Nocturnes

“Frightened of what?” I asked.

“Louisa,” he replied.

“But why? She’s your sister, Sam. Louisa loves you. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

“She asks me to go outside and play with her,” said Sam.

“You like playing with her,” I said, conscious suddenly that while this might once have been true, it was true no longer.

“At night,” said Sam. “She wants me to go out and play with her at night. In the dark. At the fort,” he added, and then his voice broke altogether and he would not be consoled.

But when I questioned Louisa about her brother’s fears, she would answer only that he was lying, and that she had no desire to play with him anyway. When I tried to pursue the matter, she would not reply, and I eventually gave up, frustrated and uneasy. In the days that followed, I watched Louisa, noticing now a stillness about her, a wariness. She spoke less and less, and appeared to be losing her appetite. She would eat only the meat on her plate, leaving the vegetables piled to one side. When confronted about any aspect of her behavior, she simply retreated into silence. There was little that I could do to punish her, and even then I remained unsure of precisely what I was punishing her for, although one day I found her examining the metal screen that kept Sam from opening his window until he was older, testing the lock with her fingernail. For the first time, I lost my temper with her, demanding to know what she thought she was doing. She did not answer, and tried to slip by me, but I caught her by the shoulders and shook her hard, demanding a reply. I almost struck her, so furious was I at the change in her behavior, until I looked into her eyes and saw something red flicker in their depths, like a torch suddenly igniting in the darkness of a deep chasm; and it seemed to me, although perhaps I merely imagined it, that her eyes were narrower than before, and slanted upward slightly at the corners.

“Don’t touch me,” she whispered, and there was a hoarse, filthy aspect to her voice. “Don’t you ever touch me again, or you’ll be sorry.”

And with that, she wrenched herself from my grasp and ran from the room.

That night, I lay in bed and thought of fire, and recalled again my predecessor’s drawings curling to black. I wondered at the ma

There is only one further incident that remains untold, and one that frightened me more than any other. Last week, Sam complained about the loss of a toy, a small bear given to him by his mother for his third birthday. It was a mangy thing, with mismatched eyes and thick black stitches where its fur had parted and been inexpertly repaired by his father, but he loved it dearly. Its disappearance was discovered shortly after he awoke, for it always rested on the small table by his bed. I asked Mrs. Amworth, who had just arrived, to help with the search while I went looking for Louisa in order to ask if she had seen the bear. Louisa was not in her room or in any other part of the house. I went out into the garden, calling after her, but it was only when I reached the orchard that I saw her in the distance, kneeling by the foot of the mound.

I do not know what instinct made me decide not to alert her to my presence. I stayed under cover of the trees to the east until I was close enough to see what she was doing, but as I neared her she rose, cleaned her hands on her dress, and ran back toward the house. I let her go until she had entered the orchard and was lost from sight, then approached the mound.

I suppose that I already knew what I would find. There was a newly dug hole, and as I scraped away the earth I felt fur beneath my fingers. The eyes of the bear stared blankly up at me even as I pulled it free. There was a ripping sound, and I came away with the head alone. When I dug further for the rest of the bear, it could not be found.

I stepped away from the mound, aware more than ever before of its strangeness: the regularity of its lines, suggesting a plan to its construction; the way it flattened at its peak, as though inviting the careless to rest upon it, to lose themselves against its warmth; and the rich color of its grass, so much greener than its surroundings that it appeared almost unreal.

I turned around and saw a figure in white standing at the edge of the orchard, watching me, and I no longer knew the girl who used to be my daughter.

Now I have caught up with myself, and the details are almost entirely known. I am once again lying on my bed, my daughter standing beside me in the darkness, a red cast to her eyes as she says:

“I am your new daughter.”

And I believe her. Close by me, Sam sleeps. I keep him with me every night. Sometimes I wake him with my dreams, dreams in which my true daughter lies buried beneath a mound of earth, alive yet not alive, surrounded by pale things that have taken her and now keep her close to them, both curious and hateful of her, her cries smothered by the dirt. I have tried digging for her, but I hit stone within inches. Whatever lies under the mound has secured itself well.

“Go away,” I whisper to her.

The red lights flicker briefly as she blinks.

“You can’t keep him safe forever,” the new daughter says.

“You’re wrong,” I reply.

“Some night you’ll fall asleep with a window open or a door unlocked,” she whispers. “Some night you’ll be careless, and then you’ll have a new son and I will have a new brother.”

I grasp the bundle of keys tightly in my fist. They hang from my neck, secured by a chain, and they never leave my sight. Only at night are we at risk. Only when the sun has departed do they come, testing the security of our home. I have already put it up for sale, and soon we will leave. Time is pressing, for them and for us.

“No,” I tell her, and I watch as she retreats into a corner and sinks slowly to the floor, the red lights shining in the darkness as unseen figures pull at the windows and the doors and my son, my real son, sleeps softly beside me, safe.

For now.

The Ritual of the Bones

The headmaster’s voice was the voice of God.

“You there, Johnston Minor, stop ru

And, for the first time, or so I thought, I found his attention turned upon me.

“Jenkins, Headmaster. The scholarship student.”

“Ah, Jenkins the scholarship student.” He nodded, as if everything had suddenly slotted into place. “I trust you’re not too intimidated by your surroundings, Jenkins the scholarship student.”

“A little, Headmaster,” I lied. The Montague School, with its mahogany walls, its elaborate busts, its legions of dead men in powdered wigs staring down from the walls-prime ministers, bankers, captains of industry, diplomats, surgeons, soldiers-was just about the most intimidating place I had ever encountered.

“I shouldn’t let it trouble you, Jenkins,” said the headmaster. He placed a hand on my shoulder and gripped tightly. I could feel his fingers moving upon me, testing the small muscles beneath my blazer. “I feel certain that you’re going to make a fine contribution to the Montague School. You know, in many ways, scholarship students are the lifeblood of this establishment…”