Toby’s eyes flickered, and then the pupils rolled upward, so that his naked whites were all that they could see. His small fingers, spread on the pine kitchen table, began to clench and scratch at the wood. Susan reached out for him, reached out to hold and protect him, but then he said in a hoarse, accented voice: “He says you mustn’t disturb the gateway. He says you will die if you disturb it.”

“Toby?” demanded Neil, leaning forward. “Toby!”

Toby opened his eyes, and for a fleeting second Neil saw again that dead, flat, menacing expression. There was a cold sourness about Toby’s breath, and when he spoke it seemed as if a freezing, fetid wind blew from his mouth.

“You must disturb nothing. You must not interfere. You are dust in the storms of time. I care nothing for you, but if you interfere you will be destroyed, even as you destroyed my brothers.”

Susan was screaming, but Neil hardly heard her. He took Toby by the shoulders and shouted, “Who are you? I want to know who you are! Who are you?”

Toby smiled. It was an uncanny, unnatural, poisonous smile. In the same grating voice, he said: “The prophecy that is still buried on the great stone redwood is about to come to pass. It is almost the day of the dark stars.”

Neil said, “Prophecy? Dark stars? What are you talking about?”

But then Toby abruptly vomited Coca-Cola and half-digested cookies, and fell off his chair like a rag doll.

*

Doctor Crowder took Neil out onto the boardwalk veranda and lit up his brierwood pipe. It was almost ten o’clock now, and a cool wind was flowing in from the sea. Neil was calmer, as a dose of Valium began to take effect, and he sat down on the rail and faced the doctor with a serious, concerned face.

The old doctor puffed away for a while, listening to the night birds and the rustle of dry grass. He was a short, white-whiskered man with a bald, tanned dome and a bulbous nose. He’d been practicing in Sonoma County most of his life, except for a spell during the war when he served on Guadalcanal as a senior medical officer. He’d delivered Toby, but he didn’t know the Fenners too well. They were a young, hardworking family, and most of the time they kept to themselves.

After a few minutes’ silence, Neil said, “I get the feeling you don’t believe me. You think I’ve been hallucinating.”

Doctor Crowder studiously examined the bowl of his pipe. “I wouldn’t say that. Not hallucinating, exactly.”

“But you don’t believe that what I saw was real? You don’t believe that a wooden man came out of that wardrobe door?”

The doctor glanced at him. “Would you?” he asked. “If I told you that story?”