Home Before Dark: A Novel (29 page)

Hannah Ditmer doesn’t appear surprised when she finds me pounding on the back door of her mother’s cottage. She seems more impatient than anything else, shooting me a look that says,
What took you so long?

“Since I arrived, how many times have you been inside Baneberry Hall?” I say. “And how long have you been stealing from us?”

“It’s not stealing if no one wants it,” Hannah says.

“Just because that house sat empty didn’t mean those things were yours to take.”

Hannah gives an agree-to-disagree shrug. “I can give you back the stuff that hasn’t sold. But most of what I took from that house is long gone. And good luck trying to get it back.”

She drifts away from the open door, giving me the choice to enter or not. It’s obvious she doesn’t care. I opt to follow her, past the living room—the TV now blaring a cooking show—and into the kitchen.

“You never answered my question,” I say. “How long has it been going on?”

“A couple years.” Hannah sits at the kitchen table and reaches for her pack of Marlboro Lights. “Since my mom got sick.”

That also answers my second question—why. And I get it. Elsa Ditmer was sick, they needed money, and Baneberry Hall was just sitting empty. A house-shaped treasure trove at the top of the hill.

“And how many times did you sneak in since I’ve been there?”

I know now it was her who kept entering Baneberry Hall and not some random ghoul from town. She’s the shadowy figure I saw outside the night I arrived. And the one I saw fleeing the house the night after that. The ringing bells and the chandelier and the record player—all of it was Hannah.

She lights a cigarette. Smoke curls from her parted lips. “Enough that I’m surprised you didn’t catch me earlier.”

“Why’d you do it?” I say. “I don’t care about most of the junk in that house. If you wanted it, all you needed to do was ask. You certainly didn’t need to distract me with ringing bells and a record player.”

“It wasn’t a distraction,” Hannah says. “It was more of an attempt to get you to leave. That house has been a gold mine. I didn’t want to risk losing it.”

“So all of this was just some
Scooby-Doo
trick to scare me away?”

“I figured I’d give it a shot.” Hannah exhales a stream of smoke, pleased with herself. “And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.”

“I assume that’s why you also told me what my father wrote about that sleepover was true.”

“Some of it was,” Hannah says. “You really did think someone was in that wardrobe and started freaking out. And you did punch me. Although I was being a little bitch that night and probably had it coming. So, yeah, your father made up a lot of it, but the result was the same—we left early, and my mother was so pissed that she forbade us from going to your house again.”

“You didn’t need to lie about that,” I say. “Nor did you need to do all that haunted-house shit. The record player and that stupid teddy bear.”

Hannah stubs out her cigarette. “What bear?”

“You know what bear,” I say. “Buster.”

“I haven’t seen Buster since the night Petra vanished.”

I stare at her, looking for signs she’s lying. But Hannah’s face is now like a mask, hiding all emotion.

“I think it’s best if you give me your keys,” I say. “To the gate and to the house itself.”

“If you insist,” Hannah says.

She leaves the kitchen and disappears upstairs, her footfalls heavy on the steps. Moments later, a shadow slides across the kitchen wall, darkening the Formica countertop. I spin around to see Elsa Ditmer in the doorway, wearing the same nightgown she had on the night I returned to Baneberry Hall. The crucifix around her neck glints in the kitchen light.

“You’re not Petra,” she says, shuffling toward me.

“I’m not,” I say. “I’m Maggie Holt.”

“Maggie.” Elsa’s upon me now, her hands cold on my cheeks as she stares into my eyes. “Don’t stay in that house. You’re going to die there.”

Hannah enters the kitchen, a key ring in her hand. Her face drops when she sees her mother.

“Mama, you should be resting,” she says, gently pulling Elsa away from me.

“I want to see Petra.”

“I told you, Petra’s gone.”

“Where?” Elsa’s voice is so full of heartbreak it makes me want to cover my ears. “Where has she gone?”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Hannah looks my way, concerned I’m going to judge her for not telling her mother the truth. I wouldn’t
dare. I know full well how much the truth can hurt. “Now let’s get you into bed.”

