Home Before Dark: A Novel (16 page)

“He says we’re going to die here.”

Until then, the day had been notable for
not
being notable. No ringing bells or rogue snakes or new, unnerving discovery. If there had been a thud at 4:54 in the morning, I slept right through it. It had simply been a normal day. Our first at Baneberry Hall.

Then my daughter uttered those words, and it all went to shit.

I immediately fetched Jess, knowing this was a job best handled by the both of us. Even then, I wasn’t sure what we should do. One of my daughter’s imaginary friends was telling her she was going to die. That wasn’t covered in any parenting handbook.

“Mister Shadow isn’t real,” Jess said as she climbed onto the bed and took Maggie into her arms. “And he’s not a ghost. He’s just a piece of your imagination with a mean voice telling you things that aren’t true.”

Maggie remained unconvinced.

“But he
is
real,” she said. “He comes out at night and says we’re going to die.”

“Do your other friends say stuff like that?”

“They’re not my friends,” Maggie said in a way that broke my heart a little. Basically, she was telling us that she had no friends. Not even imaginary ones. “They’re just people who come into my room.”

“Just how many people have you met?” Jess said.

“Three.” Maggie counted them off on her fingers. “There’s Mister Shadow. And the girl with no name. And Miss Pennyface.”

Jess and I exchanged concerned looks. Whatever this was, it wasn’t normal.

“Miss Pennyface?” I said. “Why do you call her that?”

“Because she has pennies over her eyes. But she can still see. She’s watching us right now.”

Maggie pointed to the corner by the closet with the slanted door. I saw nothing but an empty space where the angled ceiling began its sharp descent. Jess didn’t see anything, either, because she said, “There’s no one there, honey.”

“There is!” Maggie cried, once more on the verge of tears. “She’s looking right at us!”

She was so convincing in her certainty that I continued to stare at the corner, searching the shadows there, looking in vain for something I couldn’t see but that my daughter could, even if it was just in her mind’s eye.

Then I heard a noise.

Tap.

It came from somewhere down the hallway. A single rap on the hardwood floor.

“What the hell was that?” Jess said.

“I don’t know.”

Tap.

The noise was louder that time. Like whatever was causing it had moved a few feet down the hallway, closer to Maggie’s bedroom.

Tap-tap.

These were louder still, the second sounding nearer than the first.

“Do you think it’s the pipes?” Jess asked.

“If it is, why haven’t we heard it until now?”

Tap-tap-tap.

Three that time, growing in volume until they were right outside.

Maggie pressed against her mother, her wide eyes unblinking.

“It’s Mister Shadow,” she said.

Jess hushed her. “Maggie, stop it. He’s not real.”

Mister Shadow might not have been real, but the tapping certainly was. The only explanation I could think of was the most obvious one: an intruder had entered Baneberry Hall.

“Someone’s inside the house,” I whispered.

The noise was now an unbroken stream, so loud and so close. It seemed to pass right by the bedroom door, even though no motion accompanied it.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

The sound began to recede as it continued down the hall, seemingly heading to the steps that led to the third floor.

I bolted from the bed, determined to follow it. “You and Maggie stay right here.”

Jess protested. “Ewan, wait—”

If she said anything else, I didn’t hear it. By then I was already running down the hallway, trying to locate the source of the—

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

I looked up and down the hallway. Nothing was there. Certainly nothing that could have caused something as strange as that—

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

The sound had become quieter, almost as if it had moved to another section of the house. I heard one last
tap
before it died away completely, leaving me standing in a silent hallway.

It didn’t last long.

Within seconds, I heard something else.

Music.

Coming from directly above me.

“You are sixteen, going on seventeen—”

I bolted up the steps to the third floor, taking them two at a time. When the door to my study edged into view, I saw that it was closed, a thin strip of light visible just beneath it.

“Baby, it’s time to think.”

I knew I should have turned back, but by then it was too late. Whoever was behind that door had heard me coming. Besides, momentum kept me moving. Up the rest of the steps, through the door, into the study.

“Better beware—”

Just like the other night, the study was empty. It was just me and the record player and the damn album spinning and spinning and spinning.

“—be canny—”

I turned it off, the song mutating as the turntable slowed to a stop. I then examined the study, wondering where the intruder had gone.

And how he had caused those taps.

And if it was going to happen again.

Because it had already happened once before. Two nights ago, when I’d first heard the record player. That hadn’t been Jess or Maggie or a goddamn mouse.

The realization that our home had been broken into twice now rattled me. With shaking hands, I removed the record from the turntable and stuffed it into its cardboard sleeve. I saw no need to give the intruder a chance to play it a third time. I then unplugged the record player and put it back inside its case. Both cases were then put back in the closet where I found them.

Then I went downstairs to call the police.

