Toby’s face seemed to change, and the hostile glitter in his eyes began to dwindle, like the burned-out wicks of kerosene lamps. He raised his small hands for a moment, and then he collapsed onto the floor. Neil quickly but gently laid Susan back on the bed, and crunched across the broken glass to pick him up. Toby’s face was pallid, and he was breathing heavily, but Misquamacus didn’t appear to have hurt him.

“Toby,” whispered Neil. “Oh my God, you poor kid.”

He laid the boy back in his bed, and drew the covers up to his neck. Then he went back to Susan, who had stopped sobbing now, and was lying staring at him with a shocked, glassy look in her eyes.

“What happened?” she asked, in a haunted voice. “I don’t understand what happened.”

Neil looked down at the bloodstained sheets, and in a fit of rage and frustration he dragged them off the bed, and tried to rip them with his bare hands. He didn’t do very well. They were pure cotton, with double hems. Finally, panting, he tossed them across the room into a corner.

Susan said shakily, “There was a man, Neil. A tall man with necklaces and feathers. He didn’t have any clothes on.”

Neil sat down beside her and held her. “It was nothing. It was just a nightmare.”

“But he seemed so real. I could even smell him. He was covered in some kind of oil. He got on top of me, Neil. I tried to stop him. He got on top of me.”

“Susan,” he hushed her, “nothing happened. It was nothing more than a nightmare, that’s all.”

Frowning, still stunned, she reached her hand down between her thighs, and then raised her fingers to her face. They were dark and sticky with blood. She looked at Neil in total horror and desperation, her eyes pleading with him to explain it, to make it safe, to say that whatever had happened was a freakish dream, and to prove it, too.

“I’m hurt,” she breathed. “I’m hurt inside.”

He pressed his hand to his eyes in exhaustion. “I’ll get Doctor Crowder,” he told her. “Just relax, honey. Stay where you are. It can’t be anything too bad.”

He crossed the room, glancing only briefly at Toby. His son was fast asleep, breathing evenly and quietly, and the color was back in his cheeks. Neil closed the bedroom door behind him, and went downstairs as quietly as he could. He picked up the phone and dialed Doctor Crowder’s number.

*

At the kitchen door Doctor Crowder belted up his overcoat and put on his hat. Neil handed him his worn leather bag, as old and faithful as a pet spaniel, and gave him a brief, tired smile.

“I want to thank you for coming out,” Neil said. “I guess we’ve been keeping you awake lately.”