And if witches, like vampires, require an invitation to walk into someone’s house, I’ve just screwed my chances of ever being at peace.

Not one to waste time, Medusa walks briskly across my office to reach the side window overlooking the fire escape. She pulls up the sash, and then pauses, staring at the open window. It takes me a moment to realize why, and I can’t help but chuckle.

“Wait here,” I tell her, walking over. “I’ll go.”

“There’s no need. I’m perfectly capable of going myself.”

I give her a pointed once-over, taking in her stilettos and impossibly tight pencil skirt. “In that skirt and those shoes? Be my guest, if you can climb out of the window, you can go.”

She steps next to the window across from me and awkwardly tries to raise a leg over the windowsill, failing. Medusa pauses to debate her alternatives. I can practically see the gears in her head turning. She can either raise her skirt above her thighs and go outside, I’m not complaining, or admit she’s wrong and let me do the job. To be honest, I’m not sure which alternative I’d prefer.

Finally, with a frustrated huff, she waves a hand at me. “Okay, you go.”

I remove my jacket, drop it on the patients’ couch, and climb out to the fire escape. A short walk across the black metal platform brings me to her office window. It’s closed.

“Your window’s locked,” I call back.

Medusa pokes her head out, surveying the situation. Then, after nibbling briefly at her pinky, she says. “That one is, but the one next to it is open.”

The “one next to it” is a good six feet from the edge of the fire escape.

“Are you crazy?” I demand. “You want me to climb outside the ramp?”

“No, I want to climb outside the ramp. Nobody asked you to intervene. If you have a pair of sweatpants I can borrow, I’ll do it myself. It’s barely a three-foot walk on the ledge.”

“Three stories above ground!” I protest.

She just looks at me. “Please?”

With a few angry yanks, I remove my shoes and socks and throw them onto the fire escape. If I have to play Spider-Man, leather Italian shoes are not the way to go.

Shaking my head all along, I climb over the railing. One leg first, then the other. As I swing the second leg over the bar, my trousers catch on a piece of protruding metal. I hear the distinctive noise of fabric tearing as my left foot is about to land on the wrong side of the railing. The sound distracts me. I slip, losing my grip on the railing, and begin to fall.

Thirteen

Vivian