Nightshade

“No,” Matt whispered. Then he screamed it, bellowing out his denial of what his eyes — and his aunt — had told him. “NOOOOooo…”

It was that final scream that tore him from the nightmare. His body convulsed as he howled out the word, and a split-second later he was wide-awake. But the images of the dream hung against the black canvas of the night, as clear as if they were illuminated from within. He lay in bed, trembling from the memory, his mind still crying out the denial he’d bellowed a moment before.

It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t!

Could it?

But as he lay awake in the darkness the rest of the night, the images — and his aunt’s voice — stayed with him.

Taunting him…

Torturing him…

* * *

THE MOMENT MATT came into the kitchen that morning, Joan knew he’d slept no better than she. His face looked almost as gray as the clouds that hung in the sky, dropping a steady drizzle whose chill seemed to have come right through the walls of the house. But Joan could see that it was something more than lack of sleep that had brought the pallor to Matt’s face and the dark circles to his eyes.

Something inside him had changed.

Though he still looked like the son she’d raised, there was something in his eyes that she’d never seen before. Or, more exactly, something that she’d always seen before was suddenly gone. Where always before Matt’s eyes had been clear and bright and full of eagerness, now the life seemed to have gone out of them, and even when he faced her, his gaze didn’t quite meet her own. He’s tired, she told herself. And why wouldn’t he be? All through the long hours of the previous day, he continued to search for his grandmother, moving in ever- widening circles around the area where they’d found her slippers and the scrap of cloth from her nightgown. Only when it was too dark had he finally given up and come back to the house with her.

The house — empty now, but for the two of them. Except it hadn’t felt empty, and in the hours before they went to bed to try to sleep, both Joan and Matt found themselves moving restlessly from one room to another.

Though neither admitted it aloud, they were both feeling the same thing.

Cynthia.

She’s dead, Joan kept reminding herself. But all night, as she lay in bed trying to sleep, the feeling persisted that though neither Bill nor her mother were there anymore, she and Matt were not alone.

As the hours crept by and sleep refused to offer her its solace, she had felt something — some presence — lurking just beyond her door. Three times she had left her bed and stepped out into the corridor.

Cynthia’s room.

It was coming from Cynthia’s room.

It was as if somehow her mother had brought her sister’s spirit into the house. But though her mother had seemingly simply vanished — the searing pain of the loss of her husband was still far too great to let Joan even imagine that her mother might also be dead — Cynthia had not.

Joan could still feel her.

And so, she was certain, could Matt, for even after a night in which he should have been able to rest, he still looked —

A word popped into her mind.

Haunted.

He looked haunted.

“You didn’t see her, darling,” she said quietly. Though they hadn’t spoken of the strange experience Matt had recounted to Dan Pullman yesterday, he knew immediately what she was talking about. “You couldn’t have seen her — it’s simply not possible.” But even as she spoke, Joan wondered if the words sounded as hollow to Matt as they did to her.

Matt only nodded, sank into his chair, and looked disinterestedly at the plate of food Joan placed before him. “I–I’m not really hungry,” he finally said. “Maybe I’ll just go back to bed.”

He started to get up, and for a moment Joan was tempted to say nothing, to let him retreat back to his room. But then she heard Bill’s voice in her head, as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud: Don’t let him.He has to deal with what’s happened. He has to deal with it head on.

“No!” she said so sharply that Matt jumped. Joan took a deep breath and began again. “I don’t think you should go back to bed. I think you need to go to school today.”

Matt’s eyes changed again. Joan saw fear in them now, and knew the words she’d spoken so sharply to him were the right ones. If he didn’t go back to school today, it would only be harder tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that.

“I think you’ve been away from school long enough.” She went to him and put her hands on his shoulders. “The funeral was two days ago, Matt. You should have gone back to school yesterday.”

“But Gram — ” Matt began.

Joan laid a finger over his lips to stop him. “We don’t know what’s happened to your grandmother. But you looked for her all day yesterday and didn’t find her. You can’t do it again today.” She put her arms around him, hugging him close. “I know you want to look for her, darling. But sometimes we can’t do what we want to do. So today I want you to go back to school.” She felt Matt stiffen in her arms.

“Everyone thinks — ” he began, but once again she didn’t let him finish.

“What everyone thinks doesn’t matter,” she told him. “And the only way people are going to stop talking about you is if you face them and show them you’re not afraid of anything they might say, because you didn’t do anything. So this morning you’re going back to school, and face all your friends, and start living again.” She stepped back so she could look into his eyes, but her hands still gripped his shoulders. “You can’t hide here forever. Neither of us can. So I want you to go to school today. I’ll take care of everything else.”

The nightmare from last night flashed back into Matt’s mind, and he saw his father’s bleeding wounds and his grandmother’s dead eyes.

He recalled his aunt whispering to him. “Do it… do what you want to do… ”

But even as he remembered, he knew what would happen if he went back upstairs to try to sleep.

The nightmare would come again.

And again.

Surely whatever might happen at school could be no worse than the terrors that plagued him whenever he slept.

* * *

MATT TURNED THE corner onto Prospect Street. The school was only half a block away, and he found himself slowing, finally coming to a dead stop just as he should have been stepping off the curb to cross the street. How many mornings had he been here before? Hundreds. And on every one of those mornings, he’d looked forward to the day — looked forward to his classes, to eating lunch in the cafeteria with his friends, to going out for football practice as soon as his last class was over. But this morning it had all changed.

Was it really possible that less than a week had passed since he’d been here? How could the facade of the main building look so different? But it did — the brick walls had taken on a foreboding cast that the white-painted shutters and trim did nothing to soften.

His eyes shifted from the building itself to a group of his friends who were clustered on the lawn — Eric Holmes was there, talking to Pete Arneson and Brett Haynes. When Eric glanced his way, Matt raised his arm to wave.

Eric turned away as if Matt had suddenly become invisible.

He won’t even wave to me. If Eric won’t even wave to me, what’s everyone else going to do?

The nervousness and apprehension that had been gnawing at Matt as he walked to school congealed into a nearly irresistible urge to turn away from the school, as Eric had turned away from him. If everyone treated him like Eric had —

The echo of his mother’s words broke through his thoughts: “Face them… show them you’re not afraid of