Page 53 of Home Before Dark

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 heisreal,” 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.”

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