Home Before Dark

by Riley Sager

  We stroll through the rest of the cemetery. While certainly old and admittedly creepy, it’s nothing compared to the place my father wrote about. There are stones for several dogs, too many cats to count, and even a pony named Windy.

  Pointing to its grave, Dane says, “Maybe it was a ghost horse your family encountered.”

  “Ghosts don’t exist,” I reply. “Equine or otherwise.”

  “Hey, now. Don’t be so quick to dismiss ghosts.”

  “You don’t believe all that stuff, do you?”

  Dane’s expression grows contemplative. “Do I believe in ghosts? Not really. At least, not in what people think of as supernatural. But I do believe that things happen. Things we can’t explain away, no matter how much we try. The uncanny. That’s what my maternal grandmother called it.”

  “She was a believer?”

  “Oh, yes. She was old-school Irish. Grew up hearing stories of sprites and banshees. I always thought it was silly, how she believed in such things.” His voice goes quiet now. No more than a whisper. “But then I saw one when I was ten. Maybe not a ghost. But something.”

  “Something uncanny?” I say.

  He blushes a little and scratches the back of his neck. A boyish gesture that’s oddly endearing. Of the many versions of Dane Hibbets I’ve encountered in the past twenty-four hours—cockily handsome caretaker, eager employee, font of information—this is the one I like the best.

  “We were living in an old house a few towns away,” he says. “It was tall and narrow. My bedroom was on the top floor, kind of isolated from the rest of the house. I didn’t mind it too much. I was ten. I wanted privacy. But then one night in October, I woke up to the sound of my bedroom door being opened. I sat up in bed and saw my grandmother poke her head into the room. ‘I just wanted to say goodnight, Boy-O,’ she said. That was her nickname for me. Boy-O. Then she left, closing the door behind her. Before going back to sleep, I checked the clock on the nightstand. It was one thirty-two a.m.

  “In the morning, I went downstairs and found my parents sitting at the kitchen table. My mother was crying. My father just looked dazed. I asked them where Nana was and why no one had told me she was visiting. That’s when they told me. My grandmother had died during the night. At exactly one thirty-two a.m.”

  We stand in silence after that. To speak would be to break the sudden, strange connection between us. It’s similar to our exchange in the office, although this time it feels more potent because it’s personal. In that silence, I think of Dane’s story and how it’s more sweet than scary. It makes me wish my father had said something similar before he died. Instead, I got a vague warning about Baneberry Hall and an apology for something he never got around to admitting, both of which led me here.

  “I have a confession to make,” I eventually say.

  “Let me guess,” Dane says, deadpan. “Your real name is Windy.”

  “Close. I didn’t come back just to renovate Baneberry Hall. My real reason for returning is to try to figure out why we left this place the way we did.”

  “You think there’s more to the story?”

  “I know there is.”

  I tell him everything. My checkered history with the Book. My father’s cryptic last words. My certainty that my parents have been withholding the truth from me for twenty-five years.

  “I know my father was a liar,” I say, giving a nod toward Rover’s grave. “Now I want to know just how much he lied about. And why.”

  “But you already know it wasn’t the truth,” Dane says. “Why go to all this trouble just to learn the specifics?”

  “Because—” I pause, trying to find a way to articulate a gut feeling that can’t be expressed in words. “Because for most of my life, I’ve been defined by that book. Yet my parents refused to tell me anything about it. So I grew up lonely and confused and feeling like a freak because everyone thought I was the victim of something uncanny.”

  Dane nods approvingly at my use of his grandmother’s term. “It’s a good word.”

  “It really is,” I say, smiling even though tears are gathering in my eyes. I wipe them away with the back of my hand before one can escape. “But I never experienced it. It never happened. Now I just want to know the real story. There’s your rambling, embarrassingly personal answer.”

  “Thank you for your honesty,” Dane tells me. “That couldn’t have been easy.”

  “It wasn’t,” I say. “But Baneberry Hall has been the subject of so many lies, I figured it’s time someone started telling the truth.”

  JUNE 29

  Day 4

  The next day, I was back in the woods, this time with Hibbs. Jess was inside with Maggie, attempting to ease our daughter’s pain with some child aspirin and cartoons. Our trip to the emergency room had ended up being better than I expected. It was still slow—more than three hours from arrival to departure—and still expensive. But Maggie hadn’t needed stitches, which was good news all around.

  The bad news was that we had a graveyard on our property, which was why I’d asked Hibbs to tag along. I needed someone to help me count the headstones.

  “I’d heard rumors they were out here, but never believed them myself,” Hibbs said as we scanned the ground, looking for more graves. So far, I’d found three. Two presumably for William Garson’s eldest son and grandson—William Jr. and William III, respectively—and one too weathered to read.

  “No one knew about this place?” I said.

  “Someone did, once upon a time,” Hibbs replied. “But time passed, the place changed hands, and the forest kept on growing. It’s sad, when you think about it. The final resting place of a once-great family now sits in a forest, forgotten. Here’s another, by the way.”

  He pointed to a fourth brick-like stone rising from the earth. Carved into its top was a name and a date.

