She led me through the house as if she knew where she was going. As if she had been in this place before. We walked farther down the hallway until she found a door and opened it. I looked down into the depth of the staircase, but it was so black that I couldn’t see to the bottom.

I shook my head, but her grip grew tighter and she dragged me down the steps behind her. The air was wet and heavy and smelled of dirty laundry. The windowpanes were painted red and covered in cloth, which made me feel like I was stuck inside a rotting tomato. She let me go and sat down on the ground, then wrapped her arms around her knees and began to mumble. Her voice was hoarse, as though she had been crying, and she stumbled over the first few words.

“This is the room from my dream.”

“What are you talking about?”

She buried her face into her hands, rocking her body back and forth. Her lips were moving but no sound came out. I didn’t know what to do, so I reached out and touched her hand, but she didn’t respond. I shook her a little harder and then she moved her arms forward and started to crawl along the floor until she reached one of the cement walls. She stood up and lifted them above her head, slowly pounding the wall with her fists.

“Stop!” I yelled.

She kept hitting the wall over and over. She was determined, as if somehow she was going to be able to break through, but finally the assault got less and less intense until all that was left was the flat empty sound of a slap. She raked her fingernails across the concrete and then her body crumbled into a kneeling position.

I ran to her side and tried to get her to look at me. I needed her to tell me what to do. I needed her to tell me why she had brought me here. My breath quickened and I could feel the wetness in the air stick to my temples. My heart beat in my ears and I tried to remember about courage, but then I held my breath because I realized that it wasn’t my heart that I was hearing.

It was footsteps.

With each step, the ceiling above me trembled, as if it were alive. Matilda whimpered as the footsteps got closer to the door of the basement. I looked around, trying to find a place for us to hide, but aside from some boxes in the corner, the room was empty. I didn’t know what else to do, so I thought about Leah. About being the person you are supposed to be.