Page 136 of Home Before Dark

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.”

Twenty-Six

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.

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