Nightshade

by John Saul

  “Mama!”

  This time the voice cracked like a whip, jerking Emily from her restless slumber into instant wakefulness. Her whole body convulsed, and a cry of pain burst from her throat as the arthritis in her joints protested against the sudden movement.

  But even though she was wide-awake, her mind was still fogged with age and her disease, and for a few moments she couldn’t quite remember where she was. Then, slowly, it started coming back to her.

  Joan’s house.

  She was in Joan’s house, in her room, in bed. But what had awakened her? She strained her ears, but heard nothing; the silence of the night was almost complete. Yet even in the silence, there was the faintest echo of a memory.

  A memory of a voice.

  A voice calling out to her.

  Cynthia?

  Her heart fluttered, and once more she strained her ears.

  Still hearing nothing, she left her bed, slipped her feet into her slippers, and shuffled slowly toward the window, steadying herself first on the bed, then on a chair, and finally on the table that stood in front of the window. She gazed out into the night, but age and the darkness hid anything that might be outside.

  “Mama . . .”

  Emily’s breath caught as she heard the word. There was no mistaking it this time — she would know her beloved daughter’s voice anywhere. She turned away from the window and started toward the bathroom, moving so quickly that she nearly lost her balance. Recovering herself, she tottered through the bathroom and put her shaking hand on the knob to the door connecting it to the bedroom next to hers. Then, with Cynthia’s voice still ringing in her ears, she pushed the door open.

  The room was illuminated by candles burning on Cynthia’s vanity table.

  The air was filled with the musky aroma of Cynthia’s favorite perfume, a heavy scent called Nightshade that never failed to bring images of her beloved daughter into Emily’s fogged mind.

  “Cynthia?” she called out, her voice choking with eagerness. “Cynthia, darling, where are you?”

  Something flickered in the mirror of the vanity. A moment later she saw it again — a movement near the door!

  A small cry catching in her throat, Emily turned, and there she was.

  In the glow of the candlelight she could just see Cynthia, standing at the door to the corridor. Her daughter was facing her, her lovely figure draped in a diaphanous negligee that Emily herself had given her years ago. Her hair, framing her perfect features and flowing down over her shoulders nearly to her waist, seemed to radiate with a light of its own.

  As Emily gazed at the perfect vision, Cynthia raised her arm as if to beckon to her mother.

  Then she turned and disappeared through the door.

  “No,” Emily croaked, her heart pounding. “No, Cynthia — don’t leave me! Not again.” She lurched toward the door, moving as quickly as she could, once again steadying herself against the furniture. “Please,” she breathed as she came to the door. “Please — wait for me!”

  She stepped out into the hall. The darkness was almost complete, save for a faint bluish glow coming from a night-light at the top of the stairs. But as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could once more make out Cynthia starting down the stairs toward the floor below. “Wait!” she cried out once again. “I’m coming, Cynthia! Don’t leave me! Please?”

  Bracing herself against the wall, she hurried toward the top of the stairs as quickly as her thin legs would carry her. Coming to the landing, she clutched the banister and peered down into the entry hall below.

  Cynthia was there, beckoning to her, waiting for her!

  Emily was halfway down the stairs when she thought she heard another voice, a voice calling out from somewhere above her, but she shut it out of her mind, every part of her focusing only on the apparition below.

  “I’m coming!” she cried out. “Just don’t leave me. Not again, Cynthia. Please, not again.”

  Coming to the bottom of the stairs, she paused in the darkness.

  Where was she?

  Where had she gone?

  A flicker of movement, toward the front of the house.

  A faint glimpse of flowing blond hair.

  The musky scent, heavy on the night air.

  Her heart pounding with excitement, her breath coming in ragged gasps, Emily pushed herself onward, struggling to keep up with Cynthia, determined to follow her wherever she might lead.

  This time, she wouldn’t lose Cynthia.

  This time, wherever Cynthia went, she would go too.

  Her heart racing, a spurt of adrenaline giving her a strength she hadn’t felt in years, Emily Moore followed her adored daughter into the darkness. . . .

  CHAPTER 11

  THE HOUSE ON Burlington Avenue was silent, and she could feel its emptiness.

  But that wasn’t right — her mother and sister should both have been there. Why weren’t they? Where had they gone? She got out of bed and crept to the closed door of her room. Pressing her ear against the wood, she strained to listen.

  Silence.

  Then something changed.

  The room behind her seemed different.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and she felt a rippling chill as goose bumps covered her skin. Unconsciously holding her breath, she struggled against the panic that threatened to overwhelm her, then forced herself to look back over her shoulder.

  Empty!

  The room was empty — her bed was gone, and so was the pretty white dresser the woman next door had given her last month for her tenth birthday. The pictures on the walls — the stuffed bear that had kept her company as long as she could remember — all of it was gone! A terrified squeal bursting from her lips, Joan jerked the door open and ran downstairs to the living room.

  It was as empty as her room, stripped of its furniture, even the curtains gone from the windows.

  In the kitchen, the familiar chipped enamel table had vanished, the cupboards were empty, and a gaping empty place was all that remained of the refrigerator.

