The Night Strangers

by Chris Bohjalian

  The Hardins’ house in Littleton was a white Federal that resided with princely elegance in the town’s hill section above the main street. The driveway had a circular portico and the front yard a stone fountain, the basin of which, because it was winter, had been removed and placed against the pedestal like a giant mushroom cap so the water pooling inside didn’t freeze and crack it. There was another car in the driveway, and Emily suspected by the way the front windshield had been defrosted that this vehicle was a recent arrival, too, and not one of the Hardins’ automobiles.

  “There will be other people,” she said to neither Chip nor the girls in particular as they stood for a moment in the driveway. She found herself worrying for her husband. Worrying about her husband. It seemed that morning he had taken an ax and destroyed that squat, ugly door in the basement. The exertion had left him exhausted, though Emily was troubled more by the fury he had brought to the task: Why in the world had he used an ax instead of simply removing the carriage bolts from one side and then prying the door open with a crowbar? He had told her there were too many bolts and they were too long: Removing even a third of them would have taken hours. She took him at his word, but she couldn’t help but fear it was the fact that there were precisely thirty-nine of them that had prevented him. He had seemed unduly disturbed by the coincidence, the notion that there was one bolt for every fatality—as if each length of metal corresponded exactly with one human soul. One night over dinner he had expressed his wonderment at the connection, and she had smiled and told him this was magical thinking, a symptom of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. He, in turn, had told her that magical thinking was also a symptom of depression and there was something enigmatic in his response: Was he signaling to her that he knew she had demons, too, and to allow him this indulgence? Or was he alerting her to the idea that she was right and he had done a little Web diagnosis on himself and understood that his consideration of the bolts was at once irrational and explicable?

  And what had he discovered from all that sweat, what had he found on the other side of that barnboard? Nothing. He said there wasn’t a single thing behind that creepy door—which, when she was honest with herself, left her a little relieved. If she could find knives and axes hidden beneath heating grates and under the sink, what in the world might Tansy Dunmore have hidden behind the door in the basement? A cannon?

  “Will there be other kids?” Garnet was asking. It was spitting snow once again, and the slate path had enough of a dusting that their boots were leaving tracks in the fine white powder. Emily looked up and focused instantly on her daughter when she heard the unease in the child’s voice. Garnet could be shy, and other children had not been a part of the plan. Quickly Emily inventoried the rest of the law firm in her mind and tried to catalog the possible children. In the end she couldn’t decide and answered that she honestly didn’t know, but she expected that the girls would be able to cocoon upstairs with a movie or two just as John Hardin had promised.

  And, it turned out, there were no other children. But there was another couple present whom Clary Hardin, John’s wife, thought Emily and Chip would enjoy. When the pair saw the Lintons awkwardly removing their snow boots in the front entryway, they rose from their perch on a sofa with plush pillows and serpentine arms that looked like it belonged in a French villa and went with the Hardins to greet them. They seemed to be roughly the age of their hosts: Emily pegged the couple as somewhere in their late sixties, though both—like John and Clary—seemed almost impeccably well preserved. They introduced themselves as Peyton and Sage Messner.

  “And you two, quite obviously, are Hallie and Garnet,” said Sage, kneeling down before the twins. It looked like she was drinking Scotch, and the ice cubes tinkled against her glass as she moved. With her free hand she surprised Garnet by stroking her hair, and Emily hoped that only a mother would sense her child’s discomfort with a gesture this intimate from a stranger. “Your hair is every bit as extraordinary and as beautiful as I’d heard,” Sage went on.

  “I told Sage at bridge club,” Clary said quickly.

  “And I had told Clary,” John added, chuckling. “I told her it was remarkable, a shade of magical titian that only a practiced Renaissance dye maker could concoct.”

  “And you knew your share of them, old man,” Peyton Messner chided him.

  “I am old, but not that old—thank heavens,” John corrected him.

