Home Before Dark: A Novel (34 page)

What I didn’t expect was everything that came after. The newspaper interview, which I felt compelled to give, lest the police think we weren’t serious. That was the rub, Maggie. We didn’t care if people believed us. We just needed them to think that we believed it.

So we kept up the ruse, even when the story started making news across the state and beyond. Then came the book offer, which was so unexpected and so lucrative that we had to take it.

Your mother didn’t want me to write House of Horrors. Especially when I had to return to Baneberry Hall two weeks after the crime to fetch my typewriter. But I knew there was no way to avoid it. Your mother had stopped going to her teaching job, and I had no writing gigs lined up. We desperately needed money. I didn’t think anything would come of it. I considered it a temporary job that would hopefully lead to other writing assignments. I never for a second thought it would blow up into this unruly thing we could no longer control. When it did, the die had been cast. Your mother and I were forced to spend the rest of our lives pretending the fictions in that book were the truth. It was a lie that ultimately tore us apart.

Through it all, your mother and I debated how to help you going forward. You had killed someone, be it in anger or accidentally, and we worried about how that would affect you and what kind of person you would become. I wanted to send you to therapy, but your mother—rightfully—feared you’d reveal what we had done during one of your sessions. She wanted to tell you the truth—something I desperately wanted to shield you from. I never, ever wanted you to feel the guilt I carried.

Since you seemed to remember very little about our time at Baneberry Hall and had no recollection of the night we left, your mother and I decided the best thing to do was let you forget. We chose to stay silent, be watchful of your mood and mind-set, and try to raise you as best we could.

I know it was hard on you, Mags. I know you had questions neither of us could truthfully answer. All we wanted to do was shield you from the truth, even though we knew the falsehood we’d created in its place was inflicting its own damage. That book hurt you. We hurt you as well.

We could have done better. We
should have done better. Even though every time you asked for the truth was a reminder of the guilt all of us carried.

I suppose that’s another reason I’m writing this, Maggie. To unburden
myself of the guilt I’d felt for almost a quarter of a century. Consider it my confession as much as it is yours.

It’s now five a.m. and the sun will be up soon. I’ve spent the whole night writing this in my office in Baneberry Hall. You may or may not know this by now, but we never sold the house. We never even considered it. Knowing what was under the floor, selling it was too much of a risk.

Guilt brings me back here every year on the anniversary of the night it happened. I come to pay my respects to Petra. To apologize for what we did to her. My hope is that if I do it enough times, maybe she’ll forgive us.

Each time I’m here, I ask myself the same question: Did I make the right decision that night?

Yes, if you consider how you’ve grown up to be a smart, strong-willed young woman.

Will I be judged harshly for it in the afterlife?

Yes. I truly believe I will.

I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.

All I know for certain is that you have always been my proudest accomplishment. I loved you before we set foot inside Baneberry Hall, and I loved you just as much after we left it.

You’re the love of my life, Maggie.

You always have been, and you always will be.

Reading my father’s letter feels like plummeting through a thousand trapdoors. One after another. Drop after drop after jarring drop. And I can’t stop the sensation. There’s no fighting this fall.

“You’re lying.” My voice sounds warped, like I’m talking underwater. “You’re lying to me.”

My mother comes toward me. “I’m not, honey. This is what happened.”

She wraps her arms around me. They feel like tentacles. Foreign. Cold. I try to push her away. When she refuses, I squirm out of her grip, falling from my chair. My hand skates across the table, taking the pages my father wrote with it. I hit the floor, paper fluttering around me.

“It’s a lie,” I say. “It’s all lies.”

Even though I keep repeating it, I know in my heart of hearts it’s not. My father wouldn’t make up something like that. Neither would my mother. There’s no reason they would. Which means what I read is true.

I want to scream.

I want to throw up.

I want to reach for the nearest sharp object and rip open my veins.

“You should have told the police,” I say, hiccupping with grief. “You shouldn’t have covered it up.”

“We did what we thought was best for you.”

“A girl was dead, Mom! She was just a child!”

