The Strangers Read online

  “No,” said Olive.

  “I’ll come up with something appropriate,” said Mrs. Dewey, sweeping the crushed pods into a blue china bowl. “Walter, would you hand me that teapot, please?”

  As Mrs. Dewey whisked the steaming water into the bowl, sprinkling the sparkly not-sugar over the top, Olive crouched down between her parents. Mr. Dunwoody let out a snore.

  “What happens when they wake up?” she asked Mrs. Dewey. “What do we tell them? Will they remember everything?”

  “That’s what these are for,” said Mrs. Dewey, reaching for one of the many cookie jars that stood on her kitchen shelves. She whipped off the lid. “My Dutch-cocoa-sour-cream swirls. Your parents will wake up disoriented and hungry, and these will erase their recent memories. The more they eat, the more will be erased. Don’t worry, Olive,” she went on, as Olive’s eyes widened. “I’ll make sure to stop them long before they forget the important things.”

  “If you could make them forget my last math grade, that would be fine,” said Olive.

  Mrs. Dewey smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The blue bowl was beginning to send up wafts of curly green steam, which smelled like mint and early-summer mornings. Mrs. Dewey ladled the steaming liquid into two teacups and sprinkled a pinch of ground star seeds over the tops. “Now, stay back, you two, or you’ll be up all night,” she warned Olive and Rutherford. Then she held the cups under Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody’s softly snoring noses.

  Olive watched the sea-green steam swirl up over her parents’ faces. Her father’s eyebrows twitched. Her mother’s eyelashes fluttered. Together, they raised their heads and opened their eyes, which focused, at the very same instant, on Olive.

  “Olive!” they both shouted, grasping her hands.

  “You’re all right!” said her mother, brushing the hair from Olive’s face.

  “They didn’t take you too, did they? The masked intruders?” her father demanded.

  “I thought they were too tall to be trick-or-treaters,” said Mrs. Dunwoody.

  “Yes, but as we discussed before we let them in, there are sufficient outliers to the rules of average height and weight to make it not impossible that they were children,” said Mr. Dunwoody.

  “Not impossible, but unlikely,” said Mrs. Dunwoody. “Statistically speaking, I would guess that children under the age of fourteen—pre-high-school, that is—who weigh approximately three hundred pounds and are nearly six feet tall would make up a percentage of—”

  “You must be hungry after that ordeal, Alec and Alice,” said Mrs. Dewey, sweeping in with a plateful of cookies.

  “You are absolutely right, Lydia,” said Mr. Dunwoody, taking a large bite of a Dutch-cocoa-sour-cream swirl. “Thank you. Now, what was I saying?”

  “I believe . . .” Mrs. Dunwoody hesitated, chewing. “These are delicious, Lydia. Thank you very much. I believe I was saying something.”

  “Would either of you care for a cup of tea? Or coffee?” Mrs. Dewey offered.

  “Coffee,” said Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody simultaneously.

  “Were we talking about Halloween?” Mrs. Dunwoody resumed.

  “I could have sworn we were discussing prime numbers.” Mr. Dunwoody rubbed his forehead. Then he paused, patting slowly at the space around both of his eyes. “I’m afraid I can’t remember where I left my glasses.”

  “I’ll find them,” Olive promised, beaming at Mr. Dunwoody.

  Mr. Dunwoody beamed blindly back up at her.

  “I’ll be right back!” she called from the kitchen doorway.

  “What did Olive say she was going to do?” she heard her father ask as she bolted through the back door and flew across Mrs. Dewey’s yard.

  Outside, the sky was still dark, and the air was still cold. This night had seemed to go on forever, yet there wasn’t even a streak of blue on the horizon. Frost clung to the lawns, coating each blade of grass with hazy silver.

  Olive galloped around the hedge up the front porch steps, too overjoyed to notice that the lights in the entry and the library had gone out once again. She flipped the switch beside the front door, and the old stone house seemed to welcome her in, its golden light sweeping around her like protective arms.

  Her father’s glasses would be waiting safely on the table beside Olive’s bed, just where she had left them. Olive jogged up the stairs. Her parents were safe, and they were coming home, and everything was—

  Everything was—

  Olive’s steps slowed.

