She made herself a plate that looked very similar to Marsh’s, except her bread was toasted and covered with butter and jam and was accompanied by a large mug of strong coffee. Cooking and eating was awkward with the cast’s limited mobility, but much as she hated it, she was slowly growing better at it.

Margot worked through the coffee as she sat at the kitchen table with Marsh licking his plate at her side. Her eyes kept flicking to the bell above them.

They said it’s unpredictable. Some nights they come fast. Some nights they take hours. Or they may not come at all.

A grimacing smile emerged as she stared into her mug. Wouldn’t that be ironic? To prepare, to wait, to drink enough coffee to keep me awake all night, and then for nothing to happen at all?

She would give almost anything for that to be the case. But she also knew she was clinging to a dream. The ground was bad. Witchety had felt it, and when Margot focused, she could too. It was like it was writhing beneath the house’s foundations, bubbling, squirming. The pressure building, preparing to erupt.

The thoughts were consuming her. She’d been warned about that too, that letting her fear build would only make it worse once she had to take action. She rose sharply enough that Marsh lifted his head.

“We’re going to burn some time,” she told him, dropping the empty plates into the sink and running hot water. “We don’t know how long it’ll take, so we’ll keep busy for a few hours, okay? And…”

Her thoughts failed her as she turned and caught sight of the dog door. A relic from her parents’ time, set into the kitchen’s access to the porch, it was easily overlooked and easily forgotten about.

Except for that awful moment from the night before. The soft flap-flap as something entered through it.

Kant had said locks wouldn’t keep them out. But she was still allowed to try.

Margot went through the lounge area to reach the halls where she’d found the spare antique furniture. As she’d hoped, most of it was made of heavy wood. She found a narrow chest of drawers that she was just about able to move and pulled it free.

The feet scraped painfully as she dragged it along the hall and finally into the kitchen. When she pressed it flush against the door, though, it fully covered the dog flap in a way that she thought wouldn’t be easy to shift.

Marsh, who had happily followed her on her pilgrimage, wagged his tail. Margot grinned at him. “If you need the bathroom through the night, you’ll just have to ask.”

She leaned back against the drawers and sighed. The kitchen clock said it was approaching seven. There was still a lot of night left.