Ada’s flight was a descent—one carried on inexorably by a kind of madness she could not control. She was conscious of the deepening darkness, of an escape into the center of a heartless wood where wicked things crouched to devour. Her mind screamed at her feet to stop, to turn and call for help, but her feet were red shoes, dancing on and carrying her through the howling wind and gathering shadows. Her body could only think of getting away—away from a thing she couldn’t understand, didn’t dare voice. As horrifying as it was, there was comfort in the anonymity of madness, where she could retreat into herself and let her feet carry her away—away from Washington, away from the ghouls and specters of an untamed land, away from the dream of a village beckoning her with dead fingers.
She recoiled from dark fingers that clawed at her cheeks and eyes and snagged at her skirt to drag her back—down—in—to swallow her up or net her like a spider. The lightning crackled above a mocking, broken laugh, and the howling wind buffeted her about proliferous brush. The cold wind whipped at her hair and skirt, pushing her, entangling her like a fly in the weeds and vines. Entangling her for whatever followed behind…or whatever awaited ahead. Every tug of a branch or root was like the tug of a church bell alerting everything to her presence. What would reach for her first?
A bolt of lightning cracked the sky like glass in an instant, awful flash of blinding incandescence, such that she felt the static in her hair and on her skin. Then through the cracks in the firmament bled the pouring rain. The shower beat down upon her, nearly staggering her to the ground in an instant. All at once, she felt the chill of the deluge and the heat of the boiling air in hellish contrast. Her ears filled with a crackling sound like static, and she wondered if she were going deaf. Then she cast her eyes upwards and threw herself back with a scream as a huge bough of oak came crashing down towards her. She covered her eyes with her arms as a lashing gust of wind nearly blinded her with rooted scatter. Around her, twigs, bark and rot tore loose and screamed through the air as if the forest itself were splitting at the seams. There was no fantasy in this for her, no romance, no glory, no thrill—only fear, only horror.
She threw herself against a pecan trunk and gripped for dear life with both arms. Her fingernails dug into the bark as she cast her gaze around, struggling to sight her companions through the maelstrom. She screamed their names, but her voice was swallowed up by the wind. In every thunderclap, she heard the crack of a musket shot; in every rolling peal, she heard the tramp of pursuing feet; in every howling breeze, she heard the hateful laughter. She threw her gaze around to pierce the tempestuous, sylvan veil, looking for landmarks she could recognize or even a dirt road to give her a clear path.
Bursting through a clump of bushes, she barely dodged the strike of a branch whipping back that could have blinded her and staggered forward. She tripped on her skirt and fell forward, her arms flailing blindly ahead. Then they caught something. She felt the dull impact of wood and felt her hands catch upon a net of mossy branches. It was like a net caught her and nearly repelled her.
She leaned there a moment, feeling the soft moss on her cheek as the rain flogged her back. Then she staggered back and gazed up dumbfounded. Before her stretched the thicket—a wide barrier of woodland that seemed almost to close in upon itself. The trees leaned and snaked together in almost a wall packed in with enough vegetation to smother a hog. Moss and thorny vines packed in and strung across the branches and trunks like mortar to seal the way. Yet here and there, someone small enough might squeeze through a narrow gap like the eye of a needle.
Pale and drenched like a drowned rat, she stood a moment before the thicket in a kind of awe. Here was no faerie realm, but a fortress that defied all light, laughed in the face of civilized man. Here was the wall at the end of the world, where man stopped cold his relentless pursuit and nature held its sway. She felt her steps stagger slowly back.
She heard the groan behind her, and then the cracking, splintering cacophony as of ship lines snapping beneath the storm. She glanced up for but a moment to see a black, mossy monolith roaring down upon her, and with a scream, dove headlong into the thicket. The deafening crash trembled the ground beneath her in a spray of clay and sediment. She felt the impact a mere three yards diagonally of her as it tore through a portion of the thicket. She covered her face against the crashing branches and spraying leaves and then scurried like a rat through the Gordian knot of the thicket.
