Райли Сейгер - Home Before Dark - A Novel

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.

I walk to the display case, ready to tell the woman adjusting pastries inside it how much I like the design. The compliment dies on my lips when the woman rises from behind the counter and I see who she is.

Marta Carver.

I recognize her from the pictures I saw when I was a House of Horrors– obsessed tween who hoped Google would help fill the gaps in my knowledge. She’s older and softer now. Fiftyish, brown hair graying at the roots, slightly matronly in her yellow blouse and white apron. Her glasses don’t help—the same unflattering spectacles she wore in all those photos.

I’m apparently not the only one who’s done some Googling, because it’s clear she knows who I am. Her eyes widen just enough to register her surprise, and her jaw tightens. She clears her throat, and I brace myself for an angry tirade about my father. It would be justified. Of the many people in Bartleby who hate the Book, Marta Carver has the biggest reason for doing so.

Instead, she forces her lips into a polite smile and says, “What can I get for you, Miss Holt?”

“I—”

I’m sorry. That’s what I want to say. I’m sorry my father exploited your tragedy in his book. I’m sorry that because of him the whole world knows what your husband did.

“Coffee, please,” is what I end up saying, the words tight in my throat. “To go.”

Marta says nothing else as she pours my coffee and hands it to me. I muster a weak “Thank you” and pay with a ten-dollar bill. The change goes into a tip jar atop the counter, as if that seven dollars can make up for twenty-five years of pain.

I tell myself there’s no need to apologize. That it was my father, not me, who wronged her. That I’m just as much a victim as she is.

But as I leave that bakery, I know two things.

One, that I’m a coward.

And, two, that I hope to never see Marta Carver again as long as I live.

—

I return from the grocery store with a dozen paper bags in the back of my pickup. Because Baneberry Hall’s kitchen leaves a lot to be desired, I stocked up on food that’s easy to prepare. Canned soups, cold cereal, frozen dinners that can be zapped in the ancient microwave.

When I pull up to the house, I find a Toyota Camry also parked in the circular drive. Soon a man appears from the side of the house, as if he’s just been roaming the grounds. He’s in his early fifties, trim, with a tidy beard, a checked sport coat, and a matching bow tie. The outfit makes him look like an old-timey salesman. All that’s missing is a straw hat and a bottle of snake oil. As he approaches with one hand extended and another gripping a reporter’s notebook, I realize exactly who he is.

Brian Prince.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

“Good to see you, Maggie,” he says, as if we’re old friends.

I hop out of the truck, scowling. “You’re trespassing, Mr. Prince.”

“My apologies,” he says, doing a half bow of attrition. “I heard you were back in town, so I decided to drive out here and see for myself. When I saw the front gate open, I realized the rumors were true. Hope you don’t mind the intrusion.”

I grab a grocery bag from the truck and carry it to the porch. “Will you leave if I say yes?”

“Grudgingly,” he says. “But I do intend to come back, so you might as well get it over with now.”

“Get what over with?”

“Our interview, of course,” he says.

I return to the truck and grab two more bags. “I’m afraid I’m not very newsworthy, Mr. Prince.”

“Oh, I beg to differ. I think the community would be very interested to know that a member of the Holt family has moved back to Baneberry Hall.”

“I’m not moving in,” I say. “In fact, I’m moving out. There’s your article in two sentences.”

“What are your plans for the house?”

“Fix it up, sell it, hopefully walk away with a profit,” I say, nodding toward the equipment on the lawn as I make my way to the porch. First the table saw. Then the electric sander. Then the sledgehammer.

“The fact that Baneberry Hall will soon be back on the market is newsworthy in itself,” Brian says.

Deep down, I know Brian Prince is blameless. He heard a juicy story about a haunted house, interviewed my father, and wrote down what he said. He had simply done his job, just like Tess Alcott had done hers. The only two people responsible are my parents, and even they had no idea the story of Baneberry Hall would grow into the unruly phenomenon it became. That still doesn’t keep me from wanting to grab the sledgehammer and chase Brian Prince off my property.

“Newsworthy or not, I don’t want to talk to you,” I say.

“Your father did,” he says. “Sadly, he never got the chance.”

I lower the bags on the porch, my legs wobbly with surprise. “You communicated with my father?”

“Not often,” Brian says. “But we continued to correspond on and off over the years. And one of the things we discussed shortly before his illness took a turn for the worse was him coming back here to do an interview with me.”

“Your idea, I suppose.”

“Actually, it was your father who suggested it. He pitched it as an exclusive interview. Him and me talking inside this house, twenty-five years later.”