No. Maria looked and looked, but there was no one on the stairs but the two of them.

Maria’s eyes were big, black holes.

Delilah was sure, if she squinted, she’d see straight through them to the back of Maria’s head. She reached out to touch Maria’s eyes, to see if her fingers went straight through the emptiness, but Maria pushed her hand away.

Delilah whimpered. She was trying, trying, trying not to breathe, but it was so hard. With Maria’s eyes looking at her like shiny black stones, and the woman in the blue dress on the stairs above them carrying the candle.

Delilah could hear the woman’s heavy skirts rustling. If she looked at the woman, she’d have shiny black stones for eyes too.

But she couldn’t look at Maria, or at the woman in blue. Because she was forgetting. She was forgetting not to breathe.

No! That was dangerous. If she breathed, if she took in even one molecule of this air, this dirty, poisoned air, she’d—

No. No no no no no. Delilah had to get outside, where the air was clean. Where it was safe. The air in here was all wrong.

This air belonged to someone else. Something else. Something dead.

They were almost on the fourth floor. Almost to her room. The woman in blue was ahead of them. The woman paused at the open dormer window at the top of the stairs, holding her candle up to the window frame. Her dress flowed down all the way to the floor, where the fabric was black and ragged with burn marks. She pointed toward the window, gesturing for Delilah to look out.

Outside the air would be clean. The woman in blue was showing her the way. She was a guardian angel.

Delilah understood now. This woman had been sent here to help her. To lead her where it would be safe.

That was why Maria couldn’t see her. Because Maria was dangerous.

Maria wanted Delilah to suffocate. Maria wanted her to die.

Delilah had to get away from her. Away from this poison air. She had to get outside where it was clean. Where the woman in blue was pointing with her candle. She had to—

“No!” someone screamed, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that, oh God, finally, finally, Delilah could breathe. She could open her lungs and take a big gulp of the cool, clean air rushing past her; the woman in blue was gone but that didn’t matter either because she was safe now; here the air was clean, pure; it was—

The air stopped rushing. Something crunched.

Delilah didn’t think anymore after that.

8

SLEEP NO MORE

Maria was screaming.

Lily could hear her four floors down. Screaming like Lily had never heard anyone scream before.