Home Before Dark

by Riley Sager

“He says we’re going to die here.”

UM SORRY

Twenty-five years ago, my family lived in a house named Baneberry Hall, situated just outside the village of Bartleby, Vermont. We moved in on June 26. We fled in the dead of night on July 15.

Its giving haunting of hill house?

Grief is tricky like that. It can lie low for hours, long enough for magical thinking to take hold. Then, when you’re good and vulnerable, it will leap out at you like a fun-house skeleton, and all the pain you thought was gone comes roaring back.

Now I own the place. Which means all its ghosts, whether real or imaginary, are mine as well.

I pictured myself at the great oak desk in the center of the room. I loved the idea of playing the tortured writer, banging away at my typewriter into the wee hours of the night, fueled by coffee and inspiration and stress.

“Maggie,” he said, looking up at me with eyes suddenly clear of confusion and pain. “Promise me you’ll never go back there. Never ever.” There was no need to ask what he was talking about. I already knew. “Why not?”

Never go back there. It’s not safe there. Not for you.

“I live just over yonder. Give me a shout if you need help with anything. Even in the middle of the night.”

Foreshadowing?

“I’m just letting you know.” Hibbs paused in a way I can only describe as ominous. “You might need my help during the witching hour.”

“He always came on the same date—July 15.”

“Petra, my baby,” she says. “You’ve come back to me.”

SORRY ?!