He’d abandoned her, just as her mother and sister had abandoned her in the dream.
She turned over, wanting to escape back into sleep, but even as the urge to retreat into unconsciousness came over her, she knew it would do no good. The dream would only reach out to her again.
And even if she managed a few more minutes of escape, the day — and reality — would still await her. Pulling on her robe, she went out into the corridor toward the head of the stairs. But as she passed the guest room and noticed that the door was ajar, she paused.
Why was the door open? Even now she could hear the echo of her mother’s voice. “Stay out of that room! That’s Cynthia’s room, and I won’t have you ruining her things!”
Suddenly the dream came back to her, and she moved into the doorway. The vanity table was exactly as she’d seen it in her dream. All her sister’s makeup laid out as if Cynthia had only stepped out for a minute or two and would soon be back. Joan’s eyes darted over the rest of the room — the pictures of Cynthia — her magazines, still open, as if she were in the midst of reading them — her favorite negligee still thrown over the end of the bed, as it had been for years, first in the house on Burlington Avenue, now here.
Here, in Cynthia’s room.
Cynthia’s room!
Joan’s eyes fixed on one of the images of her sister that covered the walls and stood in frames on every piece of furniture. “Leave us alone,” she whispered. “Why can’t you just leave us alone?”
She started to turn away, but the silence that followed her words was broken by a sound.
An impossible sound.
The sound of her sister laughing.
Laughing at her.
Mocking her.
Joan whirled back to face the room, almost expecting to see Cynthia sitting at the vanity, her eyes sparkling with mischief as she gazed at the shock on Joan’s face. But there was nothing.
Nothing except the laughter that had echoed out of the past.
Turning away from the room — and everything in it — Joan started once more toward the stairs, but again paused, this time outside her mother’s room. She listened, knowing that if she heard the deep sound of her mother’s snoring, she would have a few minutes to herself before her mother awoke. But if her mother was already awake, she would begin calling for her the moment Emily heard her going down the stairs.
She listened, but heard nothing.
Joan’s breath caught as she realized what the silence might mean, and for a moment she was almost afraid to open the door.
If her mother had died —
Steeling herself, she turned the knob and opened the door.
Empty!
Her mother’s bed was empty.
Joan hurried across the room to the door leading to the small bathroom between her mother’s room and Cynthia’s.
Empty!
Downstairs.
Her mother must have gotten up early and gone down to the kitchen! Hurrying down the stairs, she searched the lower floor, calling out her mother’s name.
The rooms were silent and empty.
Her mother was no longer in the house.
She stopped short.
The portrait, like the laughter she’d heard earlier, seemed to be mocking her. Then she remembered the nights when she heard her mother inside that room, talking to Cynthia.
Talking to her as if she were still alive.
“What have you done with her?” Joan whispered, her eyes locking on her sister’s. “What have you done with Mother?”
This time she heard no laughter.
This time she heard nothing at all.
* * *
“MATT? MATT, WAKE up!”
Wide-awake in an instant, Matt knew by the look on his mother’s face that something had happened, and even before she said anything, he was certain he knew what it was.
“Mother’s gone,” Joan said, confirming the thought that had gripped him.
“You mean she isn’t in the house at all?”
“Just get dressed and come help me.”
Five minutes later he joined his mother in the kitchen, and together they searched the entire house, even going up into the dusty attic beneath the steeply pitched roof. After they’d searched the basement as well, they came back to the kitchen.
“What are we going to do?” Matt asked.
“Look outside. If we only knew how long she’s been gone — ” Her anxious eyes fixed on Matt. “Did you hear anything last night? Anything at all?”
Matt hesitated. He’d dreamed about his aunt Cynthia again, dreamed that she came to him in the night and crept into his bed and — He shuddered at the memory, trying to force it out of his mind. But there was something else as well…
Then it came back to him! He’d had another dream. A dream about his grandmother. He’d heard her talking, and gone to look out into the hall. And he’d seen something…
For a second he wasn’t sure what it was — just a sort of hazy figure, almost invisible in the darkness. But then he’d known — it was a ghost.
The ghost of his aunt, her long blond hair flowing down her back, wearing the same white nightgown she always wore when he dreamed about her. Frozen by terror, his heart pounding, he’d watched as the ghostly figure disappeared down the stairs. Then his grandmother appeared in the hall and started after his aunt. He tried to call out to her but had barely been able to utter a word, and when he was finally able to make himself go to the top of the stairs and look down, he had seen…
Nothing!
Nothing but the empty entrance hall.
Nor had he heard anything, for a silence had fallen over the house that seemed somehow unnatural. Finally he retreated to his room and back to his bed. He’d lain in the darkness for a long time, listening, but he heard nothing else. Certain that what had happened must have been a dream, he tried to put it out of his mind.
But then the other dream came, and once again his aunt was in his room, in his bed, touching him, caressing him.
“No,” he said, finally replying to his mother’s question. “I didn’t hear anything. I just had a dream, that’s all.”
Though he wasn’t looking quite at her, he felt his mother’s eyes on him.
But he wasn’t lying — it had only been a dream! He was sure it had! There was no such thing as ghosts.
Were there?
