

“More than anything,” Emily whispered. “More than anything in the world.”

Cynthia rose from the chair and turned so Emily could gaze up into her perfect face.

Her eyes glowed in the silvery light.

Her smile widened.

Both her hands came up and rested on Emily’s thin shoulders.

A warmth she hadn’t felt in years suffused Emily’s body, washing away the cold that constantly gripped her. She reached up to touch her daughter’s cheek.

And in an instant, everything changed once more. Cynthia’s fingers suddenly felt like talons sinking painfully into Emily’s withered skin and flesh.

The silvery light that had magically filled the room faded away, and the gentle sounds of the night that a moment ago had filled the old woman’s ears died out.

The talons on Emily’s shoulders tightened, and she felt a stabbing pain in her chest. Then, as if impelled by some terrible force, she staggered backward.

Her balance failed her.

She struggled, fought to stay on her feet, reached out to grasp something — anything — to break her fall.

“Cynthia!” she cried out. “Help me, Cynthia!”

But it was too late. Her body crumpled to the floor, a flash of blinding pain shot through her, and in an instant she sank back into the unconsciousness from which she had emerged only minutes ago.

* * *

EMILY AWOKE SOMETIME before dawn, her body aching, her mind muddled. Struggling to her feet, she groped in the darkness until she found the bed, then dropped onto it. The pain in her body easing slightly, she drifted back into a fitful sleep. When next she awoke, the gray light of dawn filled the room, and she heard a voice speaking to her.

“Mother? Mother, are you all right? What are you doing in here?”

Her body aching, Emily pulled herself up to rest her back against the pillows. For a moment nothing around her looked familiar, but then, slowly, some of the fog began to lift from her mind.

“Cynthia?” she asked. “Is that you?”

“No, Mother,” Emily heard. “It’s not Cynthia. It’s Joan. Let me help you back to bed.”

Too tired and too sore to protest, Emily let Joan take her back to her room, half carrying her. Barely aware of what was happening, searching in the mists of her memory for some fragment of the beautiful vision that had come to her last night, she let herself be put in her own bed. Then, struggling to hold on to the memory of Cynthia, she fell once more into a restless sleep.

* * *

MATT FELT AS if he hadn’t slept at all; though the clock by his bed insisted it was eight-thirty, both his mind and his body were as exhausted as if he’d been up all night. A grunt of frustration boiling out of his throat, he turned over, punched at his pillow, and jerked the covers tight over his head, as if by shutting out the morning he could shut out not only the nightmares of the early hours before dawn, but the even worse nightmare that had been his birthday.

But it wouldn’t go away, because what had happened yesterday wasn’t a nightmare at all — it was real.

His stepfather — the only father he’d ever known — was dead, and there was no way that pulling the covers over his head could shut out the image he would carry in his mind for the rest of his life: the image of his stepfather’s expressionless face when Pete’s dad had turned the body just enough so they could see it.

The empty eyes that had stared straight at Matt.

The hole in the forehead.

The neat, oddly bloodless hole, that looked as if it had been made with a drill rather than a bullet.

Matt’s hand went to his own forehead, and a whimper of pain escaped his lips as he imagined what it must have been like. But it couldn’t have felt like anything, could it? His dad wouldn’t have even heard the shot, let alone felt the bullet entering his brain.

Alive one second.

Dead the same second.

The image of his stepfather’s face — and the hole puncturing his forehead — had stayed with Matt all day long, and he’d barely been aware of the steady stream of people who passed through the house all afternoon. But he had been acutely aware of some of the people who hadn’t been there.

Eric Holmes.

Pete Arneson.

Even Kelly Conroe.

He was pretty sure he knew why Eric and Pete hadn’t come — they were probably still telling the police what had happened. Or at least what they thought had happened. And they thought he’d killed his dad.

But why had Kelly Conroe stayed away? He kept looking for her, kept waiting for her to come in the front door. She wouldn’t even have had to say anything — it would have been enough if she’d just sat with him, and let him hold her hand. But she hadn’t come, and most of the time he’d sat by himself while people came through the house, telling his mother how sorry they were about what had happened.

Some of them had spoken to him, but he could tell by the sound of their voices — and the way they looked at him when they thought he didn’t see them — what they were thinking: You killed him. You killed our friend.

You killed your dad.

But mostly they didn’t speak to him at all — mostly they just whispered to each other, and looked at him.

Looked at him like he was some kind of strange insect.

But if he didn’t even know what had happened, how could any of them?

The whispering and staring went on and on, and the terrible image of his stepfather’s face hung before his eyes, and a numbing coldness began to fall over him.

By the time he’d finally gone to bed, he knew his life was forever changed.