Darkness Falls (2 page)

Sonny was dead.

She couldn’t believe it.

She
wouldn’t
believe it.

Mr. Turley finally spoke. “We’re terribly sorry, Mrs. Dixon.”

“Of course you are. You’re good men, both of you,” the female voice said. “Thank you.”

“It’s—it’s possible he may have survived,” Mr. Jefferson said, “but we didn’t think it would be fair to you to—well—”

“I understand, Mr. Jefferson. Thank you.”

She closed the door on the two men.

In the back of her head, the same part that acknowledged that it was she herself who spoke to the two men, Matilda recognized that she should have invited the two men in. The Dixon house was right on the coast, near the lighthouse, and a far walk from the center of town. Both men would be cold and in dire need of shelter and perhaps a cup of tea.

But Matilda couldn’t bear the idea of anyone in the house. Not now. Not knowing that Sonny would never set foot in it again.

“Just a few more trips at sea.”
That was what Sonny had said every time she had brought up the idea of having children, of having a family. Matilda had lived for the day when she could bake sweets for her own brood, had longed to hear the sounds of small feet pattering about their small home by the lighthouse, had desired so strongly to hear Sonny’s voice telling them stories of his adventures on the sea.

Instead, he had one adventure too many.

She turned out the lantern in the living room window. Sonny would never need it to guide him home ever again.

“I may not be fast,”
he had said once,
“but I do get there in the end.”

Not this time, he didn’t.

Or perhaps he did.

It all depended on how one looked at it, didn’t it?

She went upstairs, the Wellington girl’s lemon cake forgotten in the oven. She didn’t look into the spare room that someday was going to be the nursery for their children. Instead, she went into the bedroom that she and Sonny had shared all too rarely. She walked over to the nightstand and picked up the scrimshaw with her face etched into the ivory.

The remnant of one of Sonny’s more successful whaling expeditions, the ivory felt heavier in her hand than it ever had before.

How long she stared at the image of herself, she could not say. She had been prettier then, when she was sixteen. Sonny, of course, insisted that she grew more beautiful with each passing year.

But he was her husband. He was supposed to say things like that.

Besides, he also said that he would always come home to her.

She opened the slim drawer of the nightstand. Inside it lay several carefully folded handkerchiefs. After taking one of them out—it was monogrammed with a lovely calligraphed “MD”—she placed the scrimshaw in the drawer amidst the remaining kerchiefs and closed it.

To her surprise, there were no tears for her to wipe away with the handkerchief, as she would have thought. Still, she kept the kerchief handy in case any came.

She went back downstairs and sat in the living room, not bothering to light any lanterns, listening to the rain fall, staring at the scrimshaws all around the house, and not feeling the cold that hovered in the air as the storm intensified.

The lemon cake was ruined.

two

1990

The blood trickled from Kyle Walsh’s mouth.

He smiled.

The ten-year-old stood in the boys’ bathroom of Darkness Falls School staring at himself in the mirror. Class would start any minute, but one of Kyle’s teeth had come loose the previous day. The pain didn’t bother him all that much, as long as he didn’t bite down on it—he chewed his breakfast that morning on the other side of his mouth—but he found the occasional trickle of blood mesmerizing. It looked so odd reflected in the filthy mirror and under the slightly green-tinged fluorescent lights.

Kyle had been slow to lose his baby teeth, and this one was apparently the last to go. He had never understood why the body worked the way it did, why kids’ teeth would grow in, then fall out and be replaced by new ones. Why couldn’t the mouth get the teeth right the first time? Everything else was the same—bones, muscles, skin, hair. They all adjusted to the way the body grew.

But not the teeth. No, they were stubborn. They grew one way only, and then, when the rest of the body shot past them, getting bigger, getting stronger, the teeth just sat there and wouldn’t budge, finally falling out of the mouth in protest.

Yes, teeth were stubborn. Kyle appreciated that. He was stubborn, too.

Of course, it was especially funny that his last baby tooth was falling out this week. After all, this was when Miss Pisapia had them doing their oral reports on the history of Darkness Falls. So far, the topics had all been the same.

