A set of sagging wooden steps descended three treads from a door at the house’s rear center. On their far side sat a cracked ceramic planter. Beyond the planter was a rickety wooden table. A stained surface and rusty gutting knife suggested it was used for cleaning fish.

Between the house’s left corner where I stood and the steps was another, slightly higher window. Though I couldn’t be certain from my angle, shadowing hinted that the blinds stopped six inches short of the sill.

Senses on high alert, I rounded the corner and began inching along the rear wall. A raven cawed and took flight from the birch.

I froze.

Nothing.

More inching.

Eight steps brought me to the window and the edge of a shallow pit centered in the ground below it. The pit appeared to have been dug by hand, then lined with black plastic and surrounded by stones. A garden hose snaked from the stones to a faucet on the house. Surrounded by muck and holding four inches of opaquely iridescent green water, the thing looked like the koi pond from hell.

I tried peering into the house from the far side of the pond. From that angle, I could see zilch through the gap below the blinds.

I gauged the distance between the pond’s front edge and the house’s rear wall. Two feet. Tricky but enough for footing.

Palm-bracing against the wood, I sidestepped slowly along the wall. The mud felt slick and gushy below the soles of my sneakers.

Two steps and I’d cleared the window frame. The sill jutted just above nose-level. Gripping it with icy fingers, I raised up on my toes.

Though the lights were off, some objects stood out in the house’s dim interior. The top of a refrigerator. A wall clock shaped like a fish. A very successful strip of flypaper.

I was about to take one more step to my left when something hard cracked my shin. Fire shot up my leg. I smothered a cry.

Had I been bitten? Struck?

Before I could look down, tentacles wrapped my ankles. Squeezed.

My feet flew from under me.

Black and iridescent green raced up toward my face.

Chapter 19

MY FEET WINGED OUT. I HIT THE GROUND ON MY ELBOWS AND chin.

The unseen tentacles yanked hard, dragging my body backward over mud then rock. My face plunged down.

Fetid water filled my eyes, my nose, my mouth. I couldn’t breathe or see.

Terrified, I clawed for purchase. Found the border of the koi pond. Pulled with both hands.

My torso slithered across muck filled with things I didn’t want to imagine. My head cleared the surface.

Gasping for air, still blind, I tried hauling myself onto the strip of lawn from which I’d been toppled. Felt resistance. Tightness around my ankles.