The two women leave the kitchen. A few minutes later, Hannah returns and collapses into her chair. I can’t help but pity her. She’s a thief. She’s a liar. But she’s also had a much harder life than I have. I often forget that, despite all the grief it’s brought us, my family’s time at Baneberry Hall made us rich.

When Hannah slides the keys toward me, I push them back across the table.

“Listen,” I say, “I don’t plan on keeping most of the stuff inside that house. Next week, if you want, you can come over and take whatever you want to sell. There’s a shitload of antiques in there. And a lot of money that could be made.”

“All of it’s yours,” Hannah says.

“Not really. Most of it came with the house. It doesn’t belong to anyone. So consider it yours.”

“I’ll think about it.” Hannah takes the keys and, with a grateful nod, shoves them back in her pocket. “But just so you know, I haven’t used these to sneak inside since you came back.”

I cock my head. “What are you saying?”

“That there are other ways into that house.”

“Where?”

Hannah reaches for another cigarette but decides against it. Instead, she stares at her hands and quietly says, “I got in through the door at the back of the house.”

“There isn’t a back door to Baneberry Hall.”

“It’s hidden,” she says. “My mother showed it to me years ago.”

Once again, I look for signs that she’s lying. I don’t see any. In that moment, Hannah Ditmer looks the most sincere I’ve ever seen her.

“Please. Tell me where?”

“Back of the house,” Hannah says. “Behind the ivy.”

That morning, I was awakened by a series of blows to my face and chest. Lost in the gray between dreams and wakefulness, I at first thought it was the ghost of William Garson, beating me with his cane. But when I opened my eyes, I saw it was Jess, pummeling me with both fists.

“What did you do?”
she screamed.
“What the fuck did you do?”

She sat on top of me, red-faced and furious. Although I was able to buck her off me, Jess managed to land a haymaker before falling sideways. Pain pulsed across my jaw as we reversed positions—me straddling her thrashing legs and gripping wrists that vibrated with rage.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I yelled.

“
Me?
What’s wrong with
you
?”

Overpowered and overwhelmed—with rage, with despair, with exhaustion—Jess gave up the fight. It shattered my heart to feel her body go limp beneath mine, to see her sink into the bed, moaning. I would have preferred a thousand punches to that.

“How could you do that, Ewan?” she moaned. “How could you hurt Maggie?”

The mention of our daughter sent me into a full-blown panic. I jumped off the bed and scrambled to Maggie’s room, thinking of Katie Carver and Indigo Garson and all those other girls who’d died within these walls.

When I reached her room and saw Maggie sitting up in bed, the relief I felt was stronger than anything I’d experienced before or since. My daughter was safe. William Garson hadn’t gotten to her.

Then I saw her neck, and my panic returned.

It was circled with marks so red they looked as though they’d been seared into her skin. Making it worse was how they resembled handprints. I could make out the ovals of palms and crimson columns left by fingers.

Maggie looked at me from the bed, terrified, and began to wail. I started to go to her but felt something swoop up behind me—a sudden force as strong as a wind gust. It was Jess again, her anger returning to full boil. In an instant she shoved me to the floor.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” she shouted.

I scrambled backward along the floor, just in case Jess tried to kick me. She looked so angry I expected one at any moment. “What happened to her?”

Jess stared down at me with an unspeakable look of hatred on her face. There was nothing else it could have been. In that moment, my wife despised me.

“Maggie woke me up with her crying. I came here and found her gasping for breath. Her face was purple, Ewan. And then I saw those marks on her neck—”

“Jess, you know I would never hurt her. You have to believe me.”

“Our daughter’s pain is what I believe,” Jess said. “And since I didn’t hurt her, that leaves you.”

Maggie had started to wail even more, the sound so loud I at first thought Jess couldn’t hear me when I said, “It doesn’t.”

She heard. It just took her a second to react. When she did, it was with a snarled “Of course it was you!”

“Think about it, Jess,” I said. “I was asleep. You’re the one who woke me up.”

