Ten

It’s the dead of night and I’m in bed, not quite asleep but not quite awake.

My father had a phrase for that.

In the gray.

That netherworld between deep sleep and full wakefulness.

So I’m in the gray.

Or at least I think I am.

I might be dreaming, because in that fuzzy grayness I hear the armoire doors crack open.

I open my eyes, lift my head from the pillow, look to the armoire towering against the wall opposite the bed.

The doors are indeed open. Just an inch. A dark slit through which I can see into the armoire itself.

Inside is a man.

Staring.

Eyes unblinking.

Lips flat.

Mister Shadow.

This isn’t real. I repeat it in my head like a chant. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.

But Mister Shadow is still there, lurking inside. Not moving. Just staring.

Then the armoire doors open and he’s suddenly by the bed, leaning over me, gripping my arms and hissing, “You’re going to die here.”

My eyes snap open—for real this time. I sit up in bed, a terrified yelp leaping from my throat. I cast a panicked glance toward the armoire. Its doors are shut. There’s no Mister Shadow. It was all just a dream.

No, not a dream.

A night terror.

One that stays with me as I get out of bed and tiptoe to the armoire. Even though I know I’m being paranoid and ridiculous, I press my ear to one of the doors, listening for a hint of noise from within.

There’s nothing inside.

I know that.

To think otherwise would make me just as gullible as Wendy Davenport and any of the other people who believe the Book.

Yet fear tightens my chest as I tug the doors open just a crack. I tell myself it’s vigilance that makes me peer inside. Someone broke into the house last night, and it makes sense to make sure whoever it was hasn’t come back.

But I know the score.

I’m looking for Mister Shadow.

Inside the armoire, I see nothing but the dresses that still hang there, draped in darkness. They brighten once I throw the doors completely open, allowing them to be hit with the gray light coming through the bedroom windows.

The armoire is empty. Of course it is.

Even so, the nightmare lingers. Enough for me to decide to start my day, even though it’s barely dawn. In the shower, each groan of the creaky pipes seems to signal Mister Shadow’s approach. Every time I close my eyes against the spray of water, I expect to open them and find him here.

What bothers me so much about the nightmare is that it didn’t seem like one. It had the feel of something experienced. Something real.

A memory.

Just like the one I had of me and my father painting in the kitchen.

But it can’t be.

I can’t remember something that never happened.

Which means it’s the Book I’m remembering. A sound theory, if my father hadn’t written it in first person. The reader sees everything only through his eyes, and I’ve read House of Horrors too many times to know my father never wrote such a scene.

I survive the shower unscathed, of course, and make my way downstairs. The slip of paper is still jammed in the front door. It’s the same with all the windows.

Nothing has been disturbed.

I’m all alone.

No one here but us chickens.

When Dane arrives at eight, I’m already on my third cup of coffee and twitchy from the caffeine. And suspicious. Deep down, I know Dane had no role in last night’s events. Yet seeing him enter Baneberry Hall without my having unlocked the gate or the front door reminds me of the section of missing wall and the cottage just beyond it. There’s also the record player to consider. No one else knew we had found it yesterday. Only me and Dane, who insisted on dragging it to the desk.

“Which cottage is yours?” I ask him. “The yellow one or the brown one?”

“Brown.”

Which means the one I saw last night belongs to the Ditmers. Dane’s sits on the other side of the road.

“Now I have a question,” he says, eyeing the coffee mug in my hand. “Is there more of that, and can I have it?”

“There’s half a pot with your name on it.”

When we go down to the kitchen, I pour a giant mug and hand it to Dane.

He takes a sip and says, “Why did you ask about my cottage? Were you planning on paying me a visit?”

I note the flirtation in his voice. It’s impossible to miss. This time, unlike on the night of my arrival, it’s not entirely surprising. Or unwanted. But his timing could definitely be better. I have more pressing issues.

“Someone broke in last night,” I say.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

I relay the events of last night, sparing no detail. He hears it all—the bell, the music, the missing bear, me shouting at whoever it was as they fled through the woods.

“And you thought it was me?” he says.

“Of course not,” I say, massaging the truth so as not to offend him. “I was just wondering if you saw anything suspicious last night.”

“Nothing. Have you asked Hannah if she did?”

“Haven’t had the chance. But do you know about the breach in the wall? There’s a spot where it’s crumbled away.”