Ada writhed and squirmed, catching her hair in the branches, cutting her face, and rending portions of her filthy skirt that caught here and there. Immediately she regretted plumbing the awful coppice, but the crashing, rending cacophony around her drove her incessantly on. It was too late now to turn back. Madness drove her thrashing through the seemingly interminable thicket, cutting her cheeks and hands on branches and knocking her knees and ankles against trunks and roots. A root caught and twisted her ankle, and she collapsed forwards with a gasp, closing her eyes against the sharp branches and palmetto leaves. Above, she heard the crashing of branches upon the canopy of the thicket, raining splintered wood down upon her. Then, like a drowning man gasping for air, she breached the edge of the thicket and collapsed to the earth. Only she had to jerk her head up immediately to spew the brackish water, and she felt the icy chill soak through her dress and pool around her.
She realized she was near the river, and yet this was both a boon and a bane to her struggle. For though the river could be her path home, she could also be rushing headlong into the coming flood. Even now as she stood, the water was pooling around her ankles, and she could see it rushing through the trees like rapids towards her. Yet no time to think! She must find the bank and follow its course at a distance back. Only in that way could she find Washington again.
The trees seemed to leap out at her from the swirling mist that whistled ahead. Yet the trees seemed sturdier, or the thicket was dense enough to barricade the brunt of the tempest for now. The rising water was now the greatest challenge. She must find shelter and warmth soon. If the flood didn’t kill her, the pneumonia surely would.
Then she saw it—a dark shape in the trees shrouded by the tempestuous haze. She saw also that it stood firm and did not waver in the wind. A copse of sturdy oaks, perhaps? At any rate, a possible bulwark within to shelter herself and catch her breath for the time being. She dragged herself, limping on her twisted ankle, bearing towards the distant shape like a lighthouse beacon. As she drew near, the shape stretched and swelled in size like an ink stain amidst the trees. Then as she drew nearer, the shape became more tangible, taking on shape like cement pouring into a frame. Her pace slowed as the size took on a solid frame and loomed before her like a Parthenon in the trees. Though she soon realized it was not as tall as it was wide, betraying hidden depths into the vast canopy of gnarled sycamores that shaded it from behind. Finally, she stopped, taken aback as if in a dream, before the long front of a dismal domicile.
The huge fa?ade was of pier-and-beam elevation with a raised porch and balcony over the front gable and a warped stairway. Jutting from the top of the roof was a boxy, glassed-in cupola like a cyclopean eye or the head of an old lighthouse. The porch itself was columned with four square porch posts dressed and painted a tarnished hue that, whatever formerly, now sickened with a kind of black and dull green. Whatever its weathered state, its position was well situated with the wall of trees to the rear, and its elevated beams permitted the flow of water underneath. Its towering chimney seemed bound at the hip to its right side, held together by the grapevines and poison ivy coiling across the bricks like a python. Its wooden shingles trembled and shuddered against the wind and stray branches that snapped and cascaded across the roof like tumbleweeds.
Ada strained down the long pathway that led to the house, flanked on either side by a row of barren trees that reminded her morbidly of her father’s orchard back home. When she ascended the stoop, she collapsed beneath the long front of the house and shivered beneath the shade of the porch. There, all her pain came back. It came in agonizing rushes that throbbed up from her ankle. Her joints and muscles ached from the strain, and her skin burned from the flogging rain. She lay there awhile, nursing her pain and shivering like an urchin.