The policewoman who came to our house, Officer Tess Alcott, was so young I at first didn’t believe she was a cop. She looked like she had barely finished Girl Scouts, let alone a police academy. Officer Alcott probably got that a lot, for she presented herself with a gruffness that felt forced.

“Was anything taken?” she asked, her pen pressed to the tiny notebook in her hands. “Any missing valuables? Any cash that’s unaccounted for?”

“Not that we know of,” I said. “But a lot of this stuff wasn’t ours. We inherited it when we bought the house. So something could be missing that we didn’t know about.”

The three of us were in the parlor, me and Jess perched on the edge of the couch, too nervous to relax. Officer Alcott sat across from us, surveying the room.

“Curtis Carver and his wife owned this place before you, didn’t they?” she said.

“Yes,” Jess said. “Do you think that could have something to do with the break-in?”

“I don’t see any reason why it would.”

I squinted at her, curious. “Then why did you ask?”

“So I can comb our records and see if there were any break-ins when they lived here. How did the intruder get inside? I’m assuming the front door was unlocked.”

“It wasn’t,” I said. “I locked it before I went upstairs to tuck my daughter into bed, and it was still locked after the intruder had left.”

“So, they came in through a window?”

“They were all closed,” Jess said.

Officer Alcott, who had been writing this all down in her notebook, suddenly looked up, her pen paused against paper. “Are you certain there even was an intruder?”

“We heard noises,” I said, understanding in that moment just how ridiculous I sounded. Like a child. Someone as scared and imaginative as Maggie.

“Lots of houses make noises,” Officer Alcott said.

“Not this kind of noise.” I tried to describe the tapping sound that had moved down the hallway, going so far as to knock on the parlor floor in an attempt to replicate it. When the officer seemed unconvinced, I added, “There was also music. Someone had turned on the record player in my study. That’s happened twice now.”

Officer Alcott turned to Jess. “Did you hear the record player?”

“I didn’t.” Jess gave me an apologetic look. “Neither of the times it was on.”

The notebook and pen went back into the front pocket of Officer Alcott’s uniform. “Listen, folks,” she said. “If nothing was taken and there are no signs of a break-in and only one of you heard things—”

“We both heard the tapping,” I interjected.

Officer Alcott raised a hand, trying to calm me. “I’m not sure what it is you want me to do here.”

“You can believe us,” I said testily.

“Sir, I do believe you. I believe you heard something and thought it was an intruder. But this sounds to me like whatever you heard wasn’t what you
thought
you’d heard.”

I understood then a little bit of Maggie’s frustration whenever we talked about her imaginary friends. Not being believed was maddening. Only in my case, what I was saying was real. Those things
happened
.

“So we’re just supposed to let it happen again?”

“No,” Officer Alcott said. “You’re supposed to be smart and vigilant and call us the next time you see anything suspicious.”

Her choice of words didn’t go unnoticed.

See
anything suspicious. Not hear.

Officer Alcott departed with a tip of her hat and a nod of her head, leaving Jess and me to fend for ourselves. I did it the only way I knew how—by raiding the house for supplies to create a makeshift security system.

A pack of index cards.

Several spools of thread.

A box of chalk.

“What’s all this for again?” Jess asked as I tore off a piece of index card.

“To see if someone’s sneaking into the house.” I stuffed the paper sliver between the door and its frame so that it would fall out if the door was opened. “If they are, this will tell us where he’s getting inside.”

I used the chalk to draw a thin line across the floor in front of the door. After that, I stretched the thread across the doorway, keeping it ankle-height. If anyone entered, I’d be able to tell. The thread would be snapped, and the chalk would be smudged.

“How many places are you going to do this?” Jess asked.

“The front door and every window,” I replied.

By the time I went to bed, every openable window in the house had a length of thread across it and a small slip of index card stuck under its sill.

Whoever the intruder was, I was prepared for his next visit.

Or so I thought.

It turned out I wasn’t prepared for anything that lay in store for us.

I’m still looking at that empty patch of desk when something else catches my attention. On the extreme edge of my vision, I detect motion outside one of the study windows. Rushing to the glass, I glimpse a dark figure vanishing into the woods behind the house.

In an instant, I’m on the run again, reversing my route up here. Down the steps, across the hall, down more steps. On my way to the front door, I pause long enough to grab a flashlight from a box of supplies sitting in the great room.

Then I’m outside, sprinting around the house and crashing into the forest. It’s pitch-black here, the moonlight eclipsed by the trees. I turn on the flashlight. The beam jitters across the ground before me, catching random clusters of baneberries.

“I know you’re out here!” I shout into the darkness. “I saw you!”

There’s no response. Not that I’m expecting one. I just want whoever it is to know I’ve seen them. Hopefully that alone will prevent a return visit.

I continue to move through the woods, the downward slope of the hill making me go faster. Soon I’m at the pet cemetery, the lumpy
gravestones blurs of white in the flashlight’s beam. Then I’m past the graves and approaching the stone wall at the base of the hill. It’s intimidating in the darkness—ten feet high and as thick as a castle wall.

