Nightshade - Couverture rigide

Saul, John

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0345433297 ISBN 13 : 9780345433299

Editeur : Ballantine Books Inc., 2000

Synopsis

Book by Saul John

A propos du livre

Extrait :

CHAPTER 1

It was the kind of perfect fall afternoon that erased even the memory of the blanket of heat and humidity that summer’s end had laid over this part of New Hampshire. The first frost had struck a week ago: the leaves of the ancient maples and oaks that lined the streets of Granite Falls were just beginning their annual transformation, their edges barely hinting at the riot of color that would develop in another couple of weeks. As Joan Hapgood slid her Range Rover into the slot that seemed to have been left just for her only a few steps from the Rusted Rooster—whose original name had long ago given way to the condition of the sign that hung over its door—she considered the possibility of driving up to Quebec for the weekend. She’d heard of a terrific little inn with a view of the St. Lawrence, and just that much farther north the trees would already be in full regalia, their colors so brilliant as to be almost blinding. But as she glanced at her watch—exactly one minute before two, when she and Bill had agreed to meet for a late lunch—she was already beginning to catalog the reasons why they wouldn’t be able to take off for the weekend.

First, there was the opening day of hunting season, which she knew Bill wouldn’t miss. Her husband—along with nearly every one of his friends—regarded the opening day of hunting season with the same reverence most people reserved for religious holidays. But it had always been that way in Granite Falls: the hunting fervor had become so entrenched among the Granite Falls families that could trace their roots back to the seventeenth century that Joan (whose own roots went back only to her mother) suspected it was actually in their genes. But it wasn’t the kind of hunting that was fashionable in other places—in the small enclaves of old, if somewhat diminished, wealth farther south, where ducks and foxes were the favored prey.

In Granite Falls, it was deer.

“We’ve always hunted deer,” Bill Hapgood had explained. “It’s just the way it’s always been. We’re not pretentious people up here—it’s not like it is down in Connecticut and places like that. We hunt in the woods, we hunt on foot, and we eat what we shoot.”

But Joan knew that it wasn’t only the opening day of hunting season that stood in the way of their slipping away for the weekend.

There was Matt’s football game, too. He’d finally made the starting lineup last week, and Bill was—if possible—even more excited than she at the prospect of seeing Matt score for the Granite Falls team for the first time. That was one of the things she loved best about the man she’d married a decade ago—he’d always treated Matt as if her son was his own. And neither of them would miss the biggest game of Matt’s life.

But it was the next problem that was the worst, and not just for the coming weekend, but for every weekend—indeed, for every day—in the foreseeable future.

That was the problem of Joan Hapgood’s mother.

As thoughts of Emily Moore filled Joan’s mind, the exhilaration which the weather had brought her began to drain away, and as she stepped through the door of the Rusted Rooster, the closeness of its low-beamed ceilings and half-timbered walls only accentuated the depression that was settling over her.

“You all right?” her husband asked, half rising from his chair as Joan sank into the one the waitress held for her.

Joan smiled thinly as she automatically scanned the menu despite the already certain knowledge that she would have the Cobb salad. “I was just fantasizing about running away for the weekend,” she sighed, holding up a hand as if to hold back the flow of objections she could already see forming on her husband’s lips. “I did say I was fantasizing,” she reminded him. “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten about hunting season.”

“And Matt’s game,” Bill added. “And, of course, your mother.” It wasn’t only the careful delivery of his last words that betrayed his defensiveness, but his tone as well. Joan stared at the menu, steeling herself against the same automatic response that had risen like a wall around her husband. When she was certain she had herself under control, she looked up from the stiff white card whose contents hadn’t changed in two generations, took a deep breath, and nodded.

No point in trying to avoid the issue.

“And my mother,” she agreed. “And I know I’m going to have to do something about her. But I can’t just . . .” Her voice trailed off, but Bill finished the sentence with the words they both knew she’d been unable to utter.

“Throw her in the home?” he asked, his aristocratic brow rising in a sardonic arch. When she made no reply, he reached out and laid his hand over hers. “That is what she’s always saying, isn’t it?” He screwed his face into an imitation of Emily Moore’s angriest expression, which would have been comical if it had not been quite so accurate, and his normally gentle voice took on her mother’s furious rasp. “ ‘Don’t think I don’t know!’ ” he mimicked, shaking his finger in Joan’s face. “ ‘You’re going to throw me in the home! Well, I won’t let you. And when Cyn—’ ”

“Stop!” Joan cried, pulling her hand away and glancing around to see who might be listening.

