Darkest Part of the Woods by Ramsey Campbell Read Free Book Online

slap while he cleared his throat. "Delightful to meet you."

    "It's been years since she's been home," Heather told him. "I expect we won't stop talking while we've got any breath left."

    He set his hoary bulging briefcase on his desk and scratched his eyebrows with a sandpapery sound. "I'll cover if you want to slip away. Our assistants should be here soon."

    "Maybe we'll take a long lunch. You can sit with me now and we'll talk while I resurrect some old books, Sylvie."

    "Sounds like magic."

    "Which I'm guessing you still like."

    "Ever since you used to read to me."

    "We're both too old for stories, do you think? What I'm doing now is just technology."

    Sylvia followed her behind the counter as Randall held up the flap, and then she pointed with all her fingers. "What are you doing with my book?"

    "I was just glancing through it."
    "For
    what?"

    "Nothing in particular," Heather said, surprised by the urgency of the question.

    "I thought I'd read it since I hadn't for a while, that's all."

    "You know what that means then, don't you?"

    "I'm not sure I do."

    "That you sensed I was coming, of course," Sylvia said, and trailed her fingertips across the tales of seduction in the woods before closing the book.

    "Did you say you're going to resurrect it?"

    "No, only because it isn't old enough. The books I'm putting on the computer are a lot older." Heather sat in front of the machine but didn't switch it on. "Do you mind if I ask..."
    "Anything."

    "You know I don't mean this in any nasty way, but what's brought you back so suddenly?"

    "I never felt good about leaving you to cope. Maybe you looked after me so much when we were kids I ended up thinking of you as the caring one."

    "I try to be. I don't complain much, do I, Randall?"

    He looked away from his computer screen, his face red as if he'd been caught eavesdropping. "Never that I've noticed."

    "He's being kind, but anyway we're talking about you, Sylvie."

    "I guess I felt I ought to use how I'd learned to research at university, and maybe I wanted to write a book like dad."

    "You're still apologising. All I asked was why you've come back now."

    "I felt I was needed. Aren't I?"

    "Don't wonder," Heather said, hugging her until she was rewarded with a bony embrace.

    "I was thinking more of dad. You and mom wrote some of how he's been, but how is he now?"

    "His mind's been more active these past few months."

    "Are you pleased?"

    "I meant he's been mostly disturbed. He's asked after you more than once."

    "Maybe he sensed like you did I was planning to come home, or maybe he made me."
    "If
    either."

    Sylvia looked disappointed for as long as it took her to blink. "How about mom?"

    "She's doing well. She has an exhibition coming up in London. Haven't you been in touch?"

    "Not since I got back to England yesterday. I wanted to see you first. We were always closest, weren't we?" Hardly waiting for Heather to smile at that, she said "Shall I call her now?"

    "I think you should. Use my phone."

    Sylvia leaned one elbow on her book and held the receiver away from her face so that Heather heard the shrill pulse. It repeated itself six and a half times before Margo said not altogether patiently "Hello?"

    "Guess who this is."

    "I'm afraid I couldn't say. If you're calling from America it's quite early here. I'm just at a crucial point in a piece I'm carving. If you'd like to leave me your name and number-"

    "Heather didn't know at first either."

    They heard a silence like the absence of a gasp, and then "Sylvia? Is that really you?"

    "If it isn't someone must be using my body."

    "You sound so far away."

    "I'm not though, am I, Heather?"

    For an instant Heather was tempted to join in the teasing, but didn't want to feel as young as her sister kept seeming. "Not any longer," she said.

    "Are you there with her at work, Sylvia?"

    "Stopping her doing it, right. Being all kinds of distraction."

    "Why didn't you tell us you were coming home?"

    "I didn't