Neil bit his lip while she spoke. Then, with as much control as he could manage, he told her, “I can tell you what’s happened. For the first time in the whole of my life, I’ve seen a ghost for real. For the first time in my whole life, I’ve come across something spooky and supernatural that I’ve had to believe in because it’s there in front of my eyes. Worse than that, it’s threatening Toby and it’s threatening the rest of his class. I’ve seen it, Susan, and I can’t stand by and let things get worse just because nobody else happens to believe me.”

He got up from the table and pushed in his chair. “Right now I’m going to go upstairs and smash that wardrobe, and then I’m going to burn it. I don’t care if Mrs. Novato thinks I’m crazy, and I don’t care if George Murray thinks I’m crazy, and I’m sorry to say it, but I don’t care if you think I’m crazy, either. I’m going to protect Toby the best way I know how, and that’s by making sure those spirits don’t get hold of him.”

Toby had stopped drawing and was staring at him. Neil, pocketing a box of matches from the hutch, said, “How about a bonfire, Toby? We’ll break up that horrible old wardrobe, and then we’ll take it out in the yard, and—”

Toby opened his mouth and roared.

It wasn’t a child’s roar. It wasn’t even a human roar. It came out of his wide-open mouth like an avalanche of sound, like a terrifying locomotive blasting through a black tunnel. It was the kind of sound that drowned everything, that opened up visions of endless spaces and impossible distances. Susan screamed, and Neil found himself clutching for the pine hutch for support. The cups and plates rattled with the rumbling vibration, and a vase dropped on to the quarry-tiled floor and shattered.

Toby’s mouth closed. He sat at the table, the same small mop-headed boy, but somehow hideously changed. His eyes were bloodshot and congested, and they stared at Neil with a terrible, knowing strength. His hand clutched at his wax crayon and slowly crushed it, shedding fragments of red wax across his drawing.

Neil took a step toward him. “It’s you again, isn’t it?” he whispered. “It’s you.”

Toby watched him silently and emotionlessly, but as Neil moved around the room, his eyes fallowed him all the way.

“I want to know who you are,” said Neil. “I want you to give me some kind of sign.”

Toby smiled, without humor or human compassion. He said, in a hoarse, echoing voice, “There will be no signs. You will not interfere. You will leave the gateway intact.”