“I wish she’d stop,” Bill replied, his features reverting to their usual composure, his voice to its familiar baritone. Then his lips tightened and he took a deep breath. “But we are going to have to decide what to do,” he went on. “She can’t go on living alone much longer.”

“Try telling her that,” Joan sighed. “It doesn’t matter what I say—”

“It doesn’t matter what anyone says,” Bill cut in. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying, Joan. She has Alzheimer’s. And even before she got Alzheimer’s, she wasn’t the easiest person to get along with.”

The trouble was that Emily Moore no longer remembered that she forgot things.

At first, when she’d just started to get sick, it hadn’t been too bad: she’d known her memory was slipping, but for a while it was only a matter of a few minor annoyances. Not being able to find her keys, or forgetting exactly why she’d stopped in at Martha Thatcher’s Needle Shoppe—things like that. She’d solved the first problem easily enough by hanging her door key on a chain around her neck, and since practically everyone in Granite Falls—or at least everyone she knew—was perfectly well aware that she had “Old-Timer’s Disease” (that’s what her friends called it), she was pretty well taken care of. Martha Thatcher would take some extra time helping Emily remember exactly why she’d come into the Needle Shoppe, and Ned Kindler would even have one of his bag boys walk her home from the market and help her put her groceries away.

After a few years, though, she’d stopped walking the few blocks into the village, letting Joan do the shopping for her. Joan only lived a little more than a mile from the edge of town, and it wasn’t as if she had much else to do. She didn’t work, not like Emily had. Emily Moore had kept going to her job as a cashier at the drugstore right up until the day the Rite Aid people had taken over and let her go. She’d even looked for another job, but by then the sickness had been starting, and she just couldn’t do it. After that, she’d had to let Joan and Bill take care of her.

But she hadn’t liked it—she hadn’t liked it at all. Not that her daughter Joan did a very good job helping out, either. Even though she tried, Joan had never been able to clean her house quite the way Emily liked it, and as for the shopping—well! Most of the time she didn’t bring Emily half the things she wanted, and there were always other things that Emily was absolutely certain she hadn’t asked for. Well, at least Joan didn’t try to make her pay for all those things anymore. Emily had set her straight on that right away. “Don’t you look at me like I’m crazy!” she’d told Joan the first time she’d found all the wrong things in the grocery bag. “And don’t think I’m going to pay for all this, either!” She’d brushed aside the list Joan had shown her, too. All it did was prove that Joan had learned how to copy her handwriting, which at least explained why there was money missing from her checking account every month. Joan had lied about it, of course, but that hadn’t surprised Emily at all.

After that, she’d started hiding money in her house, where Joan wouldn’t be able to find it. Then Joan had tried to trick her by offering to hire someone to “help” her. Emily had known right away what that was about—Joan just wanted to get someone into her house to hunt for her money! But Emily hadn’t fallen for it. It wasn’t long after that that she’d seen people—people that looked sort of familiar, but to whom Emily couldn’t quite put any names—walking by her house, spying on her. After one of them waved to her—just like he knew her!—Emily had started keeping the curtains closed.

Then they’d started coming to her door, talking to her like she was supposed to know who they were. She’d shut the door in their faces, and after a while, when she stopped answering the door at all, they stopped coming. But she knew they were still watching her, so she stopped going out of the house.

She liked that much better, because she no longer had to worry about anything. And she wasn’t alone either, not really.

She still had her memories, and after a while it wasn’t like they were memories at all. Sometimes, when she was fixing supper she’d make enough for two, and set out a place for Cynthia, too. She had a dim memory of Joan telling her that Cynthia wasn’t coming home, but Emily had known that wasn’t true—it was just another of the ways Joan was always trying to trick her. Besides, Joan had always been jealous of her sister, ever since she was a little girl. So Emily simply ignored what Joan said, certain that Cynthia had just gone away for a little while, and would be back any day now.

So she stayed in her house, and after a while one day seemed just like another, and one week blended into the next, and the months and the seasons and the years all ran together.

And Emily waited for Cynthia to come home.

Today, though, something was different.

Something didn’t quite feel right.

But what was it?

She peered dimly at the frying pan that was sizzling on the front burner, in which a quarter of an inch of oil was already bubbling. She tried to remember what she’d been intending to do with the skillet and the hot oil. Make breakfast?

She wasn’t sure. In fact, she wasn’t really certain what time it was. But it was light out, and she was hungry, so it must be morning.

Then, from the front of the house, she thought she heard a sound.

Cynthia!

She must finally have come home!