  INDIGO GARSON

  Beloved daughter

  1873–1889

  “She was a beauty, that one,” Hibbs said. “That portrait of her up in the house? That’s true to life, or so I’ve been told.”

  “Do you know a lot about the Garsons?”

  “Oh, I’ve heard plenty over the years.”

  “Do you know what happened to Indigo? She died so young.”

  “I’ve heard her story,” Hibbs said. “My grandfather knew her. Back when he was just a boy. Told me she was the spitting image of that portrait. So it should come as no surprise that the artist who painted it fell madly in love with her.”

  That had been my first impression upon seeing it. That the only reason an artist would have rendered Indigo Garson in such an angelic fashion was that he had been enamored of her.

  “Did she love him in return?” I asked.

  “She did,” Hibbs said. “The story goes that the two planned to run away and get married. William Garson was furious when he found out. He told Indigo she was far too young to get married, even though at that time being a bride at sixteen was quite common. He forbade Indigo from ever seeing the artist again. Despondent over her lost love, Indigo killed herself.”

  I shuddered at the realization that another former resident of Baneberry Hall had committed suicide.

  “How?”

  “Poisoned herself.” Hibbs pointed farther down the hill, where a cluster of plants sat, their spindly branches covered with scarlet berries. “With those.”

  “She ate baneberries?” I said.

  Hibbs gave a solemn nod. “A true tragedy. Old Man Garson was heartbroken about it. The rumor is he hired that same artist to come back and paint his portrait on the other side of that fireplace. That way he and Indigo would always be together in Baneberry Hall. The painter didn’t want to, but he was flat broke and therefore had little choice.”

  Now I understood why the portrait of William Garson in the great room was so sneakily unflattering. The painter had desp
ised him, and it showed.

  I walked to Mr. Garson’s gravestone, the smear of Maggie’s blood still there, now dried to a dark red.

  “How widely known is that story?” I asked. “Does the rest of the town know it?”

  “I suppose most do.” Hibbs gave me a gold-tooth-flashing grin. “At least all us old-timers do.”

  “What else do you know about this place?”

  “More than most, I’d say,” Hibbs said with noticeable pride.

  “The day we met, you asked if Janie June had told us the whole story,” I said. “At the time, I thought she had. But now—”

  “Now you suspect Janie June was holding out on you.”

  “I do,” I admitted. “And I’d appreciate it if you filled in the blanks for me.”

  “I’m not sure you want that, Ewan,” Hibbs said as he pretended to scour the ground for more graves. “You might think you do, but sometimes it’s best not knowing.”

  Anger rose in my chest, hot and sudden and strong. It only got worse when I looked down and saw my daughter’s blood staining William Garson’s grave. I was so mad that I stalked across the wooded cemetery and grabbed Hibbs by his collar.

  “You told me I needed to be prepared for this place,” I said. “But I’m not. And now my daughter’s hurt. She could have been killed, Hibbs. So if there’s something you’re not telling me, you need to spit it out right now.”

  Hibbs didn’t push me off him, which I don’t doubt he could have done. Despite his age, he looked to be as strong as a bulldog. Instead, he gently pried my fingers from around his shirt collar and said, “You want the truth? I’ll give it to you. Things have happened in that house. Tragic things. Indigo Garson and the Carver family, yes. But other things, too. And all those things, well, they . . . linger.”

  The word sent a chill down my back. Probably because of the way Hibbs said it—slowly, drawing out the word like it was a rubber band about to snap.

  “Are you telling me Baneberry Hall is haunted?”

  “I’m saying that Baneberry Hall remembers,” Hibbs said. “It remembers everything that’s happened since Indigo Garson gulped down those berries. And sometimes history has a way of repeating itself.”

  It took a moment for that information to sink in. It was so utterly absurd that I had trouble comprehending it. When it all eventually settled in, I felt so dizzy I thought I, too, was going to fall and whack my head on William Garson’s grave.

  “I’m not saying it’s going to happen to you,” Hibbs said. “I’m just telling you it’s a possibility. Just like your house getting struck by lightning is a possibility. My advice? Be as happy as you can in that house. Love your family. Hug your daughter. Kiss your wife. From what I’ve heard, that house hasn’t witnessed a lot of love. It remembers that pain. What you need to do is make it forget.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I returned from the woods to find Maggie on the sofa in the parlor, her head resting in Jess’s lap. Half her cheek was covered by a large bandage. The skin surrounding it was colored an angry red that I already knew would darken into a nasty bruise.

  “How many are there?” Jess said.

  “About a dozen. That we could find, anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more graves out there, their stones either completely crumbled or buried by plant life.”

  “I want to strangle that Janie June. She should have told us there was a goddamned cemetery in our backyard.”

  “Maybe she didn’t know,” I said. “They’re pretty hidden.”

  “She’s a Realtor,” Jess snapped. “It’s her job to know what’s on the property. I think she knew telling us about it would freak us out and then she’d have to find another gullible couple to swindle.”

  “We weren’t swindled,” I said, even though I was starting to think we were. If not swindled, then at least misled. Because Jess was right—surely a Realtor would know about a cemetery on the property.

