John Saul - Nightshade

The next day will take care of itself, Bill told himself as he put the car back in gear and drove through the gates. Pulling up in front of the big brick house a few moments later, he switched off the ignition, but didn’t immediately leave the car. Instead he sat there, looking at the house, trying to get a sense of what might be happening inside. And he wondered if he really wanted to go back in, with Emily Moore still there. She’s just an old woman, he reminded himself. None of this is her fault. He got out of the car, strode up to the front door, then hesitated before knocking.

Should he just go in? But why not? It was his house, wasn’t it?

He opened the door and stepped inside.

And instantly noticed the change.

The warmth — the sense of welcome and comfort — was gone.

Though everything in the house looked exactly the same, everything had also somehow changed.

Something doesn’t want me here!

The thought seemed to come out of nowhere, but even as Bill tried to banish it, it took root in his mind. It was as if some kind of hostile force had crept into the house, and as he moved from room to room on the first floor, the feeling that this was no longer his home grew stronger. But that was ridiculous! The furniture was exactly as it had been for decades; the paintings were in their proper places on the walls. In the dining room, the table was set, laid with the best china and his great-grandmother’s sterling flatware, along with the Venetian crystal his grandparents had shipped back from their honeymoon tour long before World War II.

He started out of the dining room, then abruptly turned back.

There were seven places set at the table instead of six.

So Emily Moore would be joining them for dinner.

Again Bill felt an urge to leave, and again he put it aside. She’s Matt’s grandmother, he reminded himself. She has a right to be here.

“Hello?” he called out as he started up the wide stairs toward the second floor. “Anybody home?”

Joan suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, but before she could speak, he heard his mother-in-law calling out from her room: “Make him go away. I don’t want to see him! Not after what he did to me!”

“What I did to her?” Bill said, hurrying up the stairs. Then, as Joan stepped back and the light from the chandelier in the corridor shone full on her face, he stopped short. His wife’s face was ashen, and she seemed to have aged ten years in the short time since he’d last seen her. “Joan? Are you all right? You look — ”

Joan’s chin trembled, and for a moment Bill thought she would start to cry, but she regained control of herself. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all,” she said. “I’ll be all right.” She managed a slight smile. “And it’s not you she’s angry at. Right now, it’s my father.”

“Your father? But your father’s — ”

Joan held up a hand to silence him. “She has Alzheimer’s, remember? She’s been pretty good the last couple of days, but today — ” Her voice broke and she shrugged helplessly. “She’s been muttering about my father all day. She seems to think he’s coming home, and when she heard your voice, well…” Her words trailed off into silence, and Bill pulled her into his arms.

“This can’t go on,” he told her, gently stroking her face as if to caress the strain away. “Look what she’s doing to you. And from what I’m hearing about Matt — ”

Joan pulled away from him. “I thought you were just coming to his dinner party,” she said, her voice taking on a bitter edge. “But if you’re going to start about Mother, maybe you shouldn’t stay. She’s just having a bad day, but by tomorrow she’ll be fine.” In a near desperate tone she added: “She will be. I know she will be!”

Before Bill could say anything, Emily Moore’s voice erupted again. “Cynthia? Where are you?”

“I’m coming, Mother!” Joan called. As Bill opened his mouth to say something, she shook her head. “Don’t,” she pleaded. “Sometimes it’s easier if I just pretend to be my sister. At least she’s always nice to Cynthia.” She moved toward the door to her mother’s room, then turned back. “Are you staying for dinner?” she asked. “But before you answer, remember — I don’t want to talk about Mother tonight. For Matt’s sake, let’s just try not to fight about her, all right?”

Bill nodded, managing a smile. “For Matt’s sake,” he agreed quietly.

While Joan went to tend to her mother, he went to his closet and began laying out his tuxedo.

The Hapgood tradition, he decided, could survive Emily Moore.

Whether his marriage could remained to be seen.

* * *

MATT LAY SPRAWLED on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Why the hell did they have to have a dinner party, anyway?

But he knew why — because tomorrow he’d turn sixteen, and whenever a Hapgood boy turned sixteen, they had a dinner party the night before.

And then they went hunting.

And then they played a round at the Granite Falls Golf Club.

And then they had a big party for all the birthday boy’s friends.

It was the way his dad’s family always did it.

Except Bill Hapgood wasn’t his dad. Not anymore. He was just his stepfather, and three weeks ago he’d walked out, leaving him with his mother and his grandmother.

And everything had turned to crap.

From that night, when he’d watched his dad leave without even looking up at him, let alone saying good-bye, nothing had been right. At first he told himself the nightmares would go away — that they’d just begun again because of what had happened with his parents. After a week, he thought, he’d get used to the way things were and the nightmares would stop. But when they were still plaguing him in the middle of the second week, he began dreading going to bed, knowing what would come. For a while the house would be silent, but it wasn’t the kind of quiet he was used to, when you could hear owls hooting softly as they hunted, and listen to the gentle rustling of the wind in the trees outside the window. Instead it was a foreboding silence that enveloped the house.

But soon it would be broken by his grandmother’s voice. At first Matt had gone out into the hall to listen, in case she needed help, but every night it was the same. His grandmother was always in the room that was filled with his aunt’s stuff, always talking to his mother’s sister as if she were actually there. So he would go back to his room and try to go to sleep.

And every night the dreams would come. Dreams he could never quite remember in the morning, but that left him so tired he could barely stay awake at school and couldn’t concentrate on the lessons even if he managed to keep his eyes open.

This week he’d actually failed a history test.

It should have been an easy test — history was his favorite subject, and he’d been studying the textbook the night before the quiz. Except that even as he pored over the book, trying to memorize the major tenets of the Monroe Doctrine, the first tentacles of the terror of the nightmares were already creeping up from the dark depths of his subconscious, distracting him from his work, setting his nerves on edge, making his skin crawl as if some unseen creature were slithering over him.

So he failed the test in the morning, and then after lunch Mrs. Clemens wanted to know why his math assignments — always perfect until three weeks ago — were no longer being turned in at all.

And today Ted Stevens had dropped him from the first string of the football team.

Shit!

The last thing he felt like doing was putting on his tux and sitting in the dining-room pretending like there was something to celebrate!