  At the top of the stairs, everything was dark. This wasn’t the darkness of a room without lights; it was solid darkness. Aggressive darkness. A wall of blackness waited for her, extending across the hall from Olive’s bedroom all the way to her parents’ door—a living wall, rippling with hands and claws and teeth and faces.

  Olive froze, balanced on the edge of two stairs.

  There was the soft rustle of silk, and the wall parted, giving way to a pretty woman in a long white gown.

  Annabelle McMartin, with her painted gold eyes and small, chilly smile stepped slowly toward the head of the staircase. Beside her strode a glossy black cat, sleek and silent as a panther. Behind them both, like a long black bridal train, the retinue of monstrous shadows rippled and shifted, spidery legs skittering, jaws gaping with sharpened teeth.

  Olive knew what had been prickling at the back of her mind.

  She had left the house unguarded for far too long.

  “There you are, Olive Dunwoody,” Annabelle said sweetly. “We wondered when you would be back.”

  She raised one hand, fingers sweeping daintily through the air.

  The last of the lights went out.

  22

  SURROUNDED BY FREEZING darkness, Olive felt herself being dragged along the hallway, toward her parents’ bedroom door. Damp fins and scaly limbs pushed her through, leaving their burning cold touch on her skin. The bedroom was dark, its windows glazed with night sky. Wheeling out of reach of the shades, Olive pressed her back to the wall between the two large paintings. She could feel her heartbeat against the plaster.

  Annabelle’s white gown moved like mist through the darkness. Leopold walked beside her, invisible but for his bright green eyes.

  “I’m here to take back what was mine,” said Annabelle in her sugary voice. “In fact, I’ve already begun. She brushed back a wave of long, dark hair, revealing the gold filigreed locket glittering softly against the strand of pearls. Annabelle touched the locket gently. “I had something new to put inside of it,” she said. A smile curled on her face like a poisonous pink flower.

  Olive felt a spiral of horror opening inside of her, pulling everything else to its depths. “I don’t know what you’re planning to do,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady, “but my friends will be here any minute.”

  “That’s right! They will!” Annabelle clasped her hands together, as though Olive had said that a throng of party guests was about to arrive. “And they will come rushing up here to save you, and then something delightful will happen.”

  Her cold, painted hand touched Olive’s arm, steering her toward the painting of the old sailing ship. “Put on the spectacles, Olive,” she said, in a voice that wasn’t sugary anymore.

  Olive swallowed. Keeping the ribbon securely around her neck, she placed the spectacles on her nose.

  “Now, look into the painting. Don’t worry,” Annabelle added lightly. “I’m not going to push you in.”

  And I’m not going to trust a word you say, thought Olive, bracing both legs against the wall. Slowly, with both hands locked around the picture frame, she pressed her face through the softening canvas.

  A blast of salty wind tousled her hair. Far below her, so far that if she plunged into them she would never reach the frame again, rolled the painted waves of the deep purple sea. In the middle distance, the sailing s
hip creaked, rocking slowly back and forth. Everything was just as it had been before—except now, in the center of that wooden ship’s deck, there stood a tiny human figure. It was a girl, Olive could tell. A gangly girl with brownish hair. And a striped sweater. And a terrified expression on her tiny, painted face.

  A wave of nausea roiled through Olive’s body. Spotting Olive, the distant girl began to wave both arms, jumping desperately up and down. She might have been shouting something, but over the roar of the ocean, Olive could not hear it.

  She jerked her head back through the frame.

  “Is—is—” she choked, staring up into Annabelle’s smiling face. “Is that supposed to be me?”

  “A good likeness, isn’t it?” Annabelle nodded admiringly at the painting. “Of course, Grandfather can’t paint a true portrait without its subject present, and he had to add the figure in a hurry . . . but from a distance, it should fool even your own family. Don’t you agree?”

  Olive swallowed the sick sensation rising in her throat. “He’s here?” she managed. “In the house?”

  “Oh, he’s far from here by now,” said Annabelle. Her smile curved higher. “Hard at work. Safe and sound.”