“You weren’t asleep,” she said. “You’d just crawled back into bed the second before I heard Maggie crying.”

Panic poured into me—an all-consuming wave. I remained on the floor, my head in my hands, feeling terrified and guilty. I’d hurt my daughter, and I hadn’t even been aware of it.

“It wasn’t me, Jess,” I said. “I need you to believe that.”

“Ewan, I saw you get back into bed.”

“It might have been me, but it wasn’t intentional,” I said, knowing I sounded crazy. “William Garson made me do it.”

He’d come for Maggie, just as he’d come for the others. Each method was different—baneberries for his daughter, a pillow over Katie Carver’s face. Drownings and falls and accidents. Each death brought about by their fathers, even though they had no control over their actions.

“He’s been killing people throughout the history of this house. All of them girls. All of them sixteen or under. He killed his daughter, Jess. And now he’s making other fathers kill theirs. He’s been doing it for years.”

Jess looked at me like I was a stranger. I couldn’t blame her. In that moment, I was unrecognizable even to myself.

“Listen to yourself, Ewan,” she said. “Spouting this gibberish,
trying to excuse what you’ve done. You’re lucky I don’t call the police.”

“Call them.” That would have been one way out of the situation—locking me away where I couldn’t get to Maggie and William Garson couldn’t get to me. “Please call them.”

“You’re sick, Ewan,” Jess said before snatching Maggie off the bed and leaving the room.

I followed them down the hall to our bedroom, my body getting more numb with each step. I couldn’t believe that my biggest fear was about to come true. I was about to lose my family.

“I didn’t mean to do it.”

Jess slammed the bedroom door in my face. I reached for the handle and, finding it locked, began to pound on the door.

“Jess, please! You have to believe me!”

All I heard on the other side of the door was the sound of drawers being opened and closet doors slamming shut. Ten minutes later, Jess emerged with a packed suitcase, which she dragged behind her while still carrying Maggie. They veered into Maggie’s room to repeat the process.

Slam.

Lock.

Pack.

I paced the hallway, wondering what to do. The answer hit me when Jess finally left Maggie’s room with another, smaller suitcase.

Nothing.

Let them leave. Let Jess take Maggie as far away from Baneberry Hall as possible. It didn’t matter that she was angry with me and might be for a very long time. Maybe forever. What mattered was that Maggie wouldn’t be inside these walls.

“Just tell me where you’re going,” I said as I followed them down the stairs.

“
No
,” Jess said with a ferocity I didn’t think was possible.

I caught up to them at the bottom of the steps and pushed in front of Jess, briefly halting their escape.

“Look at me, Jess.” I stood before her, hoping she still recognized the real me. Hoping that some small traces of that man remained. “I would never intentionally hurt our daughter. You
know
that.”

Jess, who’d been keeping up a brave face for Maggie’s sake, let it crumble. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Know that I love you. And I love Maggie. And I’m going to fix this while you’re gone. I promise. This house won’t hurt Maggie anymore.”

Jess looked into my eyes, a thousand emotions shifting across her face. I glimpsed sadness and fear and confusion.

“It’s not the house I’m afraid of,” she said.

She stepped around me, weighed down with our daughter and two suitcases. All three were placed on the floor just long enough for her to open the front door. Jess picked up her suitcase. Maggie lifted hers. Then together the two of them, still in their nightclothes, left Baneberry Hall.

I watched their departure from the vestibule, not blinking as the car vanished from view. Under any other circumstances, I would have been devastated. My wife and child had left me. I didn’t know where they were going. I didn’t know when they’d return. Yet I felt nothing but relief after they were gone. It meant Maggie was far from Baneberry Hall.

It wasn’t safe there. Not for her.

And it would never be safe with the spirit of William Garson
still present. Although I knew I needed to rid him from the place, I had no idea how. In fact, there was only one person I could turn to for advice.

And he wasn’t even alive.

Without any other options, I made my way to the kitchen and sat facing the bells on the wall.

Then I waited.