Darkness Falls was, ultimately, just some boring small town like every other small town that sat on the East Coast. Lots of quaint little houses that were top-of-the-line when they were built in colonial times. Cute little shops—or, if the owners wanted to draw in more tourists, “shoppes”—that sold lots of stupid junk. Badly paved roads that were probably fine in the horse-and-buggy days but mostly just made for bumpy rides in the backseat of the car. Kyle didn’t mind that so much, but his mother was always complaining about what it did to their suspension. (His father used to complain, too, of course, until he died. Then he stopped.)

And boats.

Living in Darkness Falls, Kyle had really learned to hate boats. Not to mention that stupid lighthouse. What was it
for?
Sure, ships needed them a hundred years ago, but what did
that
have to do with anything now?

With all that, Darkness Falls wasn’t much different from any old-fashioned town on the Atlantic Ocean from Nantucket to Key West.

Except for one thing.

The first bell rang, indicating that the kids had three minutes to get to their classes. Kyle wiped the blood from his chin, spit out the other blood that had collected in his mouth, then wiped his mouth again, as the residue had gotten on his lips.

Part of him was tempted to leave it there, just to see how Miss Pisapia, or one of the stupid girls like Kimberly or Anya, would react.

But that would just get him sent to the principal’s office. Again. Or worse, to the guidance counselor. Kyle would have much rather sat through another stupid report about their stupid town than go see either of those two ever again.

The part that truly reeked was that he’d have to do both again. He just knew it. Not a month went by without at least one trip to both those creeps, and often more than one.

Three minutes later, Kyle was sitting in Miss Pisapia’s class as she called Kimberly Schwartz to the front of the room, and he was starting to think that Principal O’Malley’s office wouldn’t be all that bad. (The guidance counselor, of course, would be. Since his father died, he’d spent more time with the stupid guidance counselor than with his mother.)

Kimberly had, of course, made a diorama. Teachers loved dioramas, and Kimberly loved making teachers happy, so she had devoted her life to excelling at diorama-making skills. A small Styrofoam version of the lighthouse that Kyle so hated was at the center, with blue cellophane representing the water and toy fishing boats sitting next to the toothpick-and-popsicle-stick port. And next to the lighthouse, a cardboard house, with a tiny clay figure standing in front of it. Kyle bet she was up all night working on it. Or maybe her mom and dad helped her. They were always helping her. Kyle never thought that was fair.
He
had to do his
own
homework.

Kimberly hadn’t put as much energy into her speaking skills. After putting her diorama on the table at the head of the class, she stood up and started talking: “ ‘Why Our Town Is Famous’ by Kimberly Schwartz.”

She paused.

“Darkness Falls is a great place to live and not only that but it is famous, why is our town famous?, some people might ask, it is famous because of the Tooth Fairy, the—”

Miss Pisapia interrupted. “Slow down, Kimberly.”

Kimberly swallowed. Kyle tried not to laugh out loud. He was also disappointed. He wanted to see how long Kimberly could go on one breath before she turned blue and collapsed onto the floor. That would’ve made the day worthwhile.

“The Tooth Fairy is a woman who lived here hundreds of years ago and had no husband or children and who never left town. She lived all alone up by Lighthouse Point, and she never left town.”

Kyle struggled to keep a straight face at Kimberly’s look of annoyance at herself for repeating that. To cover, he looked over at Cat Greene in the next row.

Cat was Kyle’s best friend. That was mostly because she was Kyle’s only friend. She wasn’t stupid or prissy like the other girls, and she wasn’t stupid and obnoxious like the boys. She actually had a sense of humor.

Which was unfortunate, because as soon as Kyle looked over at her, Cat stuck her index finger in her mouth, simulating puking.

He couldn’t help but grin at that one.

Then he shut the grin down. It wouldn’t do for Miss Pisapia to see that. She didn’t like it when the kids smiled. It made her think they weren’t paying attention—which was stupid, to Kyle’s mind. If they were smiling, it meant not only were they paying attention, but they knew just how dumb everything they were learning was.

Kimberly went on. “When one of the town’s children lost a tooth, the woman would go to their house at night and give them a shiny gold coin for it and she only did it for the kids in town because she never left town.”

