I expected her to draw up to a halt when she reached the potential intruder, but I was wrong—and I didn’t even see the intruder in question before she swung the axe. But I heard the weapon connect with something wet and solid, and then with another swing the arc of her arm went wide and high, and for a brief moment I thought of sword fighters waving much lighter things, but with the same sort of skill and speed.

This time the axe missed its target.

Lizbeth gasped, and I gasped too because by then I’d reached her. My hands were empty and naked, as if I’d expected fisticuffs with whoever I found. I had a gun, my army revolver. I always wore it on a holster except no, not then. I hadn’t put it on when Jacob had demanded an audience at Maplecroft. I’d been almost ready for bed and I wasn’t wearing it. I didn’t think to don it.

So, yes, my hands were empty when I reached her, and reached the thing with which she grappled.

It had her by the wrist, I saw, and she was reaching past it—grabbing for the axe.

She resisted, and she swung again while I stood there, mouth agape. It mustn’t have been agape long. Not for the span of half a dozen heartbeats, surely no longer than that. But surely I can be forgiven, for what I saw was unlike anything I’d ever seen or even heard of. Whatever I’d expected to find, when Lizbeth went bolting from the house . . . whatever trespasser or intruder, whatever masked raccoon or hungry dog seeking scraps . . . none of those possibilities had led me to ponder a creature like that thing with which she did battle.

I must compare it to a person, when I describe it.

That’s the only jumping-off point of reference at my disposal, and there’s always the chance it was once a human being—though that possibility feels remote and unlikely. (Regardless, Lizbeth believes it could be true, and at present, she’s the expert on the matter. The prospect instills me with the deepest loathing and revulsion that a man is capable of carrying. But she’s right. We must consider everything, for we have little idea of what can be ruled out.)

But the thing.

It was the shape of a human being, provided that the human being had been horribly emaciated, his bones stretched, his skin blanched, and his head both swollen and misshapen. I would use the word “encephalitic,” but it doesn’t feel quite right. I’ve never heard of an encephalitic with a forehead sloped and pinched, eyes that were covered with the same membrane I’d seen before on other corpses in Fall River (so there’s one point in Lizbeth’s favor, or in favor of her revolting theory).