Another corner loomed ahead. She felt on the verge of not being able to go any farther. Already, her room’s light had all but faded. If she turned that corner, she wasn’t entirely certain she could find her way back. A nauseating idea flashed through her mind: being lost, her phone’s light dead, all but blind as she roamed the maze of her home by touch alone. She would be utterly lost and utterly alone… or, worse, stalked in the dark by something that lingered just a few paces behind.

She leaned around the corner. Her phone’s light hit a polished banister, and Margot’s breath hitched. She’d found a set of stairs.

Thank mercy.

She didn’t know where they would let her out, but at least she would be on the ground floor. One step closer to the door. To Kant’s number. To safety.

Set next to the stairs was a light switch, nearly invisible against the textured wood. She pressed it.

The bulb above the stairs lit up. It flared bright, brighter than Margot had expected, brighter than she thought the house and its aged-stained walls could tolerate, then burst with a sharp pop.

The darkness rushed back in, leaving Margot gasping in its wake. Her phone’s light, which had seemed too bright when she first activated it, now seemed feeble. She checked its battery. Down to 6 percent. A low power warning had appeared on the screen.

She didn’t have much of a choice. Margot angled the light down. It flowed across the steps and the dusty banister. She took a step forward, then froze. The light had glanced over something on the ground floor.

Something that looked horribly like flashing eyes in the pitch-darkness.

11

Just the wooden floor. It’s polished. It’ll reflect light like that.

She knew that, but her heart still thundered and her body ached with coils of fear wound so tight that she felt on the verge of breaking. The eyelike lights had only been visible for an instant. She tried changing the phone’s angle, but they wouldn’t return. She could see the top three steps clearly, the next four vaguely, and scarcely anything beyond that.

The acrid taste of fear coated her tongue. Margot didn’t dare move, didn’t dare to so much as blink, as her wild gaze stayed fixated on the place she’d thought she’d seen the lights.

It’s nothing. Your imagination. An overactive mind stimulated by the dark.

But what if it wasn’t? Someone had been in the house. It was quiet now, but she’d heard the bell ring. The cords were stiff and old. They wouldn’t move to anything trivial like the wind. Someone had tugged on them, and tugged hard enough to wake her.

They might have left. Maybe they just wanted to spook you. A prank. A hazing.