Madness in her gaze. She can see reality from where she’s standing. But she doesn’t live there.

I remind myself that she’s not going to kill me. At least not yet. The man with the glasses made it this far. So did Biggs, I’m pretty sure. So I say, ‘Yeah.’

Sindy peels back the rug, revealing the trapdoor. She unlocks it and lifts it up, revealing a square of blackness.

‘Come on down,’ she says, like a game show host. Then she walks into the dark.

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 45

If you skin me I won’t weep, but you will. What am I?

The room under the house is lit only by an old-fashioned lamp in the corner. It’s a low-watt bulb, and a sheet of lace has been draped over it to darken the room still further.

My heartbeat accelerates. Nothing good ever happens in a basement. The animal part of my brain is yelling, Get out get out don’t go down there get out!

Sindy switches on one of those fake fireplaces, which is rigged up to a car battery. As the flickering glow falls across the room, I see a padded armchair in the corner next to a hat rack and a gilded mirror. There’s a basin and a garden hose. But most of the room is taken up by a giant bed.

And lying on the bed is a giant.

The rational part of my brain has always been a little slower than the instinctive part. For a moment I’ve stepped off the edge of the real world and fallen into wherever Sindy lives. So my first thought is, She’s real. Holy shit, the giantess is real!

She’s at least eight feet from head to toe, but everything is perfectly in proportion. It’s suddenly hard to tell if she’s huge or I’m tiny. It’s like I’ve gone down the rabbit hole and eaten the caterpillar’s mushrooms. My perspective is so distorted that I miss the last step and stumble into the room.

Sleeping Beauty has a huge mane of slightly curly blonde hair fanned across the pillows. Eyes almost as big as baseballs stare up at the dark ceiling through half-closed lids. Her glossy red lips are ever so slightly pursed, as if she’s waiting for a kiss. The satin sheets of her bed are pulled back halfway, exposing huge breasts clad in lacy purple lingerie. Her enormous hands are by her sides, upturned, a foot away from her gargantuan hips. Huge feet are tenting the sheet down the other end of the bed, as far apart as her gigantic shoulders. I’ve heard yoga people call this ‘corpse pose’.

I walk closer, entranced. So much meat. A feast like this could keep me going for months.