“No,” I tell him, knowing he isn’t asking if I am Mad Catherine changing the house around me by the light of a candle flame. “Can you put that out?”

“Funny how we keep meeting like this,” he continues, ignoring me still. “What’s your problem? Always sneaking around, following me.”

“You’re the one sneaking around.”

“You know how fucked up my eye was after you blindsided me? Took weeks to get back to normal.” He pulls his cigarette from his mouth and points it at me, his own talisman of power. “Think you can just get away with that? And whatever shit you’re trying to pull on me now?”

I glare into his dark eyes, refusing to blink.

Finally, I say, “For the last time, will you put that out?”

His gaze turns to the cigarette in his hand, contemplating it as ash flakes off and disperses. Before I can stop him, he takes my hand, turns it over, and presses the burning tip of the cigarette into my palm. I sharply inhale.

A moment of searing pain—his grip is too strong for me to pull away—and then it’s over, just a black circle on raw skin that I curl my fist around protectively.

I open my mouth to shout, to berate him, begging my voice not to warble, my eyes not to tear, but he beats me to the punch.

“Just be glad it wasn’t your eye.”

He turns, and he’s gone.

It isn’t so bad. Now that I’ve rinsed off the ash, all that’s left is an angry red mark buried in the grooves of my palm, echoing vaguely the ache of the burn. The skin there is smooth and taut. It will probably scar.

We’re even now, I suppose.

Even so, I want to get back at him. I glare into the mirror, wanting to smash it to pieces, then to take one of those pieces, one with a nice sharp edge, and slash his throat—

I shut off the water, stray drops plinking down from the rusting faucet. Afraid I will see August Wakefield with a gun behind me, I avoid looking at the mirror as I dry my hands, taking care not to drag the rough fibers over the tender spot on my palm. Terrible men, all around me.

Something ought to be done about them.

I leave for work early the next morning so I won’t see him on my way out, and I manage to avoid him after I return, too, taking my dinner into the parlor under the pretense of needing to grade while I eat. My eyes stare blankly through my students’ quizzes; in the silence, the only sound is my fork clinking against the plate and the old clock ticking quietly on the mantel. It seems to slow and quicken, as if it can’t quite keep the right pace.

After I’ve finished and lingered longer than necessary, I go to rinse my plate in the kitchen, which is dark and empty by now. I freeze for a moment, listening to see if I can tell where everyone has gone. Voices further down the hall. Footsteps, light, right behind me—