Nightshade

His grandmother, moving down the hallway, calling out to someone who wasn’t there, following her long- dead daughter down the stairs.

And Kelly, struggling to free herself from —

No! He tried to reject the images, to separate the memories from the dreams. But his mind was as tired as his body, and even as he tried to sort them out, they tumbled together again. He stood frozen in the doorway, unconsciously holding his breath, his eyes fixing on the portrait of his aunt, the scent of her perfume hanging around him.

He could almost feel her now, and then more images leaped out of his subconscious.

She was in his room — in his bed — touching him, pressing her flesh close to his —

But it hadn’t happened! He’d only been dreaming!

His mind reeled, and then, suddenly, he felt it again.

Her touch.

Her body against his.

Her voice, whispering in his ear.

Recoiling from the images he was certain could have come only from his dreams, from the scent of the perfume in the air, from the whispering in his ear — and most of all from the touch of the dead woman’s flesh — he slammed the door shut and spun around.

And there she was — so close that he nearly lost his balance as an involuntary sound erupted from his throat.

“Matt? Matt, what is it?”

His mother! Not his aunt at all, but his mother. “I–I — you just surprised me,” he stammered, flustered. “I was just — ”

His mother’s eyes shifted to the door he’d just slammed closed, and when she spoke, there was a harshness in her voice Matt had never heard before. “I’m going to get rid of all that stuff,” she said. “I’m going to get rid of it today.”

“But what if Gram comes — ” Matt began, but the words died on his lips as his mother’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t care,” she said, her eyes fixed on the closed door to the guest room. “It doesn’t have anything to do with — ” Matt waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. Then, at last tearing her eyes from the door, she smiled at him and laid her hand on his cheek. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you,” she said, this time finishing what she’d started to say a moment before.

* * *

WHEN HE LEFT for school an hour later, Matt’s mood was as dark as when he’d gotten up. At the foot of the driveway, before turning toward town, he automatically glanced in the direction of the Conroes’ house, to see if Kelly might be coming along the road to meet him. But then he remembered that she wouldn’t.

If she had come home late last night, someone would have called to tell his mother. If not the Conroes, then Dan Pullman. The chill he’d felt when he got up that morning gripped him again, and the image of the dream rose in his mind. But this time there was something else: the gap in his memory of yesterday afternoon, when he thought he’d only walked over to Mr. Rudman’s, left the stag’s head, then come home.

In fact, he’d been gone an hour, for what should have been a fifteen minute errand.

Where had the other forty-five minutes gone?

And why had he looked for Kelly at the waterfall?

A few minutes later, standing across the street from the school with no memory of the walk that had brought him there, he felt a wave of panic.

Was it the same thing that had happened yesterday, when he lost forty-five minutes? But no — today he’d been walking along a route so familiar he could have done it in his sleep, and his mind was so occupied with other things that he’d simply paid no attention to where he was going.

As he crossed the street, Matt felt the other students’ eyes on him. But it wasn’t like yesterday, when they had watched him suspiciously, turning away when he looked directly at them. Today they were glaring at him, and he could see the anger in their eyes.

They think I did it, he thought. They think I killed Kelly.

Killed. The word, straight out of the dream, hung in his mind.

Again the images tumbled through his mind.

Which were memories?

Which were dreams?

Worst of all, which were real?

As he stepped through the doors of the school, Matt knew that wherever he turned, wherever he went, he would hear people whispering accusations that he knew, deep in his heart, he could no longer deny.

* * *

CALL HIM BACK! Call him back now, before it’s too late!

The urge was almost irresistible, but even as Joan thought it, she knew she wouldn’t do it. Besides, it was already too late — Matt had disappeared around the bend in the driveway minutes ago, and by now was on his way to school.

Leaving her alone in the house.

Except she wasn’t alone. She knew it now, knew it with a terrible certainty that could no longer be denied. The strange words she’d heard her sister speak before she’d gone to bed last night were echoing in her mind when she awoke this morning: Everything you have is mine… I’m taking it back… I’m taking it all back.

The sour taste of fear had remained strong in her mouth, and her mind felt bound up with a panic she hadn’t at first been able to identify. Then the terrible memory of her sister’s visitation came back to her, and the panic had grown.

She was losing her mind.

A paralysis came over her then, and she wanted nothing more than to sink back into sleep, to disappear into unconsciousness. But as she lay in bed, Joan knew that unconsciousness would be no escape.

It didn’t happen, she told herself. It was impossible — it was only a dream!

Cynthia couldn’t be in the house, couldn’t have talked to her, certainly couldn’t have touched her. But as she denied the possibility, she heard her sister’s mocking laughter.

Laughter that followed her into the bathroom as she tried to wash the sour taste of fear from her mouth.

Laughter that taunted her as she made coffee and tried to eat a piece of toast in the kitchen.

Laughter that turned to victorious peals as Matt left for school.

Laughter that had kept her pinned against the window like a bug in a display case.

How had it happened? How had Cynthia escaped from her grave?

What did she want?

But Joan knew the answer to that. Cynthia had told her last night: “Everything you have is mine… I’m taking it back… I’m taking it all back.”

The words lashing at her, Joan spun around as if to face her tormentor. “No!” she screamed. “It’s not true! It’s not!” And realizing she was screaming at an empty room, she fell suddenly silent, her eyes flicking over the kitchen like those of a trapped animal searching for its stalker.

But Cynthia’s mocking laughter still hung in the air.

Joan fled from the kitchen, bursting through the door to the dining room, knocking a crystal candelabrum from the sideboard as she passed. It crashed to the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces, but Cynthia’s laughter drowned out the sound as Joan pushed through into the entry hall, slamming the dining room door behind her.

“Doors can’t shut me out,” Cynthia’s voice whispered. “But you don’t understand, do you? You never understood!”

“Leave me alone!” Joan screamed, and fled through the living room, then into the library. But Cynthia was there too, her laughter echoing off the walls.