The Influence Read Free Page B

he cuts off the power,” Alison said.
    She sounded reassuring, though he was sure she needed that herself. “Just let me pull the fuses,” he said, “and then I’ll take Hermione up if she really can’t wait.”
    But the fuses were stuck fast in the dusty board under the stairs. He was still trying to dislodge them when the women brought the flashlight from his car. Before he could delay the women, they were overhead. He managed to jiggle one fuse loose, and then the other, and heard a muffled scream at the top of the house. He threw the cracked porcelain fuses into the kitchen bin as he ran to the stairs. He liked the silence up there even less than he’d liked the scream.
    Nearly all the light on the top floor was in Queenie’s room. He was able to distinguish the women, standing just outside the door and outlined by the glow that the flashlight was casting within. The light swung toward him as he trod on a loose board, and then it fluttered back into the room.
    An old woman was lying face up on the bare mattress. Death had seized her by her chin and dragged her mouth wide open, had pinched her cheeks inward as far as they could go. He knew she was Queenie, if only by the way the long pink nightdress couldn’t reach to cover her scrawny veinous shins, but she looked older than he would have imagined anyone could look. No wonder the women seemed almost hypnotised by the sight of her, until Alison murmured “Go and look if you want to, Hermione.”
    Hermione stepped backward, hunching up her shoulders and shaking her head violently. “Well then,” Alison said “hold the flashlight while I cover her up.”
    Hermione almost dropped the flashlight. The lit wall nodded toward them, opening its mouth that had swallowed Queenie. Derek made to grab the flashlight until he saw that Alison was trying to make sure her sister’s mind was occupied. The light did its best to fasten on the bed while Alison closed the eyes that were gazing blindly at opposite walls. She stooped to gather up the bedclothes, and the light shuddered. “Watch out for her!” Hermione screamed.
    Derek thought she was talking to him. He ran into the bedroom and grabbed one edge of the bedclothes to help Alison heave them over the corpse. She insisted on smoothing them and tucking them under the mattress and under Queenie’s chin before she would come out of the room, though the flashlight was trembling so violently that it made him feel the floor shake underfoot. “Now what were you saying, Hermione?” she said gently as she stepped over the threshold.
    “Didn’t you see her move? She’s only pretending. It’s another of her horrible games.”
    “It must have been the light, love. She’s dead now, at peace.”
    “Don’t you know her better than that?” Hermione crouched over the flashlight as if to protect it. “Look at her,” she whispered. “She’s listening to us, can’t you see? God help us, she’s smiling…”
    She gripped the flashlight with both hands and poked the beam at the collapsed face. Now that Alison had closed the mouth and tucked the quilt under the chin, the corpse did appear to be smiling, so faintly it looked secretive. “She’s up to something,” Hermione cried, and then swung wildly towards the stairs, almost smashing the flashlight against the door frame. There was movement at the far end of the corridor.
    The walls tottered, the floor reared up. This time Derek caught hold of the flashlight and steadied the beam, and found Rowan on the landing, yawning and digging her knuckles into her eyes. “Mummy, why are you all up here? Why was Hermione shouting?”
    Derek closed Alison’s hand around the flashlight and murmured “Was Jo and Eddie’s light on when you went to the car?”
    “I think so, but—” But he couldn’t linger while Rowan might see what lay in Queenie’s room or be infected by Hermione’s panic. He hurried Rowan downstairs to her room and saw from her window that someone was still