“And so were you!” my mother says. “
Our
child! If we’d called the police, your life would have been ruined.”

“And I would have deserved it,” I say.

“You didn’t!” My mother joins me on the floor, crawling toward me in the slow, cautious way one approaches a trapped animal. “You’re sweet and beautiful and smart. Your father and I knew that. We
always
knew that. And we refused to destroy your life because you made one mistake.”

“I killed someone!”

Saying it unleashes the flood of emotion I’ve been trying to hold back. It flows out of me. In tears. In snot. In saliva that drips from my mouth as I moan.

“You didn’t mean to,” my mother says. “I’m sure of it.”

I look at her through tear-clouded eyes. “We have to tell the truth.”

“We don’t, Maggie. What we need to do is pack your things and leave. We’ll sell this place and never come back. This time for good.”

I stare at her, appalled. I can’t believe she still refuses to do the right thing. That after all these years and all these lies, she still wants to pretend none of this happened. They tried that once, and it damn near destroyed us.

Something breaks inside me. Surprising, since I didn’t think there was any part of me left unscathed. But my heart was still intact, just waiting for my mother to shatter it. I can feel it disintegrating—a shudder that makes my chest heave.

“Get out,” I say.

“Maggie, just listen to me.”

My mother reaches for me, and I recoil. When she comes for me again, I strike, my open palm whipping across her cheek.

“Get out!” I scream it this time, the words echoing off the wall of bells. I keep screaming until I’m red-faced and frothing.

“Get out! Get out of my fucking house!”

My mother stays frozen on the floor, her hand to her cheek. The tears glistening in her eyes tell me her heart’s also broken.

Good.

Now we’re even.

“If you want to throw your life away, I can’t stop you,” she says. “But I refuse to watch you do it. Your father’s not the only one who loved you unconditionally. I feel the same way he did. About everything.”

She stands, smooths out her slacks, and leaves the kitchen.

I don’t move until the sound of the front door closing makes it way down to the kitchen. By then I’ve already decided what I’m going to do.

I’ll wait.

By now, Chief Alcott is probably grilling Dane about the night Petra died. Unlike me, she’s going to realize it doesn’t add up. That there’s more to the story. Then she’ll come back here, armed with questions.

I’ll answer every single one.

With my mother gone, I stand and climb the kitchen steps. It’s a struggle. Shock has made my legs heavy and my body sluggish. It doesn’t get better on the first floor. The great room seems to shift with each step. The walls sway, as if buffeted by a stiff wind, rocking back and forth. Beneath my feet, the floor buckles. I trip, even though the floor isn’t really buckling. Nor are the walls truly swaying.

It’s me who’s doing the changing.

An internal shift in which everything I thought I knew about myself is suddenly upended.

I came here wanting to know the truth. Now I do.

I am a killer.

A fact I’ll need to get used to. Because right now the realization is so heavy that I can no longer stand. I end up crawling up the stairs to the second floor. There’s more crawling in the hallway. Even then I’m so dizzy I continually bump into the wall on the way to my bedroom.

Inside, I throw myself onto the bed, too exhausted to move. I want to sleep for a long time. Days and days.

Maybe forever.

Before closing my eyes, I look to the armoire opposite the bed.

It occurs to me how just a few hours ago I’d planned to demolish it. Yet here it is, still standing, a strange sound coming from within.

Hearing it cuts through my wooziness enough to make me sit up, startled.

The armoire doors slowly open, revealing someone standing inside.

I want to believe I’m dreaming. That this whole experience is nothing more than a night terror from which I’ll wake any second now.

But it’s not a nightmare.

It’s reality, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

The armoire doors continue to open, revealing more of the dark figure within its depths.

Mister Shadow.

He’s real.

I know that now.

He’s always been real.

Yet when the figure at last emerges from the armoire, I see that I’m wrong. It’s not Mister Shadow stepping gingerly into the room.

It’s Miss Pennyface.

She takes another step, and the coins fall away from her eyes. Only there are no coins. There never were. It was moonlight coming through the bedroom window and reflecting off a pair of spectacles.

Now that it’s gone, I see Miss Pennyface for who she really is.

