I reached out and touched his fingers. They were cold and dry. They got yanked back inside. I tapped on the door. “Rowan,” I said. “It’s me.”

I thought I heard “Turtle,” but it was real quiet.

“Rowan? Are you in there?” I looked at the lock. It was a different color. But almost the same as the one upstairs. “I’ll get Gloria,” I said. “She’ll help.”

There was a thump. “No!”

I jumped. Above the whishing fan a sound came down over the stairs.

A car door slamming.

Gloria was home.

Rowan tapped more on the door. It wasn’t very hard. I pushed my ear in. I think he said, “Don’t tell her. Don’t.”

Why wouldn’t I tell Gloria? A shiver went all the way from my teeth to my toes. I raced up the steps from the basement and through the hall and up the other stairs. I tripped on my bathrobe. My knees hit. But I got up again and hurried. I ran into her room and put the key back and threw the box into the back of her closet. I shoved the chair away. Then I ran into my room and jumped on my bed.

I heard her stomping over the porch. “Wasting my time,” she growled. “Lies from a sicko woman.” Then she came inside and slammed that door, too. As soon as I heard her throw off her shoes I got up and started to go down the stairs. I smiled as hard as I could.

“Hi Gloria.”

She looked up at me. I think she was mad. “You stayed in your room, miss?” My face got hot. Gloria made a clicking sound. “You were out of your room?”

I nodded. I couldn’t tell a lie. She’d just look inside my mind and know what I did.

“Come down here,” she said.

I went to the bottom stair and I wrapped my arms around the rail.

“Tell me exactly what you were doing.”

“I—I watched a show.” That was kind of true. I was watching a show in my head.

“What were you watching?”

“Cartoons?”

She looked at my chest. “Must’ve been some awful cartoons. You’re out of breath.”

When I looked I could see my nightgown shaking from my heart. Then in the corner of my eye, I saw Chicken. He used his snout to push open the door so he could get out of the basement. The lock was hanging open on the hook.

Gloria saw him, too. And she saw the lock. She looked at me and her eyes were small and angry. “You’ve been sneaky,” she said. “You’ve been a very sneaky little girl.”

Everything went drifty. I slid down onto the stair. I hugged the railing tight. I could hear Gloria but she seemed a long ways away. I started to cry.

“Don’t think you can pass out on me, miss.