Page 107 of Call Off the Dark

Agnes entered and nervously glanced around the room as if she were taking stock of what was in it.

“Have you ever met my husband?”

Agnes gave Helen a confused expression. “No, you know I haven’t.”

“I didn’t think so. Why is that?”

“Bad timing, I guess.”

Helen pulled out a chair and gestured. “Have a seat.”

Agnes hesitated. “Where are they?”

“Gone for the day.”

That answer seemed to satisfy Agnes, and she sat down. Helen took the chair across from her.

Agnes said, “I looked up what you asked me to.”

“Me first,” Helen said. “Are you familiar with Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’?”

“Um . . . no?”

The Poe book was still on the table, open to the poem. Helen pushed the book in front of Agnes, and the younger woman looked down at it, her nose scrunching.

“I don’t have time to read this,” Agnes said. “I did what you asked. I need to show you.” She reached into her hiking waist pack. She pulled out a manila envelope that was folded in half.

Helen ignored her. “The narrator in the poem, he’s losing his mind because he lost his true love, and he thinks—or he hopes—that she’s calling to him one night, but the unexpected visitor, it turns out to be a raven. But is the raven real? Or is the man going crazy because he’s so consumed with grief that he’s actually talking to no one at all?” Helen took a deep breath. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Not really.”

“I’m imagining things that aren’t here. Isaac. He’s not real.”

Agnes leaned forward, nodding. “You mean you agree with Wade now? You think he’s a ghost too?”

“No, I mean he’s a figment of my imagination.”

Agnes’s brow furrowed. “But what about your husband? He sees Isaac too.”

“My husband?” Helen shook her head and looked away. “He’s probably not real either. Maybe I live here alone.”

“What? Helen.”

Helen lowered her head. Her eyes felt heavy.

“You don’t live here alone.” Agnes motioned to the hooks by the door. “There’s a man’s hat there. I’ve seen men’s boots and jackets and things. You don’t live alone.”

Helen lifted her head, even more distressed now. “I mean, are you even real?”

“Helen, come on.” Agnes smiled at first, but her smile fell away as Helen continued talking.

“It would make sense, wouldn’t it? Of course I would give myself a friend who’s a young woman, someone with her life ahead of her, someone who could remind me what it was like when I was full of so many possibilities myself.” Helen laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Okay, you’re scaring me now,” Agnes said quietly.

“No, it’s actually very poetic,” Helen said. “People love to say Edgar Allan Poe was crazy. And some people think Emily Dickinson eventually lost her mind too. All our heroes either got tired or went insane. Did you know that?”

Agnes didn’t answer at first, but as Helen stared at her, waiting patiently, Agnes finally said, “No, I didn’t know that.”