Marta Carver.

“Hello, Maggie,” she says. “It’s been a long time since we’ve met like this.”

Marta stops at the foot of the bed, hovering over me, and I’m struck with a sense of déjà vu.

No.

It’s more than that.

It’s a memory.

Her standing just like this, only we’re both younger. Twenty-five years younger. I’m five and trembling under my covers, pretending I’m asleep but secretly watching her through half-closed eyes.

Watching her watch me as moonlight again flashes against her glasses.

Even worse is that it happened more than once. The memories continue, piling up, one after another, like some horrible slideshow projected on the backs of my eyelids.

Miss Pennyface visiting me at night again.

And again.

And again.

Marta must see the recollection in my eyes, for she says, “When Katie was alive, I’d come into this room almost every night, just to
watch her sleep. I loved her so much, Maggie. So very much. I never realized how strong a mother’s love could be until I became one myself. Then I knew. A mother’s love is fierce.”

She flashes me a maternal smile before inching closer to the bed.

“But then my husband took it all away. First Katie, then himself. And I no longer knew what to do with all that fierce love. Then your family arrived. ‘They have a little girl,’ Janie June told me. ‘A beautiful little girl.’ When I heard that, I knew I had to see you for myself.”

She jerks her head toward the armoire, not only her hiding place but her secret passage in and out of Baneberry Hall. She’d lived here long enough to know of its existence. My family hadn’t.

“I returned here night after night,” she says. “Not to hurt you. I had no interest in causing you harm, Maggie. I just wanted to watch you sleep, just as I had done with my own daughter. It made it feel like she wasn’t really gone. Just for a few minutes. I need you to understand that, Maggie. I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

One last memory hits me like a slap. Marta standing over me, watching. Only this time we’re not alone. I hear someone in the hallway, tiptoeing into the room to check on me.

Petra.

She screams when she sees Marta, who rushes toward her.

“It’s not what you think,” she says.

Petra makes a move toward the bed, trying to reach me. Marta intercepts her, gripping her arms.

“What are you doing here?” Petra shouts.

“Let me explain.”

“You can explain to the police.”

Petra breaks from Marta’s grip and runs from the room, heading downstairs to the only phone in the house.

Marta follows. I hear a scuffle in the hallway. Feet heavy on floorboards. A loud thump against the wall. Terrified, I slide out of bed and follow the sounds. Marta and Petra are at the top of the stairs,
arguing. Marta has Petra by the shoulders, shaking her while saying, “Just listen to me. Please let me explain.”

I run to them, terrified and yelling and begging them to stop. I grab Marta’s right arm. She shakes it loose and swings it at me, the back of her hand connecting with my face. Her ring digs into the flesh beneath my eye—an inch-long scrape that instantly starts to bleed.

There’s another scream, and Petra tumbles backward down the stairs.

The memory ends, and I fall back onto the bed, unable to stay upright. All my energy is gone. The bed sways like a boat that’s been unmoored, at the mercy of the waves. When Marta sits on the bed’s edge, it’s at a canted angle not possible in real life.

“You killed Petra,” I moan.

“I didn’t mean to, Maggie. It was an accident. All a terrible accident.” Marta reaches for my hand and holds it in hers. “After it happened, I didn’t know what to do. So I ran. I knew the police would come for me eventually. It was only a matter of time. I spent that night waiting for them, feeling almost as scared as when I found my husband’s body up in that study of his. But something strange happened. The police never arrived. That’s when I knew your family hadn’t told them.”

She touches my forehead, which is wet with sweat. All of me is. A sudden leaking of perspiration that baffles me until my stomach begins to cramp. It’s a sharp, stinging pain that leaves me gasping.

“You’ve had the pie,” Marta says. “Good. That makes this easier.”

I try to scream. Nothing comes out but a few pained rasps.

“Hush, now,” Marta says. “It’s nothing to fuss about. Just a little pie with some baneberries mixed in.”

I clutch my stomach and roll over, the room rolling with me. Marta stays by my side, rubbing my back in a motherly way.

