“Promise me,” Karen got out, “that when she gives you the key you’ll leave her alone. You won’t hurt her.”

“Now why would I do that?” Skip wondered.

“Promise,” Karen insisted.

“Okay, okay. Now snap it up.” Skip stretched inside the leather jacket as if he were almost bored. The light silk encasing his head gave him a strange brightness, almost a halo, in the dimness. It was crazy, Eddie thought, to think of Skip with a halo. Any time.

Karen walked away, the sound of her steps diminishing; the dark swallowed her, and then a few moments later Eddie could hear the front door rattle. The interval following seemed unending to Eddie; he kept expecting some disastrous eruption of sound from the house, the old woman screaming, perhaps, as Karen betrayed their presence and their intention. He breathed thickly through the silk fabric pressing his face and felt as if he would choke.

Suddenly in the light reflected through the kitchen door they saw Karen in the porch. She fumbled with the lock, then moved quickly out of sight again. Skip turned toward Eddie and jerked his head in a summoning motion. They walked to the door. Eddie tried to lick his lips; his tongue snagged in the knitted silk and he was almost sick.

They went into the laundry room, not making any noise, and then Skip padded on into the kitchen and stood close to the wall on one side of the door to the hall and motioned Eddie to stand opposite. They hadn’t been there more than a few seconds when Mrs. Havermann walked in. At the sight of the old woman, the realization that they were actually embarked on this thing, Eddie’s heart gave a great lurch.

Mrs. Havermann went several feet past the door and then looked back over her shoulder. She glanced at Eddie, then switched her head all the way around to look at Skip. She turned a little, as if she meant to face them, and then her knees must have given out, for she reached a hand to prop herself against the table in the middle of the room.

“Who are you?” The words were plain enough in her high-pitched old woman’s squeal, but they were mechanical and called for no reply. She knew who Eddie and Skip were: they were the double image of her nightmare, and her face shook and twitched at the shock of recognition. Then, “Go away!” she muttered in her throat. “Karen! Karen, send them away!”

Karen appeared in the hall. She was crying, making no attempt to wipe away the tears. She looked terribly young in her distress. She said, “I don’t know what to do, Aunt Maude!” It had the ring of terrified truth.