  “What did Hibbs have to say about it?”

  On the walk back to the house, I’d decided not to tell Jess about Indigo Garson’s tragic death. She was already on edge knowing about two deaths inside Baneberry Hall. A third would likely send her running from the house, never to return. And, to be brutally honest, we couldn’t afford for that to happen. Buying the house had cost us almost everything we had. There was nothing left over for a down payment on a new home or a rental.

  We were, for better or worse, stuck there.

  Which meant I needed to follow Hibbs’s advice and make our time there as happy as possible. Even if it meant not being honest with my wife. In my mind, there was no other choice.

  “Nothing much,” I said before scooping Maggie from the couch. “Now let’s go for some ice cream. Three scoops for everyone. I think we’ve all earned it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Considering everything Hibbs had told me that afternoon, I was surprised by how exhausted I felt when bedtime rolled around. I had assumed I’d be awake half the night, worrying about all I’d heard about the cemetery, Indigo Garson, the way Baneberry Hall remembers. Instead, I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

  It didn’t last long.

  At five minutes to midnight, I awoke to a strange sound.

  Music.

  Someone, somewhere, was singing.

  A man. His voice soft and lilting. Drifting from a distant part of the house.

  I looked to the other side of the bed to see if Jess had also been awakened by the music, but she remained fast asleep. Hoping she’d stay that way, I slid out of bed and crept out of the room.

  The music was slightly louder in the hallway. Loud enough for me to recognize the song.

  “You are sixteen, going on seventeen—”

  The music was coming from upstairs, a fact I realized when I reached the other side of the hall. I could hear it echoing down the steps that led to my study. Accompanying the music was a chill strong enough to make me shiver.

  “Baby, it’s time to think.”

  I started up the stairs slowly, nervously. With each step, the song got louder and the chill got worse. At the top of the stairs, it had grown so cold that, had there been more light there, I’m certain I would have seen my breath.

  “Better beware—”

  When I opened the study door, the song practically boomed out of the room. Inside, it was pitch-black. The kind of darkness that gave one pause. And cold. So freezing that goose bumps formed on my bare skin.

  “—be canny—”

  I stepped into the study, hugging myself for warmth. I flicked the switch by the door, and light flooded the room.

  “—and careful—”

  Sitting on the desk, right where I had left it, was the record player. The album on top of it spun at full speed and at top volume.

  “Baby, you’re on the—”

  I plucked the needle from the record, and silence fell over the house like a wool blanket. The cold went away as well—an instant warming that swept through the room. Or so I thought. As I stood in that newfound silence and warmth, it occurred to me that it might have been my imagination.

  Not the music.

  That had been all too real.

  The album still spun atop the turntable, its grooves catching light from the fixture overhead. I switched it off, not looking away until the record came to a complete stop. I assumed it was Jess’s doing. That in a fit of insomnia she had made her way up here and listened to some music before getting tired.

  The only excuse for the cold was that I’d somehow imagined it. Any other explanation—a draft, a gust of freezing air from the open window—seemed unlikely, if not downright impossible. Therefore it must have been my imagination, prompted by what Hibbs had told me earlier. Here was the irrational fear I’d been expecting, arriving a few hours late.


  And that’s exactly what it was—irrational.

  Houses didn’t remember things. The supernatural didn’t exist. I had no reason to fear this place.

  By the time I returned to bed, I had convinced myself it was all in my head.

  That everything was normal.

  That nothing strange was going on at Baneberry Hall.

  It turned out I was wrong.

  So utterly wrong.

  Seven

  I send Dane home for the day after our talk in the cemetery. It feels like the right thing to do, despite the fact that we accomplished next to nothing. After revisiting our possibly haunted pasts, both of us deserve an afternoon off.

  For me, that involves heading into town for much-needed groceries.

  My drive to the store brings me onto Bartleby’s main thoroughfare. Maple Street, of course. I pass clapboard houses as sturdy and unbending as the people who surely live inside them, storefronts with large windows and signs hawking authentic maple syrup, the obligatory church with its ivory steeple stretching toward the sky. There’s even a town square—a small patch of green with a gazebo and flagpole.

  Although quaint, there’s a slight dinginess to Bartleby not present in similar towns. A sense that time has passed it by. Still, I notice small attempts at modernization. A sushi restaurant. A vegetarian bistro. A consignment shop specializing in designer brands with a diaphanous Gucci dress prominently displayed in the window.

  And I see a bakery, which makes me slam on the brakes in the middle of Maple Street. In my experience, where there are baked goods, there’s also coffee. Usually good coffee. Considering my undercaffeinated state, that’s worth slamming the brakes.

  I park on the street and step into a space decorated in a manner that’s both trendy and timeless. Copper fixtures. Tile-top tables with mismatched chairs. Midnight-blue walls filled with vintage illustrations of birds inside ornate frames. At the rear of the shop, an old-fashioned display case stretches from wall to wall, filled with gorgeously decorated cakes, delicate pastries, and pies with elaborate crusts worthy of Instagram. As far as visuals go, the owner certainly knows what she’s doing.