House of Reckoning

  Sarah saw Tiffany stiffen and her eyes flick anxiously, first toward her mother, then toward her father, but she didn’t say anything.

  “So why did Dan call you?” Mitch asked.

  “Because,” Angie announced, once again fixing Sarah with a cold gaze, “our little Satan-worshipper here was involved. Dan had to search her backpack right there on the sidewalk for the whole town to see. I hate to think what everyone must be saying.”

  Sarah didn’t need to look up to know that all eyes were now on her, and she could actually feel Angie’s fury and Tiffany and Zach’s hatred closing around her until it seemed she was suffocating.

  “It was humiliating,” Angie spat.

  “So what did Sarah do?” Zach asked. “She really kill Conner’s dog?”

  “Dan doesn’t know yet,” Angie replied. “But she did do this!” She threw Sarah’s drawing on the table, and Sarah could hear Tiffany’s gasp as she caught sight of the bloodied dog she’d limned on the paper.

  “Holy crap,” Zach whispered. “That’s too weird!”

  “I’m not letting her sleep in my room anymore,” Tiffany said, her eyes moving from the picture to her mother. “You can’t make me!”

  “So what was going on?” Mitch asked, ignoring Tiffany, at least for the moment. “Who else was there?”

  “Two friends of Conner’s,” Angie replied, then paused for a moment. “And Nick Dunnigan.”

  “Nick Dunnigan?” Mitch echoed. “He’s kinda nuts, but I never heard of him hurtin’ anything but himself. And what’s this picture got to do with it? Sarah draw it after whatever happened happened?”

  “She drew it before the dog died,” Angie said. “And then the dog got torn open, just the way our little Sarah here drew it!”

  “So who had the knife?” Zach asked. “Sarah?”

  “That’s the thing,” Angie said, her eyes fixing yet again on Sarah. “There was no knife. At least not that anyone saw or anyone found.”

  “C’mon, Ange,” Mitch said, draining half his beer. “If no one had a knife—or a scalpel like in the picture—how’d the dog die?”

  Angie Garvey’s features darkened. “Witchcraft,” she pronounced.

  “Aw, Ange, come on …” Mitch began, but Angie cut him off.

  “She drew this picture in Bettina Philips’s class, and half an hour later it all came to pass! Just like she drew it!”

  “Isn’t that what we said?” Tiffany spat. “Didn’t we say just last night that the same kind of evil that got her mom and dad would get her, too?”

  “That’ll be about enough—” Mitch began again, but this time it was his daughter who brushed his words away.

  “It won’t be enough until she’s out of here,” Tiffany raged. “I’m not living in the same room with someone like her, and you can’t make me!”

  While his sister went on talking, Zach turned the picture toward him for a closer look. “Jeez, that looks exactly like King—how’d she know what he looks like? And how’d she get crazy Nick to—” He cut off his own words, snickering. “Never mind—he’s crazy, right?” He looked up at his mother. “So what are we ’sposed to do with her?”

  Sarah felt like she must have suddenly turned invisible. How could he talk that way, like she wasn’t even here? But she said nothing, waiting to hear what would come next.

  “I’m going to call Kate Williams,” Angie said. “She can come get Sarah right now.”

  Sarah’s heart leaped with unexpected hope. Was it possible—actually possible?—that she might not have to spend even another night here?

  “Now just hold on,” Mitch said. “Everybody needs to just slow down.”

  “Dad!” Tiffany screeched. “How could you let some—some thing like this live in our house? After what she’s done?”

  “You think money grows on trees?” Mitch asked, then turned from his daughter to his wife. “You know that big-screen TV we talked about for the bedroom? Well, it was supposed to be a surprise, but it’s being delivered tomorrow. And that county money’s gonna pay for it.” Angie silently crossed her arms in front of her chest, her furious eyes fixed on her husband, but Mitch didn’t flinch in the face of his wife’s anger. “We knew goin’ in that we were gonna have a problem child living with us. I don’t know why you’re so surprised that something happened.”

