Margot hunched against the wall, directing the light first ahead and then to the left, and then to the passageway at her side. Her bedroom window had overlooked the house’s rear. She’d turned left out of it and then turned left again…or had it been right?

The bells made it impossible to think, and the darkness distorted the space until she doubted she would recognize it even if she’d passed through before.

She thought the house’s front must be ahead but had no context for how far away that might be. She moved forward. A bell, hidden somewhere in a room to her right, grew louder and then dulled again as she passed it. Her breathing was labored, and dust and the tang of mildew and cold decay dragged her throat raw with each inhale. She hit a corner and pushed herself around it, no longer moving cautiously but racing—racing the fading battery in her phone and racing whatever presence was in the house, perhaps behind her, perhaps gaining with every step.

The bells drowned out everything. Her own breaths, the pounding of her footfalls, even the croak of her voice as a rough, panicked gasp escaped her.

And then, ahead, light. Not much, but there was a blue-moon blush inside the acres of darkness. That meant windows. And windows meant she had found one of the external walls.

Margot lurched toward it, hope and growing urgency forming an aching concoction in her chest. She couldn’t see much of where the light came from, only that it was blocked by curtains, leaving only a thin trace around the edges. She reached her free hand toward the cloth as she grew nearer, eager to tear the curtains back and bathe the room in moonlight, but she was still half a room away when her cell phone’s light fell on something else.

A presence. Tall. Standing to her left, facing her.

Two black-socket eyes stared down at her from a deformed, ash-white face.

Margot rocked backward, a wordless cry dying in her terror-choked throat. Her ankle hit something hard and unyielding. For a heartbeat she grappled with her balance, trying to find her footing as she grasped at thin air. She fell, and she fell hard.

Her elbow collided with the floor first and sent a jolt of raw pain along her arm. The phone bounced free, tumbling over hard wood floorboards before coming to rest with its light aimed toward the ceiling.

Eyes blurred by the shock and pain, Margot blinked as she tried to see through the diffused light and the flecks of dust free floating around her.

The figure stood ahead, unmoving, the too-long face directing its empty gaze into her.

The effigy. She’d found her way to the lounge room.