  Emily handed John her overcoat and glanced quickly at Chip. He was staring at the chandelier that was dangling from the dining room ceiling, and so she glanced at it, too. The bulbs were faces, she realized, though because they were lit one couldn’t really study them. But there seemed to be at least three or four different characters, one as sad as the classic drama mask signifying tragedy and one as hysterical as the mask denoting comedy. And then there was one that seemed … terrified. She thought of the Edvard Munch painting of the scream. She guessed there were twenty bulbs, each the white of a cotton ball cloud, and they seemed to exist like flowers at the ends of slender but tangled wrought-iron vines.

  “Don’t you just love it,” Clary said, when she noticed Emily gazing at the chandelier. “John and I found it in a lighting store in Paris. We saw it for sale in a shop window in the Marais and just had to have it.”

  “It’s pretty eccentric,” she said.

  “I’ve always found it downright hypnotic,” said Peyton, his voice deep and plummy and rather hypnotic itself.

  “Where in the world do you get replacement bulbs?” Emily asked.

  “I hope we brought a lifetime supply back with us,” said John, and he punctuated the sentence with another small laugh. “But I do fear someday we may run out.”

  “When my father’s construction company was building the first greenhouses, he was investigating the best grow lights. I wonder what he would have thought of bulbs like these,” Peyton said, pointing at the chandelier ever so slightly with one of his long, elegant fingers.

  “Tell me something,” Emily asked. “Why are there so many greenhouses in Bethel?”

  “Do you girls want some juice—or cocktails?” Clary asked the twins, and Emily had the distinct sense that she was consciously avoiding the question by turning her attention—everyone’s attention—to Hallie and Garnet. “John makes a mean Shirley Temple.”

  “I make a mean everything,” her husband said, raising his eyebrows rakishly.

  Emily saw both children looking at her, trying to gauge whether she approved of their having cocktails. The word was such a throwback to another era that she wasn’t sure either girl even knew what it meant. “Why not have Shirley Temples?” she said to them. “You always like them at the airport.” Funny, Emily thought now: The girls did like Shirley Temples, but she and Chip only thought to order them for the children when they were traveling. She recalled almost at once all of the restaurants and bars and lounges along the concourses at the Philadelphia airport.

  “Okay, I’ll have one,” Hallie agreed.

  “And you, Garnet?” asked John.

  “Yes, please.”

  “I have cherries, but the red won’t be as magic as your hair,” he said to her and then retreated to the kitchen.

  “Where would you like the girls to settle in?” Emily asked her hostess.

  “Well, wherever they’d like!” said Clary, waving her arm at the living room as if she were a fairy godmother with a wand. “The couch, the divan, the carpets. Wherever they’d like!”

  Emily recalled John’s invitation at the office—the way he had stressed that there was a playroom upstairs where the twins could escape the grown-ups. The last thing Hallie and Garnet wanted this evening was to sit like dolls on the divan. And so, even though it was awkward, she said to her hostess, “That’s really very sweet of you, but I know the girls are tired. They had dance in the morning and were doing yet more unpacking this afternoon. John said something about a playroom. Would it be okay if they just curled up there and dozed in front of a movie? They brought some
of their DVDs.”

  “Oh, of course. Just let us have them for a few minutes,” Clary said, and she smiled at the children. Her eyes hadn’t wavered, but in those two short sentences her voice had lost its saccharine lilt and grown demanding. Just let us have them. The words echoed in Emily’s head, and they sounded vaguely threatening. This was, she understood, a ridiculous and completely unhealthy overreaction. Still, she wanted her children to have a quiet evening upstairs. It was what she had promised them—and what she had been offered.

  Reflexively Emily turned toward Chip for help, because the old Chip would have found a diplomatic way to have the girls excused as soon as John returned with their drinks. But the moment she saw him with that odd new posture of his—his left arm dangling down at his side, his right arm bent across his stomach, and his right hand cradling his left elbow—she knew there would be no cavalry approaching from that direction. He was still gazing at that bizarre chandelier. And so she grinned at her children and did nothing as Sage pressed her palm behind Garnet’s back and Clary did the same with Hallie, and the two older women guided the girls into the living room. Emily followed them, feeling a little obsequious and a little put upon. For a second she was afraid she was going to have to escort Chip into the room, but abruptly he pulled himself together and followed her.