It dwarfs me when I stand next to it, which should be reassuring. No one’s getting over that baby. Not without a ladder. But that realization prompts an uneasy question: How did this ghoul get on the property?

An answer arrives a minute later, when I decide to exit the woods by following the wall to the front gate. I get only about fifty yards before seeing a section of wall that has crumbled away. It’s not a big gap. Just a foot-wide space cut through the wall, like someone using a finger to slice a stick of butter. To pass through it, I need to turn and sidestep my way across. Once I’m on the other side—and no longer officially on Baneberry Hall property—I glimpse the back of a cottage through the trees. Its exterior, yellow in the daytime, looks whitish in the moonlight. One window is aglow. Beyond it flickers the green-blue screen of a television set.

The cottage belongs either to Dane or the Ditmers. I’m not sure who lives on either side of the road. I suppose it’s something I should find out, since an accidental side entrance to my property sits not far from their backyard.

Not that Dane or Hannah Ditmer would need to sneak onto the property. Each has keys to both the gate and the front door. They could walk right in whenever they wanted.

Which suggests that whoever was in the house had come and gone this way. All they needed to do was pass through the gap in the wall. The hardest part, as far as I can tell, is knowing about it. And it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of people in Bartleby and beyond had that knowledge.

I head back to the house, my pace hurried, suddenly convinced there are more ghouls on the way and that I need to head them off at the pass. Back inside, I grab the knife and do a search of Baneberry
Hall. It’s a nerve-shredding task. Opening each door, not knowing what I’ll find behind it. Flicking each switch and anticipating the worst in that nanosecond of darkness before the lights come on.

Baneberry Hall ends up being empty.

For how long, I have no idea.

Which is why I take a page from my father’s book.

Literally.

I rip the page straight out of the copy on the kitchen table and tear it into small pieces. It feels good. I’ve never defaced a copy of the Book before, and the satisfaction I get in doing so now makes me wish I’d started years ago.

I think of my father as I slip a scrap of paper into the crack of the front door, wondering if he’d be amused to see me doing something he wrote about in the Book. Probably not. If anything, I suspect he’d be disappointed that I broke my promise about never returning to Baneberry Hall.

I tried mightily not to disappoint him. Even though by age nine I’d pegged him as a liar, I still sought his approval at every turn. Maybe it stemmed from a sense that if I proved myself enough, he’d eventually deem me worthy of knowing the truth about the Book. Or maybe it was just typical broken-family rebellion. Since I knew I’d never live up to my mother’s lofty standards, I aimed for the much-lower bar set by my father.

That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a good father. He was, in many ways, a terrific dad, and not just because he spoiled me rotten. He was attentive and kind. He never talked down to me, like my mother did. And he never, ever underestimated me.

Growing up, I was given lists of books to read, movies to see, albums to listen to. Things no one would suggest for a teenager. Bergman films. Miles Davis records. Tolstoy and Joyce and Pynchon. Each one was a sign he thought I was capable of opening my mind and expanding my horizons. And even though I had zero interest in jazz or
Gravity’s Rainbow
, I tried my best to appreciate his tastes. My father believed in me, and I didn’t want to let him down.

I disappointed him anyway. When I went to college and decided to study design and not journalism or English lit, dashing his dreams of having another writer in the family. When I quit the boring-but-stable design job I had since graduation to start the company with Allie.

That one began a period of ups and downs that lasted until my father’s death. He once told me our relationship was like a rose. Beautiful, yes, but it came with thorns. I liken it to the weather. It was always changing. Icy seasons. Warm spells. Months when we’d talk almost every day and long sections of radio silence.

Most of it was my doing, each phase dictated by my relationship to the Book. If I made it through a few months without being associated with
House of Horrors
, I’d treat my father like he was my best friend. But the moment the Book and I would inevitably be pushed together again—like the time I was ambushed by a tabloid reporter on its twentieth anniversary—I’d turn cool, even bitter.

Meanwhile, my father began his retreat from the world, cloistering himself in his apartment with his beloved books and classic films. Once a ubiquitous interview subject, willing to be quoted about anything from the supernatural to the publishing industry, he cut himself off from all media. For a long time, I thought he’d grown tired of living with the lie he had created and no longer wanted anything to do with it. His correspondence with Brian Prince suggests otherwise.

Our relationship changed when he got sick. His cancer was aggressive, sinking its teeth into him quickly and without reprieve. There wasn’t time for any more pettiness on my part. I needed to be there for him, and I was, right to the very end.

By midnight, there’s a scrap of the Book tucked into the front door and every window.

I go to my room.

I lock the door.

I put the knife I’ve been carrying on the nightstand next to the bed.

My final act for the night is to take a Valium, crawl under the covers, and try to sleep, even though I already know it’s not going to arrive easily, if at all.