She might have lain there all-day drifting into a troubled yet welcome slumber. Yet she forced herself, trembling, to her knees and hung onto the tarnished brass handle like a shipwrecked sailor to a piece of driftwood. Her fingers felt the ridges of some sort of insignia or pattern wrought into the ovular knob. She blinked her eyes and squinted at the backplate, which appeared engraved with something like a cluster of thorny vines. “Please!” she panted, practically hanging off the knob and pressing her forehead against the weathered door. “Please!” she panted again, this time under her breath. “For the love…of God…” She felt the knob turn and heard the click. Then she fell forward and braced her hands against the threshold, catching herself as the door swung inwards on hinges that made not a sound. Darkness gaped forth. Her fingers crept up the doorjamb, and she dug her nails in and hauled herself up shakily, to her feet. Hugging her arms, she lurched inside, her breath shuddering from the cold of her drenched dress.
It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, and she stood stock still before the open door. She found herself in a boxy entrance hall that ended at another door that normally would go outside again, but instead seemed to stretch into a darkened extension, judging by the glass partition at the top of the door. A kind of closed dogtrot domicile. To her right, a stairwell of faded walnut, like the hall, vanished along the wall to a second-story landing, and just before the end of the stairs was a door that presumably led into a dining hall. Yet a passage to the left caught her eye, for it led into what appeared to be a square parlor where the fireplace was. Therein, she found a moth-eaten sofa and scattered chairs, some knocked over here and there haphazardly. One corner held a worm-eaten cabinet, and in another was set what appeared to be a rosewood box piano. All around hung the musty, earthy smell that seemed to radiate from the worm-eaten floor. Yet she detected a faint trace of something else beneath it all—a latent pungency, a sickly-sweet scent as of spilled molasses or old fruit left in the sun.
A faint squeaking sounded somewhere nearby, and she supposed it was rats. Then the door snapped shut, shrouding her in darkness, and she choked off a short shriek with a hand over her mouth. She held rigid in the darkness, her fingers digging into her cheeks, and then the peal of lightning flashed eerily through a violet glass window at the end of the first flight of stairs. Turning warily left, she entered the parlor and maneuvered around the toppled chairs to the large fireplace. She could only stare at it longingly, tantalized by the yawning hearth that whispered memories of warmth.
Then, a brilliant flash of lightning lit the space for an instant, and she staggered against the hearth with a stifled scream. She saw them for but a moment. Or had she seen them? Was it the play of shadows through the trees? All was black again, and she stood there in the darkness, hugging her clammy arms and breathing shallowly. All at once, the space around did not feel abandoned. She felt things in the corner—shapes—frozen shapes, like spiders lurking at the corners of a great web. She groped behind her at the hearth until her fingers grasped the cold iron of a poker. Then she stood there stock-still, hardly breathing but staring into the blackness for the first flicker of a shadow. The snarling thunder echoed through the room, and she could hear her heart in her throat. All was still. She raised the poker and flexed her fingers around the handle. She felt watched, surrounded. Why didn’t they take her? Why didn’t they do something? Could she have imagined it? No, she felt them. They were there. She heard the rolling thunder crash like waves upon the roof, and lightning burst the blackness again for a split second. Ada convulsed and dropped the poker with a short gasp that sharpened to a shriek at the end before her hands cut it off.
Figures frozen and pale in the flicker of light. Four she supposed, still and quiet in the beshadowed corners. The imprint of their shape was on her brain, and she saw now their outlines lurking in the shadows.