  Stomach twisting, Olive stared back at that tiny, desperate figure on the deck of the ship. Why would Aldous strand a fake Olive there, when the real Olive—the one who was still in his way—remained free? And with this fake Olive in plain sight in her parents’ bedroom, would anyone even wonder what had happened to the real Olive, before it was much too late . . . ?

  “You’re figuring out how it will work, aren’t you, Olive?” Annabelle asked. “Your friends and family will search the house for you, and oh, how horrified they’ll be to spot you trapped inside the painting! Fortunately, Leopold will be waiting for them. He’ll explain how he’s escaped my clutches, and expressing his concern for you, he’ll hold the entrance open while all of your allies plop willingly inside.” Annabelle gave a delighted little shrug. “And then we’ll simply leave them there! Won’t we, Leopold?”

  The black cat kept silent.

  “Won’t we, Leopold?” Annabelle repeated, giving him a kick with her pointed white shoe.

  “Don’t!” Olive cried.

  Leopold’s eyes didn’t leave the floor. “Yes, miss,” he said softly, getting back to his feet.

  “What about me?” Olive asked, drawing Annabelle’s attention away from the cat. “What are you going to do?”

  “Oh, you’ll be nearby,” said Annabelle. “Someplace where you can be alone. Because that’s what you deserve, Olive.” Annabelle bent until her painted gold eyes were level with Olive’s. “For the damage you’ve done to my family, you deserve to be all alone, for a very, very long time. I believe I’ll tie you to a tree deep in the painted forest. That’s fitting, don’t you think?” Annabelle’s voice dropped to a honeyed murmur. “The very first bit of Elsewhere you invaded will also be your very last.”

  Olive stared hard into Annabelle’s eyes. “I have a question,” she managed.

  Annabelle’s head tilted graciously to one side. “Yes?”

  Please, Olive thought. I trust you. I trust you. I trust you.

  “How are you going to trap any of us Elsewhere, if you have no way to get inside?” Olive yanked the spectacles over her head so hard that the ribbon ripped several strands of her hair. She flung them toward the black cat. “Run, Leopold!”

  There was an instant where Olive felt everything floating, as the spectacles sailed through the air, and the meaning of her words passed through Annabelle’s and Leopold’s minds. But Leopold caught on a split second faster. Before Annabelle could move, he’d caught the spectacles too. In a smooth, silent motion, he streaked from the bedroom, the spectacles clamped between his teeth.

  Annabelle’s face twisted, her rosebud mouth and long-lashed eyes turning wide and ugly with rage. “Come back here, Leopold!” she shrieked. “I will DESTROY you!” She tore into the hallway after the cat, with the roaring shades and Olive rushing behind her.

  Olive reached the head of the stairs just in time to watch Leopold hit the floor of the lower hall and zoom into the library. She didn’t stop to wonder why, but inside the pitch-dark house, she could see Leopold perfectly, thanks to the warm, flickering light that poured through the library doors.

  Annabelle chased him into the library, the shades swarming behind her. Olive jumped down the last several steps, stumbling and scrambling on all fours into the house’s largest room. What she saw hit her like a wall of frigid water.

  Leopold sat perfectly still, inches from the huge fire that crackled in the fireplace—close enough to the flames that Annabelle had to keep her distance. The living portrait had halted a few feet away, rocking back and forth in rage, while the fire glimmered over her painted skin. The shades had scattered backward, into the arc of shadows just beyond the firelight. Olive took in the shifting shades, the spectacles glinting in the cat’s teeth, the furious portrait looming over him. But Leopold’s eyes weren’t fixed on Annabelle. They were fixed on something behind her. Something lurking in the shadows, just beyond one worn velvet chair.

  Annabelle’s voice was soft and dangerous. “What are you thinking, you stupid beast?” she murmured. The black cat didn’t stir. “Do you think you can escape me in my own house?”

  “It isn’t your house,” said a voice.

  Annabelle’s head shot up, her eyes narrowing. From behind the velvet chair, a blotch of darkness glided into the pool of firelight. It flickered into the figure of a very small, very old woman. The shade of Ms. McMartin approached the portrait of Annabelle with slow, ladylike steps.

  Annabelle’s little rosebud mouth opened very slightly, but no sound came out.

