What the Night Knows (with bonus novella Darkness Under the Sun)

competitions, chef competitions, designer competitions, and no matter what kind of competition it is, the meek never win. The prize always goes to the most aggressive, to the most confident, to the person who has the most self-esteem. Melody has noticed.

She parks in front of the Calvino residence, walks boldly to the door, and lets herself inside, using the key she got from Preston Nash. She has no fear of discovery. Her rider knows where everyone is in the house at all times, and it will guide her through these halls and rooms without an encounter that might compromise her mission.

With a brief conjured windstorm provided by her rider, she makes a dramatic appearance before Naomi Calvino. The rider knows the girl to her core, but Melody knows how to talk to the girl. She has always been able to talk to children at their level, to charm them, to tell stories in ways that enthrall them, to make them laugh. This seemed like a worthless talent until she started killing children to save the world, whereupon it facilitated gaining the trust of her prey. Each of her own children giggled in delight when she started to kill it, certain that this was just another of her fun games. Well, it was fun, but not for them. They are the plague. She is the antibiotic. We all have a responsibility.

After she finishes the job with the Calvino girl, Melody leaves the second floor by the front stairs, as quiet as a wraith. As she puts her hand on the knob of the front door, the rider departs her to remain with the house.

Melody Lane is aware that the rider will summon her to return, no doubt more than once. She will come when called and will welcome its renewed presence in her blood and bones. When the time to kill arrives, she hopes that Naomi will be hers and that she will be able to suck the dying breath from the girl’s mouth.

Meanwhile, the rider has given her several tasks to perform. She must acquire and then make ready certain items, and she understands precisely how to prepare them. Melody doesn’t need to be ridden in order to do her master’s bidding. For the pleasure of participating in its slaughter of the Calvinos, especially the ruination of the children, she intends to serve it of her own free will.

Minnie had just gotten a bottle of juice from the refrigerator and was twisting off the cap when she turned toward the French door between the kitchen and the terrace—and saw the golden retriever peering in at her from outside.

Willard had been dead for two years, but she still remembered exactly what he looked like. This was Willard, all right, or rather it was Willard’s spirit, just like those ghosts at the convenience store except that half of Willard’s face wasn’t shot off.

He was beautiful, like he had been in life, the best dog ever. Minnie’s heart swelled—it actually felt as if it were swelling like a balloon in her chest—at the sight of him. She could feel her heart ballooning all the way up into her throat.

But then she realized that Willard hadn’t come back from Heaven to play or to wring tears from her, but to show her something. He was pawing at the glass, not making any noise, but pawing at it anyway. His tail wasn’t wagging, as it would be if he wanted to chase a ball or beg for a treat. And the expression in his eyes, in the lift of his upper lip on the left side, meant what it had meant back in the good old days when he was alive: I’m trying to tell you a thing here. It’s so obvious even a cat would get it. Will you please, please, please pay attention?

Minnie put her juice on the kitchen island and hurried to the door. Willard scampered away as she approached, and when she pushed through the door and stepped onto the patio, the dog was waiting for her on the north lawn.

Willard’s forelegs were splayed, his head thrust forward and slightly down, in that partial play bow that meant Chase me, chase me! You can try, but you can’t catch me! I’m a dog, I’m faster than the wind!

She ran toward him, and he sprinted out of sight along the north side of the house, toward the street. When she turned the corner, she saw him standing on the front yard, looking back at her.

As she raced toward Willard, the retriever faded: first red-gold and beautiful, then gold and beautiful, then white and beautiful, then semitransparent and still beautiful, but then gone. Minnie felt her heart swelling again, and she just wanted to drop to her knees and cry. But she kept going until she stood on the very grass where Willard had last been visible.

On the public sidewalk, as though she had just stepped off the flagstone front walk that led from the porch, a woman in a long gray dress moved toward a car at the curb. She looked like she had come to talk someone’s ears off about Jesus, but she didn’t have magazines or pamphlets, or even a purse. Apparently she heard Minnie running to the spot on the lawn where Willard vanished, because she stopped and turned to face her.

They were only about twelve or fifteen feet apart. Minnie could clearly see the woman’s face. It was pleasant enough but seemed not quite done, as if it lacked the final details that would allow you to remember it ten minutes later, a face like one of those in Mom’s paintings that was still a stage away from being finished. The woman was smiling sort of absentmindedly, as though she saw Minnie but was thinking about something else and didn’t want to be distracted from that.

They stared at each other maybe fifteen seconds, an eerily long time without saying anything. Minnie didn’t know why the woman kept staring at her, but she kept staring at the woman because she sensed something not right about her. Minnie kept thinking she was going to figure it out, figure out the not-right something, but it eluded her.

Finally the woman said, “I like your pink shoes.”

This statement baffled Minnie for a moment, because she didn’t own any pink shoes. If anyone ever gave her pink shoes, she wouldn’t even risk saying, I’ll wear them when Hell freezes over, because you never knew what to expect of the weather. She didn’t want to be a marine, like Zach, but unlike Naomi, she didn’t swoon about wearing tiaras and diamond-studded capes and pink glass slippers for the rest of her life.

Belatedly registering the stranger’s meaning, Minnie looked down at her feet, at her sneakers, which were deep coral, not pink at all. She realized the woman must be color challenged.

“You remind me of a little girl I used to have,” the woman said. “She was very sweet.”

Minnie was taught never to be rude, and being polite included speaking when spoken to. But in this case, she kept silent. For one thing, she didn’t know what to say. More important, she sensed that speaking to this woman would be a mistake for the same reason that speaking to a spirit was a bad idea: Just responding with a single word would be an invitation.

The stranger didn’t appear to be a spirit, but she had something in common with spirits that Minnie sensed but couldn’t quite name.

After another, shorter silence, the woman in gray took a step toward Minnie, but then halted.

Although they were in a public place, Minnie began to feel alone and dangerously isolated. No traffic passed in the nearby street. No pedestrians were in sight. No kids were at play on any of the front lawns. The sky was pale, the air still, the trees limp, so it seemed as if time had stopped for everyone in the world except the two of them.

Minnie wished Willard hadn’t done a fade. She wished he would reappear, not just to her but also to the woman. When alive, the dog had a totally phony but threatening growl, and his spirit still had big teeth even if it couldn’t bite anyone.

The woman’s dreamy smile, which had been nice enough, now seemed like the fixed smile of a snake, which wasn’t a smile at all but only the shape of a smile.

Just when Minnie was about to spin away and run for all she was worth, the woman turned from her and went to the car at the curb. She glanced back as she got into the vehicle, but then she pulled the door shut and drove away.

As she watched the car dwindle along the street, Minnie finally realized what the woman in gray had in common with ghosts. Death. They were both about death.

From the journal of Alton Turner Blackwood:

After spending the night disinterring skeletons from unmarked graves in the pine-circled clearing, the boy returned to his tower room before dawn and spent the morning and the afternoon brooding about his discoveries.