  “No one asked you two what you would like!” Peyton said to her. “That’s John for you—always the grandfather. Oblivious to adults when there are children present whom he can spoil. Would either of you like some wine? I brought a couple of very nice Malbecs from Sonoma.”

  “That would be lovely, thank you,” she murmured.

  “Chip?”

  He waved his hand as if brushing a fly from his face. “Oh, that’s fine.”

  Peyton nodded approvingly, clearly pleased to have a task, and went to the kitchen, where John was concocting the Shirley Temples.

  “Now,” Clary was saying, sitting both Hallie and Garnet down on a round velvet pouf the color of a raspberry in August. “Tell me how you’re enjoying New Hampshire.” She and Sage sat on the floor before the children, as if the girls were storytellers or—and when the word came to Emily, she thought it, too, was an unhealthy connection—royalty. Clary was sitting with her legs straight before her while Sage had curled hers underneath her. Emily was impressed with the woman’s elasticity. She contemplated recommending to her daughters that they offer their hostess and her friend the pouf, but there were plenty of other places where these ladies could sit. They had chosen to sit on the floor before her daughters.

  Hallie and Garnet glanced briefly at each other, deciding who should answer, and then Hallie rocked forward a bit and replied simply, “I like the greenhouse.”

  “Me, too,” said Garnet.

  “I am not at all surprised,” Sage said.

  “Why?” Emily asked. She realized the moment the word had escaped her lips that it sounded like she was cross-examining the woman. But Sage didn’t seem to be disturbed by the tone.

  “What’s not to love in a greenhouse?” she answered. “Think of the beauty and the magic inside and the fact the world is always new in a greenhouse. It can always be spring. You can have flowers every day.”

  Emily noticed Hallie looking at her and nodding. She was reminding her of their conversation in the car ride home from dance that morning: Bethel had more greenhouses than the neighboring communities.

  “Well, I’m not sure that’s why the girls love the greenhouse. We’ve discussed what we will and won’t do with the building, and Hallie and Garnet are pretty clear about this: It will be their playhouse, not my greenhouse,” Emily said. “Besides, I think this village must have enough greenhouses already devoted to tomatoes and phlox and whatever.”

  “Tomatoes and phlox,” Sage said slowly, pondering Emily’s response. She didn’t seem especially happy. “We do grow both. At least some of us. But we also grow a fair amount of … whatever.”

  “Really, why are there so many greenhouses in Bethel?” Emily asked. “There must be a reason.”

  “There might be more than in some towns, but there’s no mystery to it,” Clary answered, jumping in. “There used to be a very active garden club in the village—women from Bethel won embarrassing numbers of blue ribbons at the county fairs for flowers and herbs and vegetables—and Sage’s father-in-law happened to own a construction company that specialized in them.”

  “In greenhouses.”

  “And solariums. And sunrooms. And he gave us all the ‘friends and family discount.’ ”

  “But whatever it is that we grow,” Sage added, still smarting from Emily’s offhand dismissal of what they cultivated in their greenhouses, “more times than not it tends to be more interesting than mere tomatoes and phlox. Some of us bring in cuttings and seedlings from all over the world. I have all sorts of things thriving in my greenhouse right now that most Americans have never even heard of—would never even have dreamed of! And Anise? Her work is even more extraordinary. Anise is brilliant: You simply can’t imagine. The things either of us could tell you about the power of herbs and tinctures and blood and—”

  “Yes, Sage,” Clary said, squeezing her arm and cutting her off. “We all know that you grow some remarkable things. But we don’t want to bore the girls!”

  “What do you mean by blood?” Emily asked. “I presume you don’t put blood in tinctures or potions.”