  “You recognize me, don’t you?” said Ms. McMartin, in Annabelle’s own sugary voice. Her white hair darkened, and her wrinkled skin pulled smooth.

  Annabelle took a tiny step backward.

  “You know who I am,” the shade murmured. “And yet you don’t know me. But I know you.”

  “What is this?” Annabelle whispered, her voice the hiss of a cornered snake. “What do you think you know?”

  “I know what we are,” Ms. McMartin said gently. Her smoky hair paled to white again. “What we have become.”

  Olive darted into the room, dropping to her knees next to Leopold. Ms. McMartin’s eyes followed her. “Would you make this child an orphan?” she asked Annabelle. “Would you do to her what was done to you?”

  Annabelle’s lips tightened. “Grandfather did what he had to do to protect this house and this family.”

  “Was it worth protecting?” Ms. McMartin asked. Outside the ring of firelight, the shadows thrashed and muttered. Eely fingers and tooth-filled jaws snapped against the glow. Ms. McMartin seemed not to notice. “I think not,” she answered herself. “And in time, you would have come to think so too.”

  The shades stretched and roared against the boundary of the light.

  Annabelle’s face tensed, like a wire strung up to slice someone’s throat. “You are wrong,” she snarled. “I am proud to belong to this family. You lie.”

  “Would you like to see?” Ms. McMartin asked, very softly. “Would you like to see what serving this family has done to us? What a lifetime of selfishness and loneliness and regret brings?” Her voice dropped even lower, as delicate and dusty as a moth’s wing. “Would you like to see what has become of us by the end?” she breathed. “To see yourself as you truly are?”

  Ms. McMartin glided away from the circle of firelight. The rest of the shades recoiled, leaving her alone as she crossed the worn carpet. She turned back, facing the fire, and Olive could see the last traces of her misty features disappearing, sinking into the black silhouette that had been hidden underneath all along.

  The soft, upswept hair vanished from her head. The pearls and blouse and skirt disappeared. Her face seemed
to melt, leaving empty eyes and a slit of mouth on a head like a misshapen black egg. Beneath its weight, her neck grew long and bent. Her shoulders rose, bony and hunched, and her legs bent into a permanent, animal crouch. Rope-thin arms stretched beyond her feet and across the floor, fingers groping blindly, like long, black worms.

  What was left wasn’t Ms. McMartin, or even an outline of Ms. McMartin. What was left was an inhuman, broken, withered thing. It was a thing so hideous that instead of fearing it, Olive felt nothing but pity.

  This was the real Annabelle McMartin. Orphaned. Twisted. Deserted. Unloved.

  Olive didn’t realize that she had been inching forward until she felt Annabelle’s cold hand brush against her side. She glanced up. The portrait stood beside her, eyes wide with horror.

  “Will you trust me, Olive?” the thing that had been Ms. McMartin whispered through the darkness.

  Olive swallowed. All the times when she had trusted the wrong people—Mrs. Nivens, Doctor Widdecombe and Delora, Annabelle herself—sent regret and pain and fear throbbing through her, like fingers pressing on a bruise. She looked at the withered silhouette.

  “I’ll trust you,” she whispered back.

  The black form lumbered out of the shadows, dragging itself across the carpet. Olive felt its terrible cold crash into her, sinking through her skin and muscle and bone. All that remained of Ms. McMartin—anger, loathing, loneliness, shame—sank inside of Olive as well. The mixture was so painful, she could barely move. For a split second, Olive was sure she had been tricked again, that this monster would hold her until she froze to death. But then she heard Ms. McMartin’s soft voice.

  “Do as I do,” the shade whispered. Its words seemed to come from inside Olive’s own mind, where no one else could hear. “Follow me.” The shade threw its long, shriveled arms around the portrait of Annabelle. With a burst of effort, Olive did the same, keeping her arms inside the shadowy limbs. She felt the writhing coldness of Annabelle’s body against the deeper, numbing chill of her own, which was closed inside the shade like a leaf in ice. The shade’s enveloping presence seemed to cut off everything else: the hissing of the other shades, Annabelle’s furious screams, the pounding of her own heartbeat.