Neil climbed out of bed, and stood over his son, feeling cold and frightened, but deeply determined. If Harry Erskine and John Singing Rock had destroyed Misquamacus once, then somehow they must be able to do it again. He said, “I’m warning you, get out of my son. If you don’t leave him now, I promise you I’ll tear you to pieces.”

Toby half-turned his head toward the bed where Susan lay sleeping. He regarded her for a while, and then he raised one arm and pointed to her. Very softly, he incanted, “Spirit of snake, spirit of storm, spirit of cloud, obey me.”

Abruptly, with a deafening crash, the bedroom windows imploded, spraying stars of glass all over the room. A shrieking wind blew into the room, a wind as bitterly cold as dry ice, and Neil was knocked sideways, so that he stumbled against his bedside table and jarred his shoulder on the edge of his wardrobe.

Toby remained still, unmoved by the gale, and pointed again at the bed. In front of Neil’s horrified eyes, the bed sheet rose and twisted like a rope, and entwined itself around Susan’s body. Over the storm, he heard her scream, and then shriek “Neil! Neil!” and he could see her struggling against the bedclothes. But the dreadful wind seemed to have drained away all of his energy, and the distance from the wall to the bed had become miles instead of feet.

Raising his arm to protect his eyes, Neil saw Toby’s face fixed in a grotesque, wolfish grin, with his lips drawn back across his teeth. There was an ear-shattering flash of lightning, followed by a rumbling vibration which lifted the whole floor, and sent Neil staggering off balance again.

Susan screamed louder, a scream of pain and total fear. In the flickering, sizzling lightning, Neil saw her arched back on the bed, her eyes wide, her hands struggling and tearing at the sheets. Then the abrasive wind was tearing at her flowery cotton nightgown, ripping it in tatters which whirled around the bedroom.

“Susan!” yelled Neil, and tried to claw across to the bed. But the howling gale pressed him back, and sparkling shards of glass blew up from the floor and cut at his hands and his face.

The sheets had taken on a bulky shape that pressed on Susan’s body, and twisted between her bare thighs in a thick, animate rope. She was hysterical now, screaming an endless scream which pierced the storm and the wind at an almost intolerable pitch. But the sheets bound her to the bed, forcing her shoulders back against the mattress, and her legs wide apart.

Neil howled to Toby, “Toby! That’s your mother! That’s your mother!”

But the boy simply turned and smiled at him, and lifted his arm again toward the bed.

“Toby!” roared Neil.