“I never really understood why your parents hid Petra’s death,” she says. “Even after that book came out, I wondered what their
thinking had been. It took me a long time to understand they thought you had done it, Maggie.”

Her hand continues to circle on my back. I wonder if she did the same thing with Katie when she was feeling sick.

“I have to admit, I was relieved. God help me, I was. I felt terrible about what happened. That poor girl. She didn’t deserve that. And there were a few times I thought about confessing. Just marching right up to Tess Alcott and telling her the truth. I didn’t because no one would understand it was an accident. No one would see it that way. I would have been punished for what happened. But when you get right down to it, haven’t I been punished enough?”

Marta pauses, as if waiting for me to agree.

I say nothing.

“I spent the past twenty-odd years secure in the knowledge that I was safe,” she says. “That God had decided I’d suffered enough for one life. Then you came back. And Petra was found. And I knew it was only a matter of time before the truth finally came out.”

Marta’s hand stops at the small of my back and stays there. I tense beneath it, fearing what’s to come.

“I can’t let that happen, Maggie,” she says. “I’ve suffered. Far more than most. I lost my daughter and my husband on the same day. Few people in this world will ever know that kind of pain. But I do. I know it all too well. Forgive me, but I’m not about to suffer more.”

She flips me onto my back in one rough, startling motion. I’m too weak to fight it. Just a rag doll in her arms. The room stops tilting enough for me to notice the pillow hugged against her chest.

Marta pushes the pillow over my face. A sudden darkening. My breathing, already labored, becomes almost nonexistent. I gasp for air, sucking in pillowcase instead, almost choking on the fabric.

She scrambles on top of me, increasing the pillow’s pressure. I try to buck beneath her, to thrash my legs. But I have no energy left. The
baneberries have stolen it from me. The most I can do is roll again onto my side.

It works.

Marta is thrown off-balance and falls away from me.

I fall, too.

Off the bed.

Onto the floor.

I take a deep breath of blessed air, and adrenaline kicks in, giving me the strength to start dragging myself along the floor. I’m at the doorway when Marta grabs an ankle and pulls me back toward the bed.

I scream and thrust out my free leg in a crazed, desperate kick. My foot slams against Marta’s face, which makes her start screaming, too. The sound of it rings off the walls as I resume my frenzied scramble down the hallway.

Marta doesn’t catch up to me until I’m at the top of the stairs. When she snags my leg again, I expect another pull back to the bedroom. Instead, she lifts it, flipping me over.

For a moment, the whole house goes upside down.

Then I’m on the stairs.

Still flipping.

Now rolling.

Now bouncing.

The edges of steps pound at my back. My head knocks against wall. My eyes pop open to see banister rails blurring past my face.

When it ends, I’m on my back at the foot of the stairs. Far above me, Marta stands at the top of the staircase, bent forward a bit, looking to see if I’m dead.

I’m not.

But I
do
think I’m dying.

A bright light forms atop the staircase, blinding in its intensity. So
bright I grimace and squint. With that narrowing of my eyes, I’m able to see someone inside the brightness—a young woman just behind Marta, hovering at her shoulder.

She looks like Petra Ditmer.

Still sixteen and beautiful, flashing a smile of deep satisfaction.

The light lasts no longer than a blink. Definitely not long enough to confirm if the glow was indeed Petra or just a trick of my poisoned mind.

All I know is that right before the brightness dims, Marta Carver jolts forward, as if she’s been pushed. She tumbles down the steps, bones snapping like twigs. There’s one final snap when she lands—a loud crack of her neck I feel in my bones.

Her body rests a foot from mine, her head twisted like an elastic toy.

That’s when I know she’s dead.

And that I’m not.

And that all of this is finally over.

I roll my head, looking upward, my gaze sweeping up the staircase the two of us have just tumbled down.

That’s when I see someone standing at the top of the steps.

The person who had shoved Marta to her death.

It’s not Petra, as I had thought.

It’s her mother.

Elsa Ditmer stares at me, her eyes wild and alert. It’s clear she knows exactly where she is, what she’s done, and, after twenty-five long years, what happened to her daughter.