The frying pan immediately forgotten, Emily pushed through the swinging door that led to the little dining room that was furnished only with a worn oak table so small that even if you crowded it, you couldn’t get more than six people around it. Not that anyone ever sat around it anymore, and it was certainly big enough for herself and Cynthia.

Emily hurried through the dining room into the little foyer, and eagerly opened the door, certain Cynthia would be on the porch, ready to accept her mother’s hug.

But the porch was empty except for the pile of newspapers that Emily never bothered to bring into the house anymore. Frowning, she looked out into the street, but all she saw was a man in a blue uniform, carrying a leather bag. As he raised his hand to wave at her, Emily quickly shut the door.

Another one of Joan’s spies.

Then she knew!

Cynthia had her own key! She’d come in by herself and gone up to her room!

In the kitchen, the oil in the frying pan bubbled, then began turning black as curls of smoke rose from its surface.

*  *  *

Emily started toward the stairs, but paused as she sensed something vaguely amiss. Something in the air? But even as her nostrils caught the first faint fumes drifting in from the kitchen, her old eyes fell on the threadbare brocade chair that stood just inside the archway leading into the parlor. Now how had that happened? Hadn’t it just come back from the upholsterers, covered with the bright, colorful material Cynthia had picked out the day before she’d gone on her trip? She’d have to speak to the upholsterer about the shoddy material they’d used!

But that could wait. Cynthia finally coming home was far more important than any chair!

The original reason she’d paused at the foot of the stairs having vanished from her mind as completely as if it had never been there at all, Emily hurried up the stairs and into the front bedroom. “Cynthia?” she called. “Oh, it’s so good to finally have you . . .”

Emily’s voice faded into silence as she realized the room was empty.

Her clouded eyes searched the room. “Cynthia?” she whispered. “Cynthia, when are you coming home?”

The oil in the frying pan burst into flames just as the breeze outside caught one of the lace curtains that hung on each side of Emily Moore’s kitchen window. The breeze fanned the flames higher, the fire licking at the flimsy material as a beast might taste its prey before leaping to consume it. . . .

Emily moved into the room on the second floor, her eyes falling on the photograph of her older daughter that hung on the wall exactly where she and Cynthia had placed it when they’d picked it up from the photographer the week after Cynthia’s eighteenth birthday.

The beautiful gown Cynthia wore in the portrait still hung in Cynthia’s closet, along with all her other clothes.

The book she’d forgotten to take with her on her trip still lay open, facedown on her nightstand.

Everything was exactly as she had left it—

How long ago?

A week?

A month?

Surely no longer than that.

And she’d be home any day now! Of that, Emily was absolutely certain.

She moved slowly around the room, touching the objects on Cynthia’s vanity table, all the perfume and lipstick and eye shadow and mascara that Cynthia loved so much.

Every one of them was in its place, waiting for Cynthia.

She opened one of the drawers of Cynthia’s bureau, her trembling fingers caressing the soft cashmere of the sweater that lay within, her eyes oblivious to the depredations of the moths and the yellowing of the fraying fabric.

She closed the drawer and let her eyes sweep over the room one last time.

All was as it should be, exactly as Cynthia had left it.

Emily left the room then and headed toward the sewing room, but as she passed the top of the stairs, an acrid odor filled her nostrils.

Smoke?

She frowned, trying to remember if she’d lit the fire that morning.

She couldn’t remember.

If fact, she wasn’t quite sure she’d even been downstairs that morning.

Clutching the banister, she started down the steep flight.

The odor grew stronger as she came to the foot of the stairs, but when she peered into the parlor, the fireplace was dark.

But she was certain she smelled smoke!

The kitchen?

Why would there be smoke in the kitchen? She’d just come downstairs, hadn’t she?

She moved toward the kitchen, pushed open the door that separated it from ...

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Fifteen-year-old Matthew Moore seems to have a charmed life . . . until a mysterious fire forces his grandmother to move in with his family. The elderly woman insists on recreating the bedroom of Cynthia, her favored child who died tragically more than a decade ago. Soon Matt's life insidiously begins to change. At night he finds himself haunted by nightmares of unimaginable terror. In the morning the smell of Cynthia's perfume seems to linger in his room. While his grandmother drives a wedge between his once devoted parents, Matt transforms from a gregarious teenager to a hostile loner. Then a shocking tragedy shatters the family beyond repair--as a horrific shadow from the past takes on an implacable life of its own, clawing toward Matt with ferocious hunger. . . .

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Ballantine Books Inc.
• Date d'édition: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0345433297
• ISBN 13: 9780345433299
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 336