Home Before Dark

A sound wakes Ewan, who immediately finds that the chandelier is on. Over breakfast, he asks Jessica to remember to turn off the record player. She’s confused and denies knowing about the music, let alone leaving it on at night.

He wonders if the study could have an animal living in it that might have bumped into the record player. He examines and unplugs it before going to ask Maggie if it was her. In her room, he finds Maggie talking to an imaginary figure, saying that she has to find her own toys. Maggie says it’s a girl who can’t talk. She denies being in Ewan’s study, and he believes her. She says the girl spent the night in a wooden box, meaning the armoire. Ewan remembers the thuds of doors and drawers opening the night before. Then, Maggie says the girl isn’t allowed to leave. Before they leave the room, Maggie tells the girl to remind the others that they aren’t welcome in her room. Ewan tells Jessica about the incident that night and then proposes a sleepover with the Ditmer girls so that Maggie can have some positive reinforcement with other kids.

Maggie checks in with Allie and ponders her situation. After speaking with Prince, she looks at the Book and the Polaroids in the kitchen. She remembers going to Paris with her father after Jessica married Carl. Maggie was 14 then. Her father told her he’d never remarry and that he still loved Jessica. He said they experienced something so horrible that repairs were impossible.

In the kitchen, Maggie focuses on the pictures that have Petra in them. In most, she looks aloof, unaware that she’s being photographed. In the photo where she acknowledges the photographer, she’s flirtatious. A bell rings, startling Maggie, and she grabs a knife just as she hears music from upstairs. It’s the song “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” just as in the Book. The chandelier is swaying and tinkling in the great room. The study is empty, and she turns off the record player. Maggie thinks it must have been a ghoul that started the music. She then notices that the teddy bear—which was on the desk, like the letter opener—is gone.

Maggie tells Ewan that Mister Shadow says they’ll die there. Jessica tells her that Mister Shadow is imaginary. Maggie insists that three people visit her at night: the girl who can’t speak, Mister Shadow, and Miss Pennyface, who has pennies over her eyes. Maggie says she’s watching them now from the corner. Tapping noises come down the hall before heading to the third floor. The music begins to play from the study, and Ewan goes upstairs to check. The room is empty. He puts the record in its sleeve and then stores the player and the LPs in the closet before calling the police. Alcott responds, and Ewan tells her about a possible intruder and the music upstairs. However, Jessica didn’t hear the record player either time. Ewan realizes that Alcott is treating them like they treated Maggie when she talked about her imaginary friends.

That night, with thread, chalk, and index cards, Ewan makes a crude security system. He draws lines on the floor and strings threads across the front doorway and every window.