  “Oh,” Sage said, her voice more measured than a moment ago but still edgy, “I only meant the effect a natural remedy can have on the blood—on a person’s health.”

  “Herbs and tinctures and blood,” Chip said, and because he had barely spoken since they arrived, everyone turned to him expectantly. Even the girls. He sat down in an easy chair upholstered with images of honeysuckle vines. “Sometimes I think I could use a good herbalist these days.”

  Emily could tell there was a subterranean layer of sarcasm in his remark, but only because they had known each other so long. She was confident that only she had even an inkling that he might be mocking the need for an herbalist. Moreover, she also believed that it wasn’t precisely that he lacked faith in herbal medicine; rather, it was that he had problems of his own that in his opinion far transcended the powers of cohosh and ginseng.

  “Tell us, Hallie: What specifically do you like about the greenhouse?” Clary asked, not exactly ignoring Chip but not responding to his remark, either.

  “Well, it’s, like, Garnet’s and my own special place,” the girl answered.

  “It is your own special place, isn’t it? Places have auras, and I am so glad you appreciate the aura of that greenhouse.”

  “We haven’t spent a lot of time there yet,” Garnet added. “It’s kind of cold right now.”

  “Of course it is. But Sage and Anise and I will be happy to help you decide what to grow there. We can bring by seedlings and starters and roots. We can—”

  “I was serious,” Emily said, careful to smile as she interrupted Clary. “I think the girls want it to be a playhouse. Dolls and games and secrets—that sort of thing.”

  Sage stared at her, the woman’s eyes narrowing just the tiniest bit. “You know that Peyton’s father built that greenhouse. You know it was on land that was carefully dowsed.”

  “I didn’t know that. But, still, it seems to be metal framing and big pieces of glass with a good southern exposure. It’s beautifully built, and your father-in-law’s company did very good work: I don’t know much about greenhouses, but I can tell that for sure. You can be very proud. But, well, it’s a greenhouse—not a nuclear power plant.”

  “No, it’s certainly not. But tell me, Emily: Could you design a greenhouse?”

  “No, but I could call a company that makes them and order one.”

  “There was more to it than that,” Sage told her, her tongue clicking hard on the last word, and Emily was just about to say she agreed, she understood, she was just being glib. It wasn’t that she actually believed she had said something that might mer
it an apology; rather, she simply wanted to deescalate the conversation. But before she had opened her mouth, John and Peyton returned with the girls’ Shirley Temples and her and Chip’s glasses of red wine.

  “You’re going to like this, Chip,” Peyton told her husband.

  “And you girls are going to love these,” said John, leaning over and handing each of the twins a wide tumbler blushing with grenadine syrup. “It’s my secret ingredient.”

  “And that is?” asked Chip.

  “A magician never reveals the secret behind an illusion. And notice I did not use the word trick.”

  “Any special reason?” Emily asked.

  “A trick suggests I have taken advantage of people or fooled them. Played a joke of some sort on them. I prefer to leave that sort of bad behavior to my work as an attorney.”

  “Just so long as it’s not an herbal narcotic or magic hallucinogen of some kind,” Chip remarked. “Drink up, girls.”

  Everyone turned to him, a little nonplussed by the inappropriateness of the comment. But he simply raised his wineglass in a silent toast and took a sip. “You were right, Peyton. This is a delightful wine. A great selection.”

  And Peyton nodded and the girls sipped their Shirley Temples, a little tentatively at first but then voraciously, as Peyton told the grown-ups how he and Sage had discovered the vineyard on a tasting tour in Northern California last year, and how the Malbec was a new varietal for these wine growers. Chip’s strange admonition was ignored, and the small party quickly regained its footing. Emily was relieved. She had the sense that everyone was. Before the children had finished their Shirley Temples, John was escorting them up the stairs to the playroom, and Emily told herself that Sage and Clary were only following her daughters with their eyes because the girls were twins and they were indeed adorable. There was nothing more to it than that.

  “So, tell me,” Chip was saying. “What’s Clary short for? Clarice?”