Nursery Tale by T. M. Wright

spotlight on the back of the house, just outside the big kitchen window—"For security purposes, Janice"—and most of the backyard was bathed now in its soft yellow glow). She imagined she did her best thinking in the dark. She remembered that her decision to marry Miles—eight years before—had come to her at 2 A.M., in her darkened Utica, New York, studio apartment. And her decision to forget her job as a high school art teacher and to devote herself entirely to Jodie had come to her in the darkness and quiet of the hospital's labor room, just an hour and a half before Jodie's birth.
    She touched her abdomen again and thought, very briefly (not for the first time) of reincarnation—that, perhaps, it was Jodie growing inside her. Again. And she pushed the thought away because—as she had decided before—it was stupid. And unfair.
    Her gaze settled on the big, open, beautifully manicured backyard, on the white marble birdbath, and the four flowering dogwood trees they'd planted, essentially at random, and the little, barn-type tool shed just at the edge of the yard. She thought, as she let her gaze wander idly from here to there, that this would be a very good place indeed to bring up any child.
    And then, almost against her will, her eyes stopped moving, and her gaze settled on a spot just inside the perimeter of the light, a couple yards to the left of the tool shed—where the illumination was weakest—and she said, just below a whisper, "Who's that?"
    A woman was standing there; tall, dark-haired, pretty. And she was standing very still. . . .
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    W hen he was a child, John Marsh often woke very early in the morning (as he had this morning) and a special kind of nervous, sweaty fear had prodded at him. Go on, open your eyes, I dare you; open them! And he remembered, now, that he had never been able to keep his eyes closed, convinced though he was that something hugely grotesque waited for him, something designed to take his senses away and reduce him to jelly. He realized now that that kind of fear had settled over him again, after nearly a fifty-year absence, but that this time there was reason for it. And he remembered, suddenly, that he had awakened this way the night before, and the night before that—remembered that for the past ten nights, ever since his stupid, drunken drive to Granada, he had awakened early, convinced that she had followed him back.
    She? he wondered, and knew immediately that it was a way of denying, futilely, what had happened.
    He swung his feet off the bed to the floor. He switched a light on and quickly scanned his small, memorabilia-filled bedroom. He saw no one. He told himself that he knew he wouldn't. The room had been empty last night, and the night before, and the night before that. And, he knew, it would stay empty. Because Rachel Griffin would have no reason at all to follow him. She was where she wanted to be. Where eternity wanted to keep her. Where her husband and her poor handful of dreams were.
    Then, as it had for the past ten nights, the moment came back to him, replayed itself
    She said nothing. She smiled a sad, pretty smile, and reached for him through the closed driver's window. She touched his face. And he remembered now that, yes, her touch had been very cold. Deathly cold. But she hadn't—he knew even then—been trying to give him her coldness. She had been saying hello. To an old friend. One she hadn't seen for a decade and a half.
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    J anice McIntyre was glad her husband had come downstairs. She wasn't sure why. Maybe, she thought, her mood had changed. Maybe being alone, and in the dark, here, in this particular house, was going to take some getting used to.
    Miles turned the bright overhead light on; he seated himself across from her at the breakfast nook, and asked if she'd like some coffee or some cocoa. She said no. He reached across the small table and took her hand; "Is something wrong, Jan?"
    "Nothing's