“Who are you?” came her tremulous cry. “Show yourselves!” When she received no answer, she slid slowly forward on shuffling feet and stooped to pick up the poker again. There was now only the hiss and patter of falling rain. When she stepped forward, every creak of the aged boards like the tremolo pluck of spider silk in her ears tightened her chest. For ages, she crept like that until she felt the corner of the piano. Drawing herself behind it, she sat on the bench and scooted towards the window. She felt a cold sensation and creeping feeling. She felt it like a finger over her naked nerves and trembled and then noticed a sensation along her shoulder and thigh. Her attention was fixated on the dark shapes around the room in some vain hope that they would vanish or explain themselves under prolonged scrutiny. Yet the longer she looked, the more they took shape, and the more human they became. The sensation along her side came again, and she felt the tingle of something like spider legs on her thigh. She jerked aside and darted a glance to see the thing at her thigh, but her eyes were arrested by a single eye. A single empty eye that seemed to catch her in a sideways glance. She jerked aside and felt the spider legs brush along her thigh, and with a scream skittered back, toppling off the bench. To her horror, the thing beside her made a clattering noise like it was launching itself from its seat. She scrambled and kicked back, but the thing threw itself upon her until the empty eyes met hers in a cold embrace. She threw it, kicked back with her feet and crawled frantically away, feeling at any moment its putrid fingers might come grasping at her leg. Yet, in her frenzy, she threw her shoulder against the door and heard the latch. She could almost hear the hissing, skittering spider legs of the thing behind her and struggled to her feet, making abortive attempts to open the door without realizing her conflicting impulses had impeded her flight. Her hands knew to fumble with the handle, but her feet knew only their frantic flight forwards. A flash of lightning tore a glance back over her shoulder, and she saw the silent figures lurching in on silent feet, their glassy eyes staring. Why didn’t they speak? She felt herself sliding down and crawling against the door, clawing at it with her nails, trying to pry her fingers into the jamb as she felt their shadows loom over her. She felt their icy breath on her neck, and at once, she contorted in on herself, covering her face with her hands and kicking back with her feet. Then her breath caught at the deafening clap of thunder, and she was still. For seconds that felt like hours, she lay curled and knotted there, her mouth agape and her muscles tensed. Yet she heard nothing; se felt nothing. Had they waited to watch her like crouching leopards until she dared a glance? Did they wait in wide-eyed anticipation, their wide grins white and eager to catch her frightened eyes before the plunge? She turned her trembling gaze back and saw…nothing.
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The darkness behind her was still, and the shadows of strange figures stood sentinel as they had before. Then she turned her gaze to one side and saw the fallen attacker curled beside her and stared at it through the blackness. For a terrible moment, she waited—waited for the glare of lightning to reveal a rotted face staring with hollow eyes and slack-jawed grin. The lightning flashed again, and the cackling thunder roared in ghastly triumph. The face she saw was not of flesh. Nor even was it air, as spirits are wont to guise themselves like faint impressions in mist and smoke. What first drenched her nerves like a bucket of ice water were the placid features. A serenity was there—even a kindness. She blinked and narrowed her eyes through the gloom, and then another flicker through the window revealed a make not of flesh but wood. Slowly, she dragged herself to her feet as if in a dream. Her body felt as if it were filled with air. Had she died? No, the pain in her ankle told her that. Perhaps it was the pain that suddenly brought the world into focus. In the flicker of light through the window, she beheld a model—a sculpture of smooth oak.
Getting to her knees, Ada waited and watched patiently, gathering impressions by the intermittent flickers of lightning. It was a sculpture of a woman, proud and regal, in a flowing, laced gown. Her hair was tied in a bun at the back of her head, and her posture was of one sitting straight, and with fingers forwards as if playing. When Ada dragged herself, limping back onto one foot, she leaned against the piano and took in both the sculpture and the bench it had previously occupied. For indeed, she could see it had formerly occupied the bench before she had disturbed it, its outstretched fingers hovering over the ivory keys in fixed pantomime. She threw her gaze around the room, her eyes adjusting to the darkness and aided by the intermittent flashes of lightning. She saw other figures, also seemingly of wood, standing hither and thither in varied pantomime. A couple were bound together in the ecstasy of dance, and others stood or were seated beside one another, their mouths agape in wordless merriment or turned to one another in serious conversation. All were so fluid and lifelike that she half-expected the scene to resume in movement any minute.
