“Nothing happened to my family.” Mollie tightened the scarf around her neck, wincing slightly when it rubbed against her abraded skin.

“Is that the story you’re sticking with? Because the hospital’s telling us a very different story.”

“We live on a farm. Sometimes people get hurt. It’s dangerous work.”

The Feds looked at each other. Agent Ray said, “Uh-huh. It must be even more dangerous than I realized. The occasional pitchfork stabbing, sure, I can see that. But bite marks? Human bite marks?”

Mollie wondered how they knew about that. So she shrugged again. The gesture tugged at her scarf; she reached up to catch it before it fell loose.

One of the backup singers, either Huginn or Muninn, piped up. In a voice that sounded like it was meant to be funneled through a beak, he asked, “How did you get those ligature marks on your neck?”

“What’s a ligature mark?”

“The purple things you’re trying to hide under that scarf,” said Agent Ray. “If we found a corpse with those wounds we’d say she’d probably died of strangulation.”

She said, “Uh-huh. Well I’m obviously not dead but I really appreciate the concern. So, hey, thanks for dropping by.” She made to close the door.

Ray blocked the door with his foot. “Don’t jerk us around. We’ve been to the hospital. I’ve seen entire platoons just back from their third tour in the most war-ravaged backwaters suffering fewer casualties than your family. So how about you fess up and tell us what the hell happened here?”

“Oh, yeah? Why don’t you go take a long walk off a short pier? In fact, let me help you with that.”

She reached for a doorway, something over the South Pacific, but the fucking thing kept slipping away because she couldn’t quite picture it. Just as she got it fixed in her head, the dog leapt forward with a growl that could have felled the walls of Jericho.

Mollie retreated a step. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let’s all calm down here.”

She decided against dumping Fido and the Feds into shark-infested waters. Not because the portal wouldn’t open, that wasn’t the problem at all, but merely because it was prudent. She could have. She just chose not to.

“Can we come inside?”

“Nope.”

Instead, Mollie joined them on the stoop and closed the door behind her. She beckoned them away from the house, where she knew Mom and the boys were listening to every single word. They walked a dozen yards toward where the rusted cattle guard spanned the culvert at the end of the drive. Wind whickered through the moonlit stubble in the adjoining field. It dusted Mollie’s skin with a fine layer of grit.

Either Huginn or Muninn screeched, “We want to thank you, Ms. Steunenberg, for returning Agent Norwood’s body to the States. That was thoughtful.”

“Oh, yeah.” Billy Ray yawned. “The way you dumped his corpse on the floor, that was super touching.” He stretched an arm over his head, twisting until his joints popped.