  Please call Kate Williams, Sarah prayed silently. Please call her.

  “Now, I don’t like having her here any more than any of the rest of you, but we planned our finances based on what the county pays us for her housing, so we’re just going to have to suck it up and deal with it.”

  Tiffany rose from the table. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  For the first time, Mitch squirmed a little. “Maybe she can sleep in the attic or something,” he offered, but Tiffany only turned away.

  “I’m locking my door,” she announced. “And I don’t care where she sleeps, as long as it’s nowhere near me!” She marched out of the dining room, and a moment later Sarah heard her pounding up the stairs.

  The bedroom door slammed.

  And Sarah suddenly felt dizzy. What was happening? Where was she going to go? If they’d only call Kate—

  “You can get your stuff when Tiffany’s in the bathroom,” Angie said, and Sarah felt a flash of hope. “And then I’ll show you where you’re going to sleep from now on.”

  Sarah’s brief moment of hope crashed down around her as she realized everything had been decided.

  She wasn’t going anywhere.

  Something in the house had changed.

  Bettina felt it the moment she opened the back door of Shutters and stepped into the mud room. Yet what could have changed? Maybe she was tired—it had been a long day at school.

  And yet …

  Maybe it was the silence—usually when she opened the door, Rocky, the half-terrier, half-everything-else mutt she’d rescued from the woods five years ago was there to greet her, barking happily, rolling around on his back hoping to have his tummy rubbed.

  Today there was no sign of him, nor were any of the cats staring pointedly at their empty food bowls. In fact, none of the cats were around at all.

  Bettina set the portfolio of her students’ work on the folding table next to the washing machine, took off her coat and unwrapped the scarf from her neck, and hung them on the hooks by the back door. Then she pulled on the bulky wool cardigan that was always waiting by the door to ward off the chill of the house until she got at least the kitchen warmed up.

  And today the house seemed even colder than usual.

  Cold, and something else.

  What?

  She stood still, listening.

  Nothing.

  But even the silence didn’t reassure her, for as she moved toward the kitchen, the sense that the aura of the house had changed grew stronger.

  Was someone here? Had someone come into the house while she was gone?

  No.

  It wasn’t that—it was something else. It was as if the house itself had somehow changed since she left for school this morning.

  She was inside the kitchen now, and had just picked up the teakettle to freshen its water, when she felt the skin on the back of her neck tingle.

  She was not alone in the kitchen.

  Someone, or something, was watching her.

  “Wh-Who is it?” she said, her voice sounding preternaturally loud to her own ears.

  Nothing.

  She started to set the teakettle down, then changed her mind. It was still half full from this morning, and though it wasn’t much, it was something.

  Something to fend off whoever was behind her.

  Bettina gripped the kettle’s handle harder, steeled herself, then spun around.

  And saw nothing.

  Nothing except Cooper, the black mostly lab that had stumbled out of the woods a week after she’d taken Rocky in, knocked over three easels and a table within the first hour, and never left. Now he was sitting quietly in front of the
door that led to the basement, staring at her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked him. “Guarding the basement? Is something down there?” She started toward the door, and a low rumbling issued forth from the dog. Bettina took a step back and the dog seemed to relax. “Coopie?” she went on. “What’s going on? I rescue you, feed you, I let you move in with me, and now you won’t even let me go down into my own basement?” But even as she spoke, she realized that she didn’t want to go down to the basement—didn’t want to at all. Suddenly, just the thought of the steep narrow stairs, the dank walls, the musky smell, and cobwebby beams …

  Those beams …

  The beams Sarah had drawn. A shiver ran though Bettina, and she looked at the dog again. What was going on? Had he read her mind?

  Or did he, too, feel the change in the house?