Ada hugged her arms with a shuddering sigh and was abruptly reminded of her clammy, drenched skin. She realized her only chance at warmth might lay in the living quarters, which meant she would have to ascend the stairway. With tentative steps, she crept back through the door, leaving the frozen revelers behind, crossing to the first step and lifting a foot lightly upon it. The groan that echoed seemed to come from the entire house and throbbed up her spine like an electric shock. She steeled herself, gripping the banister with both hands and leaning on it as she limped slowly, steadily upwards. The numbness of the cold was beginning to fade from her twisted ankle, and the pain came clawing back up her calf. Sucking in her breath between her teeth, she continued her staggering pace upwards until she reached the top of the flight. There, she slid to the floor and sat against the banister. Catching her breath and stretching out her twisted foot, she gazed up at the violet window that flickered with lightning above her. She stared up at the last flight like a desert hermit at a distant oasis. “God Almighty, Ada!” she half laughed to herself between belabored gasps. “You drag your…soaked and sorry self through a…raging hurricane…but find yourself stymied…by stairs?” Then she turned and crawled the final flight up to the second-story landing. There, she found that the broad landing was connected at either end to two short, plastered hallways, and between them ahead of her, it extended to a pair of glass-paned doors that led to the balcony.
The only light was that which glowed from the window of the first flight and another pair of tall windows from the floor to the fourteen-foot ceiling above, flanking a door presumably leading to the second-story balcony. Ada moved trepidatiously across the warped cedar floor of the hallway that creaked shrilly with every furtive step. All the while, she heard the dull moan of the wind and faint hiss of rain outside, rattling the shingles like chattering teeth. From what she recalled of the exterior of the house and the doors she counted now to her right, she concluded that it was a twelve-room abode whose decrepit, yet gargantuan stature hinted at a haunt of some former affluence.
Shuffling to the room beside the roost, she found it locked tight. Her heart skipped a beat at the horrifying thought that they all could be locked. Her anxieties subsided quickly when she tried the door across from it on the other side of the balcony entrance. The door sighed smoothly open without resistance, and she found a whitewashed room and a bed with dusty sheets and a moth-eaten quilt piled on top with frayed shirts, threadbare trousers, and grey, old jackets. There were no pillows to be seen. Again, she cast a despondent glance at the cold fireplace crowded with piles of ash like sand dunes. Finally, dragging herself to the edge of the bed, she removed her torn and drenched garments and slipped on a woolen shirt and coat and a pair of trousers from the bed. As rough, dirty, and irritating as the garments were, better to be irritated than to catch her death of cold. Oh, if only for a match! Nothing for it, then. She checked the bed for cockroaches or brown recluses, shoving the piles of clothes to the floor and kicking them around to inspect them. She checked the bed for same and finally piled the clothes back on again, slipped beneath the covers, and nestled beneath the weighty garments with chattering teeth. There, she squirmed and kicked restlessly to get warm blood flowing back to her limbs. It served a twofold purpose, both to generate warmth and to wear her out enough to relax.
Then, as her nerves relaxed, and the warmth cleared her head, the flood of memories was permitted back into her mind. Then, her heart sank to the pit of her stomach, and the image of Willem’s glazed eyes staring dumbly into the treetops etched itself into her brain. She clawed at the sheets and kicked as if struggling to escape the memory. “Oh—God…God!” she whimpered, clawing at the sheets and rubbing her face against the mattress. She felt a sudden urge to vomit, and her body heaved with stifled gags. “God, no…Please, no…” she sobbed, clawing at her scalp as if to scratch away the memory. “I’m sorry! I’m so—sorry!” She found it difficult to catch her breath and felt suddenly as if she were drowning. She dragged her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Mamma…Papa…please,” she sobbed under her breath. “Please, God! Please!” She was a raw nerve, battered by scattered thoughts and feelings she dared not consider lest she go mad. All she could do was weep and moan her broken words to God, even if she could not make them coherent.
She listened to the battering gusts of wind and rain rattling the roof and windows and heard the creaks and groans of the house itself and was reminded again of a ship at sea. When sleep took her, it was unawares. For all she knew, she simply stared into endless darkness until she jerked awake once again, half-shocked that any interval of sleep had come at all. It was as if the room had imprinted itself on her eyelids. Yet, in the sudden glow of light adjacent to her, she recognized that she had awakened.
