“The two would have found it virtually essential to develop identical personalities in order to take turns living in the world beyond their mother’s house,” Hilary said. “Even small differences between them would ruin the charade.”
“But how?” Joshua demanded. “What did Katherine do to them? How did she make it happen to them?”
“We’ll probably never know for certain,” Hilary said. “But I’ve got a few ideas about what she might have done.”
“So do I,” Tony said. “But you go first.”
***
By mid-afternoon, the amount of light coming through the east-facing attic windows grew steadily less. The quality of the light began to decrease as well; it no longer radiated out from the shaft form that the shape of the window imparted to it. Darkness slowly claimed the corners of the room.
As shadows crept across the floor, Bruno began to worry about being caught in the dark. He couldn’t simply snap on a lamp because the lamps weren’t in working order. There hadn’t been any electric service to the house for five years, since his mother’s first death. His flashlight was useless; the batteries were drained.
For a while, as he watched the room sink into purple-gray gloom, Bruno fought panic. He didn’t mind being outdoors in the dark, for there was almost always some light spilling from houses, streetlamps, light from passing cars, the stars, the moon. But in a totally lightless room, the whispers and the crawling things returned, and that was a double plague he must prevent somehow.
Candles.
His mother had always kept a couple of boxes of tall candles in the pantry, off the kitchen. They were for use in the event of a power failure. He was pretty sure there would also be matches in the pantry, a hundred or more of them in a round tin with a tight-fitting lid. He hadn’t touched any of those things when he had moved out; he had taken nothing but a few personal possessions and some of the collections of artwork that he had acquired himself.
He leaned over to peer into the face of the other Bruno, and he said, “I’m going downstairs for a minute.”
The cloudy, blood-muddied eyes stared up at him.
“I won’t be gone long,” Bruno said.
Himself said nothing.
“I’m going to get some candles so I won’t be caught in the dark,” Bruno said. “Will I be all right alone here for a few minutes while I’m gone?”
His other self was silent.
Bruno went to the set of steps in one corner of the room. They led down into a second-floor bedroom. The stairwell was not totally dark, for some light from the attic window fell into it. But when Bruno pushed open the door at the bottom, he was shocked to find that the bedroom below was black.
The shutters.
He had opened the shutters in the attic when he’d awakened in the dark this morning, but the windows were still sealed elsewhere in the house. He hadn’t dared open them. It wasn’t likely that Hilary-Katherine’s spies would look up and notice just one pair of opened attic shutters; but if he were to let light into the entire house, they would certainly spot the change and come running. Now the place was like a sepulcher, shrouded in eternal night.
He stood in the stairwell and peered into the lightless bedroom, afraid to advance, listening for whispers.
Not a sound.
No movement either.
He thought of going back to the attic. But that was no solution to his problem. In a few hours, night would have come, and he would be without a protective light. He must forge on to the pantry and find those candles.
Reluctantly, he moved into the second-floor bedroom, holding open the stairwell door to take advantage of the meager, smoky light that lay behind and above him. Two steps. Then he stopped.
Waited.
Listened.
No whispers.
He let go of the door and hurriedly crossed the bedroom, feeling his way between pieces of furniture.
No whispers.
He reached another door and then stepped into the second-floor hallway.
No whispers.
For a moment, enveloped in seamless velvety blackness, he could not remember whether to turn left or right to reach the stairs that led to the ground floor. Then he regained his bearings, and he went to the right, arms extended in front of him and hands opened with fingers spread in blindman fashion.