John Saul - Nightshade

“Maybe if I see it all again,” she said, “maybe if I make myself go down to the basement and look at that place she put us in — I won’t have the nightmares anymore.”

And now they stood just outside the gates, and Matt could see the nervousness in her eyes. “I can do it by myself,” he assured her. “You really don’t have to come with me.” He could see Kelly wavering, but then she shook her head.

“You can’t go back in there by yourself. We’ll do it together.”

She slipped her hand into his and they started up the driveway. Their pace didn’t falter until they came to the spot where the driveway forked, one branch leading to the circular drive in front of the house, the other to the carriage house behind. They headed toward the front door as if by common consent, though no words passed between them. When they were on the porch, they stopped and looked at each other. “You really don’t have to — ” Matt said again, but Kelly didn’t let him finish.

“Open the door, Matt.”

He slipped the key into the lock, twisted it, and pushed the door open. They stepped through quickly, as if afraid they might lose their nerve entirely if they hesitated.

The house did not have the feeling Matt had expected. Indeed, as he closed the door behind him, he had the sensation that they were not alone. He glanced at Kelly and saw that she sensed it too.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” she said, her voice so soft it almost vanished into the silence of the house. “Maybe we should just go home.”

Matt shook his head. “I have to do it. I have to try to find out why my mother — ”

“She wasn’t your mother,” Kelly broke in. “She was never your mother, Matt. She was your aunt.”

Matt said nothing. He hadn’t yet told anyone about the dreams — dreams that he was now almost certain had not been dreams at all — in which his mother came into his room in the darkness of night. Came into his room, and into his bed, and —

Not his mother.

Joan Hapgood had not been his mother. Had never been his mother. Was that why she crept into his bed? Had she somehow thought that would bind him to her? He shuddered at the memory.

Face it, he told himself. Face all of it.

Steeling himself, he moved into the living room with Kelly still by his side, and saw the photograph of Joan and Bill Hapgood that had been taken on their wedding day, the photograph he’d previously assumed was of his mother and stepfather.

Now he knew better: it was his aunt and his father. Except as he moved closer, he saw that it had been altered. Instead of Joan Hapgood’s face, there now was an image of Cynthia Moore.

He was looking at a picture of his parents.

His mother and father, both dead, and now together in a way they had never been in life. His eyes stung with tears as he gazed at the photo. What might his life have been like if his true parents had married? He bit his lip to hold back the sob that rose in his throat. His hand tightening on Kelly’s, he moved on through the rooms on the first floor, then started up the stairs. He stopped at the door to the guest room, where all of Cynthia Moore’s things — his mother’s things — had been preserved by his grandmother but nearly destroyed by his aunt.

Face it, he repeated to himself. You have to face it.

Still holding Kelly Conroe’s hand, he stepped into the room.

And smelled his mother’s musky perfume.

Then he heard his mother’s voice. “You’re here,” she whispered. “You’ve come back to me.”

Matt froze as the words sank in, and then, as he stood rooted to the spot, he felt it.

His mother’s touch on the back of his neck.

“No,” he whispered. “Don’t… please don’t… ”

The finger on his neck moved to his cheek, then his lips. As his heart pounded and panic rose within him, the familiar darkness — the darkness in which his aunt had seduced him — began to close around him. Don’t, he told himself. Don’t give in to it again.

“Do it,” he heard his mother whisper, as he’d heard her whisper so many times before. “Do what you have to do… do what you want to do… ”

The fingers caressing his lips moved lower, slipping between the buttons of his shirt to touch his chest. As his body responded to the familiar touch, his resolve began to crumble. But just before he lost himself to the scent, the touch, and the voice of his mother, he steeled himself and spun around.

He was facing Kelly Conroe.

But it was not quite Kelly. Where before Kelly’s eyes had always been clear and sparkling, now they were burning.

Burning, as her fingers — now stroking his cheek… touching his skin — were burning.

“Love me, Matt,” she whispered, her voice husky, her eyes smoldering. “Love me here. Love me now.” Her hands were under his shirt again, peeling it back until it fell from his shoulders, and then Kelly’s body was pressed against his. “Please,” she whispered. “Love me.”

Matt’s heart throbbed as his body responded to Kelly’s touch. Almost of their own volition, his arms went around her, pulling her close.

Her lips found his, and as the scent of his mother’s perfume spread through his body, he felt himself drifting once more into the dark pleasures she had brought him. “Do it,” he heard her whisper once more. “Do what you want to do… ” But as her arms tightened around him, as her body pressed against his, images began boiling up out of his memory.

The deer — his father — his grandmother and Becky — all of them dead.

The scent of his mother’s perfume gave way to the smell of blood.

“No!” Matt moaned. Twisting free of Kelly’s embrace, he grabbed her by the arm and began pulling her toward the door. “We have to get out of here,” he told her. “Now!”

He heard his mother cry out. “No! Don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me!”

He ignored her cries, pulling Kelly out the door and toward the top of the stairs, then lifting her into his arms and carrying her down the long flight toward the entry hall and the open front door.

“No… ” his mother’s voice whimpered, pleading with him as he had so often pleaded with her. “Please… no…”

Matt shut his mind to his mother’s imprecations, but he could feel her reaching out to him, trying to keep him with her. And then he was through the front door, across the porch, and down the steps.

Standing in the driveway, he finally lowered Kelly to the ground. Gently, he turned her so she was facing him, and looked into her eyes.

They were the eyes of his friend.

Putting his arms around Kelly, he held her close. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “It’s finally going to be all right.”

Kelly looked up at him uncertainly. The last thing she remembered was being in the guest room, looking at Cynthia Moore’s things. And then —

Nothing.

“What happened?” she asked. “We were in the guest room and — ”

Matt put a finger over her lips. “Nothing happened,” he told her. “I just saw a ghost, that’s all.”

His arm wrapped protectively around Kelly, he turned his back not only on the house, but on all of its ghosts as well.