Not the light of the sun, but the glow of the fireplace. She jerked her sheet back up to her chin with a squeaking gasp. Then she stared in dazed bewilderment. Was it a dream? Slipping her feet gingerly from the bed, she put her weight on the sprained ankle and felt the twinge that shot from her leg to her brain. It was real! Staggering forward, she collapsed to her knees and basked in the crackling glow of the fire. For a moment, the warmth chased away all considerations, confusions, and anxieties.
Her head cleared up enough to think, but not of her present predicament. Rather, she fretted over Cora and Peter, praying they made it home in the storm, that they managed to get help. Poor Willem. She clasped her knees to her breast and stared into the flames. And what of mother and father? She was certain they would be searching madly for her even now. Yet how would they brave this hurricane? Or had they already given her up for dead? What of that madman in the forest?
This last thought gave her a start, and a horrifying notion presented itself. What if this house were his abode? What if he was some mad forest hermit, and she had unwittingly entered his den? What was she to do? Yet this place seemed to show no signs of being lived in for years. That left the question…Who had started the fire?
She felt her skin crawl and jerked around to stare at the door. Not only was it still closed, but she had heard no sound of the latch or furtive feet gaining entry. What madman would steal in upon his sleeping victim solely to light a fire? A terrible thought sent a shock up her spine, and she darted to the door and tried the handle. The door opened as smoothly and silently as had the main door below. Peering out into the hallway, she saw nothing but the faint outlines of rooms on the beshadowed landing. She pressed the door quietly shut and leaned against it thoughtfully. She glanced repeatedly between the door and the bed until, doggedly, deciding she would meet whoever and whatever was in the house head-on rather than risk entrapment. For all she knew, the mysterious inhabitant could be a mere vagrant or fellow refugee from the storm. In the latter case, it would be wise to acquaint herself, since two heads are better than one in such a scenario.
Atop the fireplace, she found a tinderbox, and beneath the bed she found a box of candles. Finding no candleholder, she wrapped her hand in an old shirt for protection, took up a candle and lit it for her journey. She tried to find a blunt object nearby that might serve in her defense but found nothing that would fit the bill. “Well, tooth and nail then, by God,” she murmured. Once prepared, she sucked in a breath through her nose and steeled her spine. Then, she opened the door again and slipped into the hallway.
On the landing, she looked around, trying to ignore the howling wind and rain lashing at the roof and the clatter of hail against the balcony windows. Her eyes fell upon the only other room she had not checked upstairs. It was the one across from the locked room and to the left of the stairwell. What caught her eye was a little detail that made her heart race—the door was ajar. It had not been ajar before. Of that much, she was certain. With furtive steps, she crossed the landing and placed her free hand on the door. A glance through the crack revealed nothing but darkness. Only stale air greeted her and almost gagged her. Hearing and seeing no movement beyond the threshold, she felt slightly emboldened by curiosity and slowly crossed into the room.
The room was something like a study and simultaneously the most cluttered and clean room in the house thus far. Its cleanliness was apparent in the lack of dust compared to the others. What furniture and shelves therein were polished to a sheen, and long, blue silk curtains veiled the tall window at the back of the room. Its clutter, however, came from books—stacks of them. Every shelf was practically overflowing with them.
Immediately, she was drawn to the books, gliding over to the shelves and browsing their spines by candlelight. Many were so faded that she had to pluck them out and open them to discover their titles. In a moment, her fears were chased away at the sight of Poe, Hugo, and Dumas. Like old friends, they filled her with a sense of calm familiarity. She determined that she should chase away the phantoms of dangers past by losing herself in other worlds. What more could a young girl do? Rooting around a while, she came away with a Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress, and (to her delight) a leather-bound copy of Ivanhoe.