  Her heart thudding with the terror of abandonment, her cheeks wet with tears, she went back upstairs.

  Her mother’s room was as empty as the rest of the house, but in her sister’s room one single piece of furniture remained.

  Cynthia’s vanity table.

  All her cosmetics were still there — all the wonderful things Cynthia liked to put on her face. Why had Cynthia left them?

  Mesmerized by the sight of the bottles and boxes and pots and tubes, she took a step into the room, then another.

  Could Cynthia have left them for her?

  The terror of a moment ago now giving way to excitement, she went to the vanity and sat down. Opening a container of powder, she began patting it onto her face. Then, in the mirror, she saw her sister — Cynthia was standing right behind her, glowering at her.

  “How dare you?” Cynthia demanded. Her arm lashed out, knocking the open powder container to the floor, its contents exploding into the air. Joan’s nostrils filled with talc and she began coughing and choking.

  She heard another voice then — her mother’s voice. “What’s going on in here? What are you doing?”

  “It’s Joan’s fault, Mama,” she heard Cynthia saying. “Look what she did! It’s all Joan’s fault!”

  Now she was looking up into her mother’s angry face, and she knew what was about to happen. “No,” she whispered. Her mother’s arm rose, and she cowered away. “No,” she cried. “No!”

  * * *

  THE SOUND OF her own voice jerked Joan out of the nightmare, and she instinctively reached out to Bill, needing to feel his strength — his warmth — against her flesh.

  But he wasn’t there, and as the vestiges of the bad dream faded away and she saw the gray light of dawn beginning to drive the night away, the terrible empty feeling of the house she’d dreamed about was replaced by the even worse emptiness that now imbued her.

  Bill was truly gone, and would never lie next to her
again.

  He’d abandoned her, just as her mother and sister had abandoned her in the dream.

  No! she reminded herself, unconsciously echoing the final protest she’d uttered before she woke up. No! He didn’t abandon me. It was an accident, and he would have come home! He would have come back!

  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!”

  Cynthia’s room. Not the guest room at all anymore.

  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.

  We’ll find her, she told herself as she rushed back up the stairs. Matt and I will find her! She can’t be far away! At the top of the stairs Joan started toward Matt’s room, but as she passed the open door to Cynthia’s room, her eye was caught by the portrait of her sister that hung over the fireplace.

  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.

  She thinks I’m lying!

  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?

  No!

  Suddenly the walls of the kitchen — the whole house — seemed to be closing in on him.

  He had to get outside!

  “I’m going to look in the garage and the shed,” he said. “If she went outside, maybe she just got confused in the dark or something.” Without waiting for his mother to reply, he went out the back door. Pausing on the steps, he took a deep breath, then another.

  What was happening to him?

  Where were the dreams coming from?

  What did they mean?

  Nothing, he told himself. They don’t mean anything.

  But what about his grandmother? If what he’d seen last night was only a dream, why hadn’t Gram been in her room this morning?

  It was a coincidence. Just a coincidence. Wasn’t that one of the reasons his mother had moved her into the house? Because people with Alzheimer’s disease sometimes just wandered away from their homes, and got confused, and couldn’t find their way back? Of course! Gram was out here somewhere, in the
carriage house, or the old stable. She had to be somewhere.

  Except she wasn’t. Matt searched the buildings, then went through them again, calling out to his grandmother, opening every door, even climbing into the hayloft in the barn.

  Nothing.

  Finally he went back to the house, re-entering through the same door he’d come out of fifteen minutes earlier. As he stepped into the mud room, he heard his mother talking in the kitchen.

  “Trip? I need you to come out — Mother’s gone.”

  Mr. Wainwright? Why had she called him?

  “I think she must have wandered off sometime in the middle of the night. If you’ll just come out and — ” Her voice broke off abruptly, then: “No, don’t call the police, Trip — at least not yet. The chances are she’s somewhere on the property and — ”

  Once more his mother fell silent, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped so he had to strain to hear her. “I really don’t think you should call Dan Pullman. Not after — well, not after what happened, and what they’re already thinking about Matt. Besides, we don’t really know that anything’s happened to Mother, do we?” Her voice took on a pleading note. “Please? Just come out, and then we can decide what to do.”

  For an instant Matt felt an impulse to go back out the door, to get away from the house, to escape to —

  To where?

  Nowhere.

  There was nowhere at all to go.

  What was happening? Was he going crazy? How could his mother even think —

  But then, before he could finish the thought, his mother was standing in the door of the mud room, looking worriedly at him. “Matt? What is it? You look — ”

  “You think I did something to her, don’t you?” he whispered. Finally he managed to look at her. “You think I did something to Gram.”

  The abject misery in her son’s face wrenching at her heart, Joan pulled Matt close, wrapping him in her arms.

  “No,” she whispered. “Oh, no, Matt. Of course not! How could you even think such a thing?” But even as she spoke the words, Joan remembered the look on Matt’s face when she’d asked him if he’d heard anything last night.

  She remembered the hesitation in his voice as he told her that he hadn’t heard anything at all.