  The teakettle began to steam, and she made a cup of tea, telling herself she was being silly. This wasn’t the first time she’d felt strange in the house—even afraid. But all those other times were different; she’d been alone, watching the kind of movie that was designed to instill terror even in people in crowded theaters, let alone single women living by themselves in exactly the kind of house those movies depicted so well.

  But tonight she wasn’t watching a movie, and things just didn’t feel right.

  And Cooper, who usually lay at her feet wherever she was, was still at the door to the basement steps, sitting quietly and watching her. And where were the other animals?

  As if on cue, Pyewackett, the orange tabby cat she’d named after a cat in an old movie she watched the night she brought him home, padded in through the door to the butler’s pantry and wound himself around her legs.

  Stupid. She was just being stupid—everything was fine!

  With Pyewackett trailing along behind her, but Cooper staying at his self-appointed post in the kitchen, Bettina took her cup of tea and her portfolio into the studio. But rather than ignoring the gloom of the rooms she passed—and escaping paying for the electricity it would take to light them—this evening she switched on every light she came to, driving the darkness as far away as she could.

  Thick fog pressed up against the enormous conservatory windows, and instead of seeing the vast expanse of near-frozen lawn sweeping down to the icy lake, all Bettina saw in the windows was a reflection of herself that, for a fleeting instant, almost seemed to be someone else altogether—a woman she recognized as herself, but who was no longer safe inside the house. Instead she was vanishing into the mists outside.

  Stop it, she told herself. Don’t get started. Just do what you came in here to do.

  She laid her portfolio on the drafting table, unzipped it, and pulled out the work her students had done that day. Those from her last class—Sarah Crane’s class—were on top, and Bettina flipped through them, looking for the best student’s contribution to her evening workload.

  And found nothing.

  Nothing but the usual collection of sketches ranging from uninspired to barely recognizable, but nothing from Sarah.

  What had happened? Sarah had been in class, and while the still-life arrangement was obviously a challenge for many of her students, Sarah would have had no trouble with it.

  But she had turned nothing in at the end of the period.

  Bettina was halfway through the stack of drawings when she suddenly jerked upright.

  An instant later there was a crash from somewhere above, and Pyewackett dashed off to investigate.

  But her reflex—the sudden contraction of every muscle in her body and the flush of adrenaline surging into her blood—had happened before the crash.

  Only an instant, but still, she felt the shock before she’d heard the sound.

  How was that possible?

  Pulling her cardigan closer around her, she started after Pyewackett, then hesitated. Maybe she should call the police, then wait right where she was until—

  Until what? What was she going to tell the police? That the house didn’t feel right and that she’d heard a crash from upstairs like something falling? She lived with five animals, and everyone in town knew it—was she expecting them to come out and investigate a broken vase simply because she was too frightened of her own house to do it herself?

  Besides, if something was truly amiss—if someone was in the house—both Cooper and Rocky would be barking their heads off.

  Rocky!

  Of course—that was it. Rocky—who had turned out to be even clumsier than Cooper on his worst day—had probably tried to jump up on her bed and succeeded only in hitting the nightstand.

  Still, before she went upstairs to investigate, she went back to the kitchen, where Cooper was still at his post by the basement door. “Come on, Coop—let’s go see what Rocky’s gotten into now.”

  The big dog didn’t move.

  “Please?”

  Cooper hesitated, casting one more suspicious look at the basement door, but then rose to his feet and followed Bettina to the foot of the stairs. But instead of bounding ahead of her as he usually did, this evening the dog lagged behind, staying a step or two back and seeming ready to change his mind when they reached the landing.

  Had he heard something?

  Bettina paused, too, and listened.

  Nothing.

  Nothing except a tendril of cold air that seemed to be wafting down from above, bringing with it a chill that made her skin crawl and brought a low growl to Cooper’s throat. “Come on!” Bettina demanded, but wondering even as she issued the command whether she was directing it at the dog or herself.

  She mounted the second half of the flight, but now there was something else: the air smelled dank and musty.

  Like the basement.