“That’s been there for decades, I think. I wrote to your father last year asking if he wanted me to repair it, but he never got back to me.”

That’s because he was enduring aggressive rounds of chemotherapy, even though none of us had much hope it would help things. It was just a stalling tactic. A way to stretch out my father’s life by a few more months.

“Well, someone used it to get on the property,” I say. “They snuck into the house, although I don’t know how.”

Dane grabs a chair and sits down backward, his legs straddling the chair back. “Are you certain of that? The bear could have simply fallen behind the desk. We piled quite a bit of stuff on there.”

“That doesn’t explain the record player. It couldn’t have turned on by itself.”

“Not unless there’s something funky going on with the wiring. Have you noticed anything else weird?”

“Yes,” I say, recalling the night of my arrival. “The light switch in the Indigo Room doesn’t work. Not to mention the chandelier being on when I got home yesterday.”

“How about down here?” Dane looks to the kitchen ceiling and studies the light fixture, a chunky rectangle of smoked glass and gold trim that, like the rest of the kitchen, reeks of the eighties. His gaze soon moves to the bulging, stained swath of ceiling situated directly over the table.

“Looks like water damage,” he says.

“I’ve already added it to the very long list of things that need to be done to this kitchen.”

Dane climbs onto the table and stands beneath the bulge, trying to get a closer look.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking to see if the ceiling is compromised,” he says. “You may need to fix this sooner rather than later.”

He pokes the bulge with an index finger. Then, using his whole hand, he pushes on it. Seeing the ceiling give way slightly under his fingers unlocks another memory I know only from the Book. My stomach clenches as I picture the plaster opening up and snakes pouring out.

“Dane, don’t.” My voice is more anxious than I want it to be. “Just leave it alone for now.”

“This plaster is weak as hell,” he says as he keeps pushing. The ceiling expands and contracts slightly—like the rise and fall of a sleeping man’s chest.

It’s snakes, says the whispering voice I heard yesterday. My father’s voice. You know they’re there, Maggie.

If there are snakes coiled inside that ceiling, I want to pretend they’re not there, just like my parents pretended the Book didn’t tear our family apart.

“Dane, I’m serious,” I say, angry now. “Stop doing that.”

“I’m just—”

Dane’s hand bursts through the ceiling, punching into the plaster all the way up to his wrist. He curses and yanks away his fist.

The ceiling quivers as small chunks of plaster rain down around him.

The seams of the patch job darken, growing more pronounced. Puffs of plaster dust pop from newly formed crevices and spiral to the table.

A small groan follows.

The sound of the ceiling giving way.

Then it falls.

A rectangular section drops away like a trapdoor. It swings toward Dane, who tries to twist out of its path. The ceiling hits him anyway, knocking him over.

He lands hard and scoots backward, narrowly missing the swath of plaster as it fully rips away from the ceiling and breaks apart against the tabletop. Dust blooms from the rubble—a foul-smelling cloud that rolls through the kitchen.

I close my eyes and press against the kitchen counter, my hands gripping the edge, bracing for the snakes I’m certain will start raining down at any moment.

I’m not surprised when something drops from the ceiling.

I’ve been expecting it.

I don’t even flinch when I hear it land on the table with a muffled thud.

When the dust clears, Dane and I both open our eyes to see a formless blob sitting on the table like a centerpiece.

Dane blinks in disbelief. “What. The. Fuck.”

He jumps down from the table and backs away. I do the opposite, moving toward it.

It’s a sack. Burlap, I think. Or maybe canvas. The dust covering it makes it hard to tell. I poke it with an index finger, and whatever’s inside shifts, creating a sound I can only equate to Scrabble tiles inside their fabric pouch.

“Maybe it’s hidden treasure,” Dane says, his voice dazed so that I can’t tell if he’s being silly or serious.

Saying nothing, I lift the sack and tilt it. What’s inside pours out in a dusty stream and lands on the table in a dull-gray heap.

They’re bones.

Human ones.

I know because sliding out of the sack last is a skull, which rolls atop the pile. Leathery scraps of tissue cling to the bone, out of which sprout wiry strands of hair. Its eye sockets resemble twin black holes.

Transfixed and terrified, I stare into them, knowing deep down—in a place where only my darkest thoughts and fears reside—that this is why my family left Baneberry Hall.