“Neil—things like that just don’t happen. It must have been the wind blowing the door or something. Maybe you saw your own reflection.”

Neil, leaning against the wall, shook his head slowly and deliberately.

“Well, maybe it was some kind of hallucination,” Susan suggested. “I mean, Neil, things like that just don’t happen. They don’t exist. A man made of wood stepping out of the wardrobe door? It’s insane.”

Neil looked down at her sharply. She realized what she’d said, and she reached up to hold his hand, and squeeze it. “Oh, Neil, I didn’t mean—”

He pulled away from her, and ran both hands through his hair. “You don’t have to say you’re sorry,” he told her, hoaresely. “You’re probably right.”

“Neil—”

He turned back toward her. “How’s Toby? He looks as though he’s getting his color back.”

Toby had opened his eyes now, and he smiled up at his daddy faintly. Susan stroked his forehead, and said, “It’s all right, darling, you can sleep with us tonight, in our room. You won’t have to sleep in that nasty room again.”

Neil hunkered down beside Toby and touched him affectionately on the nose. “How are you doing, tiger?”

“Okay,” said Toby. “I was scared, that’s all.”

“Can you remember what happened?” asked Neil.

“Neil—” protested Susan. “He’s only just gotten over it.”

Neil said, “Honey, we have to know what happened in there. It was out of this world. If we’re going to have to fight some ghost or other, then I think we have to know what it is.”

“I think we ought to go downstairs, calm down, and call Doctor Crowder,” said Susan. “I’ll put on the kettle and we can have some strong black coffee.”

Neil said, “Toby—all I want to know is, what happened?”

Toby’s eyes flickered for a moment, and then he said softly, “I was just playing with my buldozer. Then I heard that man talking again. He sounded real scared. I saw his face in the wardrobe. Then it wasn’t his face anymore, it was Allen’s face. Then I was Allen, and there was somebody else there. He was terrible. He was very tall and he scared me, and he came right out of the wood.”

“Do you know what he was? Or who he was?”

Susan said, “Neil, please, he’s almost unconscious.”

“Susan, we have to know,” insisted Neil. “If we don’t know, then we can’t protect ourselves. Toby—who was it? Who was the man in the door?”

Toby’s lower lip started to turn down, and tears filled his eyes. He said, “I don’t know. I don’t know,” and then he shook with uncontrollable sobs. Susan held him close, and soothed him, and Neil slowly got to his feet.