  Bettina’s heart began to hammer in her chest. What was it? What was going on? “A window must be broken,” she whispered out loud. The words didn’t even sound convincing to herself.

  At the top of the stairs, Forlorn, the gray tabby with one ear and no tail, and an expression that had given him his name the moment Bettina first saw him, sat staring at one of the walls with such intensity that she involuntarily followed his gaze.

  Again, nothing.

  Just a blank wall, unadorned with anything that might have caught the cat’s attention. She scooped him up and held his warm body close, but even the cat’s heat couldn’t penetrate the cold that filled the long corridor.

  None of the doors were open.

  And two of the animals were still missing.

  She started down the corridor, listening at every door before she opened it, then reaching in to switch on a light before pushing the door wide.

  All the rooms were empty.

  Nothing seemed to be wrong.

  And yet nothing felt right.

  She had just pulled the door to the blue bedroom closed when the silence of the house was shattered by Rocky’s yapping bark, and a second later the little terrier came running down the stairs from the third floor. Charging down the corridor, he hurled himself into Bettina’s arms, nearly knocking her over, and garnering a furious hiss from Forlorn.

  “What is it?” Bettina demanded as she put the dog back on the floor. “What did you do?”

  Rocky only tried to scramble back into her arms.

  The temperature in the hallway seemed to drop even further, and the musty smell grew stronger.

  Then, as Bettina watched, the last door on the right swung slowly inward, its hinges creaking.

  Cooper’s body stiffened and he pressed up against Bettina’s legs.

  A whimper emerged from Rocky’s throat as Forlorn uttered a low hiss.

  A terrible fear began to engulf Bettina, a terror that seemed to emanate from the room whose door was still creaking open.

  Her mouth went dry. She wanted to turn and bolt back down the stairs, flee the house and go—

  Go where?

  Anywhere! She wanted to be anywhere but here, with the house feeling all wrong and the animals behaving as they never had before and door
s opening by themselves and—

  And then suddenly Houdini, the ancient—and stone-deaf—white cat who had been living with Bettina for almost twenty years, emerged from the room at the end of the hall.

  And Pyewackett was right behind him.

  Suddenly, with all the animals back around her, the spell seemed broken.

  The house felt almost back to normal, except for the strange smell. Dropping Forlorn to the floor to join the rest of the menagerie, Bettina strode down the wide hallway to the last door, reached in to switch the chandelier on, then looked around.

  Inside, a lamp lay broken on the floor—a big, ugly, old midcentury TV lamp in the form of a leaping wolf whose eyes glowed when it was turned on. Bettina had been terrified of it as a child and hated it as an adult.

  Well, it was gone now, and good for Houdini for having finally smashed it!

  Mystery solved.

  She switched off the light and pulled the door closed, shutting off the musty odor. She’d clean up the broken lamp and air out the room over the weekend.

  It wasn’t until she was back downstairs and in the kitchen that she wondered how Houdini—and Pyewackett, too—had gotten into that room in the first place. Even she hadn’t been inside it in years. Too many years, actually, given the smell that had built up in it.

  On the other hand, getting into closed spaces was what Houdini had always specialized in, which was exactly how he’d gotten his name.

  Still …

  Stop! Bettina told herself. Don’t freak yourself out.

  Shutters, after all, was just a house.

  Wasn’t it?

  As the clock in the niche under the main stairs chimed nine, Bettina headed back up the stairs, this time to go to bed.

  Houdini lay curled up on top of the pages of her thrice-great-grandfather’s manuscript, which was mostly still on the bedside table where she’d left it.

  But at least fifty pages were strewn over the floor around the table.

  As the other four animals began settling themselves into their usual places for the night—all on her bed—Bettina stroked the white cat, who began to purr. “Whatcha been doing, sweetie? Reading the old man’s tales?” Giving the cat another scratch, she stooped down to gather up the pages the cat had scattered as he made himself a little nest.