Even Miss Pisapia rolled her eyes at this third repetition of the obvious. Kyle was worried that he’d lose all his own teeth when his mouth exploded with the laugh he was trying desperately to keep in.

Kimberly, meanwhile, moved over to the diorama. She reached behind it and pulled on a couple of strings that Kyle hadn’t noticed. That action prompted the toy boats to move in and out of the little Fudgsicle-derived port. Kyle bit back a comment that they didn’t need to bother going to see
Back to the Future III
with such great special effects right here in their very classroom.

“Darkness Falls was a fishing town and when fishermen would sail back to their homes they would tell the story of this generous old lady and the people in those other towns she never went to heard about what she was doing.”

Kyle wondered why she was showing people coming
to
Darkness Falls when she was talking about people going to other places
from
Darkness Falls.

“And soon they started leaving money under their children’s pillows and saying it was from ‘the Tooth Fairy,’ and that is why our town is famous. The End, Copyright 1990, All Rights Reserved.”

A couple of the other kids snickered at that, which let Kyle chuckle without guilt, finally. Miss Pisapia didn’t react to the guffaws, because she was too busy giving Kimberly one of those Teacher Looks.

“That’s what they put on movies at the end!” Kimberly whined.

“Take a seat, Kimberly,” Miss Pisapia said, though Kyle imagined she wanted to say something else.

He
certainly did. Kimberly’s report was clear and concise, had nice visual aids, and was also completely wrong.

Kyle didn’t know whether to be depressed or amused.

The one thing this lousy town was good for, and people couldn’t even get it right. All week, none of them had.

Miss Pisapia folded her hands on the desk. “We should all thank Kimberly for that illuminating report on a subject also covered this week by Ron, John, Anya, Larry, Amber, Emily, and Vikram.”

Once again, Kyle had to keep himself from laughing. This time was even harder, because all seven of those kids looked so
thrilled
that they’d made the teacher happy. Kyle, who had spent most of his life keeping his teachers as unhappy as possible, knew full well that Miss Pisapia was sick and tired of all the stupid Tooth Fairy reports.

And so was Kyle.

“Does anyone have a history report that
doesn’t
have anything to do with our town’s Tooth Fairy legend?”

“I did the Civil War,” Cat said.

“Thank God,” Miss Pisapia muttered.

Kyle couldn’t help himself. He had to say it, or he’d go even more nuts than he already was.

“They’re telling it wrong, anyway.”

As nasty as the Teacher Look that Miss Pisapia gave Kimberly, the one she gave Kyle now was a whole lot nastier. “And I’m sure you’re now going to enlighten all of us as to the correct story?”

Shrugging, Kyle got up. “Sure.”

Cat shook her head and gave him a pleading look, but Kyle ignored it. A couple of the other kids whispered and made noises—especially that jerk, Ray. Kyle ignored them, too. They all thought he was crazy anyhow, so what difference did it make if he acted crazy?

He walked over to Kimberly’s stupid diorama. Reaching in, he grabbed the little clay figure, which was supposed to be the oh-so-famous Tooth Fairy.

“Yeah, the Tooth Fairy lived here. But Kim didn’t finish the
real
story.”

As he spoke, he yanked a piece of string off the fishing boat. It wouldn’t be able to move back and forth now, and Kimberly let out a little whimper at his damaging her hard work.

“See, one night two kids went out. One of them had lost a tooth, and they went to visit the Tooth Fairy. They never came home.”

Kyle started tying a slipknot with the string. He was going to show these idiots what the truth behind the legend
really
was.

“So all the men in town made up a mob. And they went up to Lighthouse Point with torches, sticks, and axes, and they dragged the old woman out of her house.”

“Kyle,” Miss Pisapia said, but Kyle ignored her, too, as he slipped the loop he had made with the slipknot around the tiny neck of the figure.

“They dragged her out to the lighthouse, and then they hanged her over a ship’s yardarm so finally everyone could see her.”

He grabbed the string about halfway up with one hand and then let go of the clay figure with the other.

“They hanged her until she was dead,” he said, even as Kimberly’s small figure dangled by the neck from the string. It swung back and forth like a psychiatrist in some old movie hypnotizing someone with a pocket watch.