She found too, in the room, a small, tin candleholder, which she set her candle in and gripped by the small finger loop. She heard the brush of something beneath her feet as she stepped in and glanced down to see wood shavings scattered around and some swept into piles in corners or beside bookshelves. A desk beside the door was stacked on either end with books, and the middle was strewn here and there with dried candle wax and beeswax hanging over the edge of the table.
She turned sharply at a distant creak. The practical side of her spoke, telling her that the owner of the wretched estate must be wandering around below. At any rate, she was still determined to meet her host, and perhaps the presence of human company might make the place feel more lived in and allay her anxieties. She already felt immeasurable relief at the knowledge that another human being occupied this dismal abode. She gave no thought to what kind of human being might dwell there. Had she thought more about it and not been blinded by fear, she might have suspected that this mysterious owner or fellow refugee might in fact be the very madman to whom she owed her present predicament.
Bearing her candle aloft like an acolyte, she slipped back out onto the landing, hauling her trove beneath one arm. Her eyes fell upon the locked room and noticed something beside it she had not before—a doorway. Upon further consideration, she concluded it must lead to the cupola she had seen from the outside. After the ordeal she had endured and her much-needed rest, she had quite forgotten about that peculiar feature. Simple curiosity was the only impetus that drove her to approach the door—a kind of mechanical impulse. An abrupt confusion clouded her brain like a boxer catching a clip on the chin. The hand that turned the knob was numb, and when the creak of the door jolted her back to reality, she hardly recognized what was happening when the passage was laid bare. Her foot moved impulsively forward with the action but stopped on the threshold. A figure of wax took up the frame. The shock came and flew by with an exasperated sigh that faded quickly. Her body tensed involuntarily, and she stared. The eyes. Where were they? The features—melted, smooth—caught the gleam of candlelight. Did it melt even now? By the light? No, it leaned. Perhaps to topple over. Then raised the head to look upon her with a waxen mouth that gaped and rasped.
A scream tore from her tightened throat, and the shadow of a thin, white hand fell over her face. Her legs gave out, and she toppled backwards onto the floor, unable now to hear the roaring thunder over her frantic screams as she scrambled backwards. The figure seemed to stagger forward with her, catching itself spiderlike on all fours and fixing her with those hollow eyes through strands of black hair like hanging moss. She heard its gasp as it lifted its hollow eyes to fix upon her, and she dropped the books and struggled to her feet with her hands upon the banister. Swinging herself onto the stairs, she felt the agony in her ankle, and her foot pivoted awkwardly, nearly careening her down the steps. She hobbled and ran, slipping on the second flight and plummeting headlong. She curled up as she felt the rolling impacts on her ribs and skull knocking her to-and-fro. When she sprawled into the entrance hall, she tried to drag herself up, but saw the world spinning. She managed to prop herself on her forearms and drag herself forward, her heart racing at the sound of tramping feet behind. She heard a cry that echoed behind her, but the words, if words at all, were beaten down beneath the rattling thunder. Throwing a brief glance over her shoulder, she saw to her horror the pasty mask of the ghastly fiend looming amidst tangles of mossy, dark hair, seeming to hover from the top of the first flight of stairs.
Forgetting any attempt to exit the door, she bolted around the corner, threw open the back door and ran barefoot onto the black path of the shaded dogtrot. Jerking back with a squeaking gasp, she stared ahead at the long dogtrot to the kitchen. Before her, more wooden facsimiles collected beneath the shade, whipped by the howling maelstrom. Their figures likewise to those within, fashioned and positioned in the appearance of conversation and laughter, led children by the hand or smiled down at diminutive canines barking at their side. Swerving to one side, she cut across the grass and found herself as before, running for dear life through the storm from a new and inexplicable horror at her back.
The river! The river! She must find the river—the river that would lead her way back home. So, her frenzied flight carried her breathlessly through the trees where the cold, brown waters of the flood rushed across her feet.
