“Don’t you care what happens to Julian?” I ask, desperate to make him see reason, my eyes never leaving the crowbar in his hand.

“That’s all I care about,” he says. “So much that I am going to take my son now, and I am going to get him out of this place and away from you lunatics.”

He is wrong, I am convinced. What could possibly turn this innocent child into a killer but the violent man standing before me, willing to beat up his wife just to get at his heir? It has to be him. It isn’t just that Wakefields are cursed by evil. It can’t be. Yes, at this point there is no doubt in my mind that the only way to save Julian is to keep him from his father.

When he tries to take Julian from me, I kick his knee, and he grunts, grabbing me by the hair as he catches his balance. In doing so, he yanks my head down painfully and wrenches my neck to the side. Only barely do I manage to hold on to Julian, to twist out of Don’s way, to dash out of the room, where I find myself at the doorway to the basement.

I hear him behind me, so I descend the creaking staircase. Entering the basement is like wading into an icy lake, wherein the farther down I go, the heavier the shadows and the more frigid the air, until I imagine that if I were able to see at all past the blanket of night over my eyes, I might see my breath in a white cloud.

Down here, enveloped in the dark, we are safe. We must be safe.

Feeling my way to the far wall, I crouch down on the floor and bend over Julian, wanting to speak soft, gentle words to comfort him but at the same time keeping as quiet as I can. He makes small noises as I rock him, and I wrap the towel more tightly around his prone form. I tell myself again that we are safe here. There is a painful crick in my neck, like the ache that sits on your shoulders from whiplash—the feeling I had when I was fifteen, driving on my permit, and someone rear-ended me, knocking my car into the one in front. After that my neck complained for a week, haunted by phantom pain.

Balancing Julian on my knees, I try to rub out the pinch in my neck, but it’s no good—and what’s more, I can feel a presence standing at the top of the staircase now, a shadow passing through the blind dark. The stairs creak with careful, heavy footfalls.

If I stay here, quiet, I don’t think he will find me.

But Julian has other designs.

His soft cries louden into unhappy wails, and now there is no pretending we aren’t down here. I try to shush him, but his cries echo around the basement, and Donovan’s footsteps come faster now, pounding through the dark.