The stairs creaked and sagged, then the boards of the upper hall. “Daughter,” said Mrs. Fanning. Her voice blasted the mousy echoes of the room. She said, Dotter. Candlelight showed yellow in a long crack beneath the door; Irene arose, and turned the knob … Mrs. Fanning was standing there with a white, flaring candle in an earthenware stick. Her great breasts heaved from the exertion of ascending the stairs.

“Father and I are out on the porch with Mrs. Knouse, daughter. She missed meeting, just to come over and see how we were. You oughtn’t to be up here alone.”

“I’m going to sleep, soon.”

Mrs. Fanning began to cry. When she cried, her face curled up in a dozen thick, fleshy folds; you thought that she was laughing, until the tears started to come … “Mother!” said Irene, feebly enough.

“Oh, he’s gone, my child, he is—gone! I’m trying to take refuge in prayer. Mrs. Knouse just said that the only true consolation is in the Rock, the eternal Rock. And poor honey boy, he wasn’t like himself. He wouldn’t take any grape conserve. You wouldn’t let him,” she sobbed, in bleary accusation.

Her husband called from the lower hall. “Mother. Now, mother—” He stood at the foot of the steps; far out on the porch was the faint crunching of old Mrs. Knouse’s rocker. “Must not give way to grief, mother. Must not give way. Bring our little lady down with you.”

“She’s going to retire, Pa,” groaned Mrs. Fanning. Massively, she started down the flight.

Irene said to them both, “Goodnight. Now—” the words were slabs in her throat, they were things of matter and with dimensions and size and thickness, pieces of words—“don’t worry. Please. Ty will be all right. Goodnight, my—dear parents.” She had said that at last, it was over and done, she had claimed them. She closed her door and quietly turned the wooden button. Voices below stairs became muted little whispers which hissed up through the floors, and now she could disregard them and pretend that they no longer existed. Down in the back yard, Demon was mumbling to Cybo as he came from the barn. You fat old dog. You pretty worthless old dog, Cybo. Gretel she say you took fresh eggs lass week, you old no-good old dog.

A church bell was ringing. The Lutheran bell. Up at the seminary, a boy whistled shrilly, and another answered him with the eternal night-cry of youth: ee-ow-ee-ow-ee-ow-ee-ow, faster than you could follow the sound.