Joyce stationed herself upon a bench against the yoga studio’s far wall. She was like a stoic bird watching emotionlessly as the women reached and twisted their bodies in mimicry of beasts, and then, at a turn, in reverent imitation of the holy ones who prostrate themselves on sajadas facing Mecca.

The studio was warm and the score that leaked from hidden speakers was a lullaby of chimes and babbling water. Joyce felt buoyant, cleansed. Her guard seduced, she allowed her heavy eyelids to draw shut.

The nightmare did not grab her until after she was awoken. The yoga instructor who’d nudged her offered a warm smile and said something that Joyce didn’t hear. The studio was empty.

Joyce rose and began asking about Morgan. The instructor’s nonplussed expression spoke volumes. Numb, Joyce slipped out of the studio.

Dusk was thickening around her. The streets were a pale haze, the people mere moving props. Joyce found her way home by instinct. She fully expected her key to no longer fit the lock, but in the end, she did not have to test it, for upon her arrival she found the house’s front door slightly ajar. She pushed it open and stood in the vacant frame.

To the uninitiated the disruption to the house would have been viewed as a robbery, but Joyce was keenly aware of the incongruous details: the thick coating of dust that suggested years of neglect despite the fact that she had left the house only hours earlier; the indentations in the carpet where a furnishing had once sat; the ceiling fan that dangled from its wires, as if something immense had recently stormed through the confining room.

Joyce ducked under the destroyed fixture. Chunks of plaster crunched beneath her soles. She followed the tracks in the carpet, which led her to the stairway.

The chair that was missing from the living room had been dragged to the top of the stairs. It was facing the top of the landing, its back to the steps.

Joyce felt herself moving backward. She pressed her back against the foyer window.

The figure that was seated in the chair was, Joyce reasoned, designed to seem familiar, much the way recognizable forms pass through one’s dreams.

“Morgan…” Joyce whispered, knowing how desperate her guess was, how foolish.

The shape in the chair rose, swelled. The chair was cast aside and went tumbling down the steps until it finally became wedged between the wall and the banister. Its upholstery was shimmering wet. It reeked foully.