was to go after him, but as she reached for the car keys that hung on a hook by the back door, she knew it would do no good. The second Matt saw the headlights — or even heard the engine — he would vanish into the woods as quickly as a wild animal, slipping silently along the paths that wound through the trees, leaving her to drive aimlessly through the night with no hope of finding him unless he wanted to be found.
Slowly, reluctantly, she closed the door.
Should she call Nancy back? Call Trip Wainwright?
Wait, she told herself. Don’t do anything — not yet. He’ll come back. When he calms down, he’ll come back. She picked up the plates from the table and scraped the untouched food into the garbage disposal. Clean up the kitchen, she told herself. Just do what you have to do, and he’ll come back. But as she tried to concentrate on her chore, she found herself looking out into the darkness.
And as she watched it, the darkness of the night began to creep into the house.
Creep in, and wrap itself around her.
Suddenly she felt exhausted, and the darkness around her seemed a comforting blanket. If only she could give in to it…
If only she could let herself sink into oblivion… If only she could forget…
… forget, and rest.
Yes… if only she could rest…
But there would be no rest, for now she could hear laughter.
Cynthia’s laughter.
The skin on her arms began to crawl, and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
The house was not empty.
But of course it was empty! Matt had just left, and Bill was dead, and her mother was gone.
Yet the house was not empty.
Her fingers, still on the doorknob, tightened until the skin on her knuckles turned white, but she didn’t turn the knob, didn’t give in to the urge to jerk the door open and flee from the unseen presence in the house into the darkness of the night outside.
Instead, she made herself turn her back to the door.
There’s nothing here, she told herself as she gazed through the door leading from the mud room to the kitchen. But a moment later, as she forced herself to walk into the kitchen, her heart began to pound.
Though the kitchen looked exactly as it had a moment ago, it no longer felt the same; it was as if someone had come into the room — someone she could neither see nor hear, but could feel.
Cynthia.
As her sister’s name rose in her mind, Joan tried to reject it, to tell herself it was impossible. Yet even as she tried to reassure herself, the feeling grew stronger. Then she heard Cynthia’s voice.
“I’m here, Joanie-baby. You know I’m here. And you know exactly where to find me, don’t you?”
Joan froze. Her sister’s voice was as clear as if Cynthia were standing next to her. But she’s not standing next to me, Joan told herself. She’s dead! I saw her die!
The mocking laughter that answered her thoughts cut into Joan like a knife, and as the pain of it sliced through her, something inside of her snapped. Her fear forgotten, replaced in an instant with a burning anger that quickly built into rage, she left the kitchen, moving through the dining room to the base of the stairs.
“I’m not dead, Joanie-baby,” Cynthia’s voice taunted again. “You know where I am. Come on, Joanie-baby. Don’t you want to play with me?”
Joan charged up the stairs and burst through the open door to her sister’s room. As the door slammed against the wall, she stepped into the room, her eyes searching it as if she expected to find her sister sitting at her desk, or sprawled out on her bed.
But except for her sister’s things, the room was as empty as it had always been. Joan ventured deeper inside, until she was standing in front of her sister’s vanity table.
She heard her sister’s voice again, but now it had changed. The mocking tone was gone. Now the voice was soft, almost seductive. “That’s right, Joanie-baby,” Cynthia whispered. “You do want to play, don’t you? You always wanted to play. You always wanted to play Let’s Pretend, didn’t you? Let’s play it again… let’s play it now… let’s pretend you’re beautiful… let’s pretend you’re me… ”
As the words swirled around her, the rage that had driven Joan up the stairs drained away, and as if guided by some unseen force, she eased the stool out from Cynthia’s vanity and lowered herself onto it. Then, as her sister’s voice whispered to her, she reached for a jar of Cynthia’s makeup. But when she opened it, it was a memory that emerged.
* * *
SHE WAS FOUR.
She was sitting in front of the mirror.
Cynthia was next to her, working the magic that would make Joan beautiful.
“You’ll look just like me,” Cynthia promised her. “Maybe not your hair, but everything else.”
While Joan sat perfectly still, Cynthia carefully applied a layer of her own pale foundation, lightening Joan’s complexion, making her eyes appear even darker than they were. Then Cynthia began applying rouge to her cheeks, and shadow to her eyelids, lipstick.
A new face began to emerge — a face that wasn’t Joan’s, but wasn’t quite Cynthia’s either.
“But I don’t look like you,” she said when Cynthia was done and the two of them were peering into the mirror.
“It’s your clothes,” Cynthia decided. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
She sat perfectly still, staring at the image in the mirror. She knew that whatever Cynthia was planning, it wouldn’t work. No matter what they did — no matter how hard she tried — she would never be beautiful.
Never look like her wonderful sister.
Then Cynthia was back, and when Joan saw what she was holding, her eyes widened. It was her mother’s white fox stole. As long as she could remember, it had hung in her mother’s closet, carefully wrapped in a plastic bag.
Joan had never touched it.
Never even seen her mother wear it.
“Don’t,” she whispered as Cynthia laid it over her shoulders. “If Mommy catches us — ”
“She won’t,” Cynthia whispered to her. “Just feel it — feel how soft it is. Look how beautiful it makes you.”
Almost against her own will, Joan’s little fingers touched the fur. It was almost like touching a cloud, and when she tilted her head a moment later to feel the softness caressing her cheek, warmth flowed through her. And in the mirror, she almost did look beautiful. “I love it,” she whispered. “I wish…”
The words died on her lips as the mirror reflected a flicker of movement behind her. Her heart pounding, she turned to look up at her mother. Still wearing the winter coat and leather gloves she’d put on before leaving the house an hour ago, she now stood in the doorway, her eyes blazing with fury. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “What are you doing with my stole?”
“Cynthia — ” Joan began, but before she could utter another word her mother snatched the stole from around her shoulders with her one hand while raising the other, clenched into a fist.
The gloved fist seemed to hang in the air like a hawk preparing to drop on its prey, and then, as Joan’s eyes widened in terror and the leather-clad hand descended, a strange blackness began closing in on Joan.
By the time her mother’s fist crashed into her cheek, knocking her to the floor, Joan’s mind had
