“You’re going to die now,” he said calmly. “I owe you a great deal for removing those awful nightmares from my head, but I can’t have you plotting to kill me.”

Lavinia struggled for breath. She could feel herself blacking out.

Then something jerked inside her pants pocket.

Old Baxter.

She took him out and jammed him into the young man’s ear. The young man pulled his hands away from Lavinia’s throat and fumbled at his ear, but he was too late; Old Baxter had already wriggled inside his head.

The young man stared into the distance, as if reading something only he could see. Lavinia squirmed but still could not get away from him.

The young man looked down at her and smiled. “A clown, a few giant spiders, and a boogeyman under the bed.” He laughed. “A child’s dreams. How sweet—I shall enjoy these!” And he resumed strangling her.

She kneed the young man in the stomach, and for a moment he removed his hands from her throat. He then curled his hand into a fist, but before he could strike her, she said:

“Baxter, heel!”

And Baxter—old, faithful Baxter—exited the young man’s head suddenly and violently, flying out of his ears, his eyes, and his mouth along with a gout of thick red blood. He fell backward, gurgling, and Lavinia sat up.

The children screamed for help.

Gathering her courage, Lavinia got up and ran inside the house. She choked on the thick smoke. Mrs. Hennepin lay dead on the sitting room floor, a pair of scissors jutting from her eye socket.

The door to the stairway was blocked by a wardrobe—the young man’s doing, surely.

“Baxter, help me! Push!”

With Baxter’s aid, Lavinia was able to knock the wardrobe out of the way and open the door, and then she ran up the stairs, out of the worst of the fire and smoke. One by one she carried the children from the house, covering their eyes as they passed Mrs. Hennepin. When they were all safe she collapsed on the lawn, half dead from burns and smoke inhalation.

She woke up days later in a hospital, her father and brother looking down at her.

“We’re so proud of you,” said her father. “You’re a hero, Vinni.”

They had a thousand questions for her—she could see it in their faces—but for now she would be spared answering them.

“You were thrashing and moaning in your sleep,” said Douglas. “I think you were having a nightmare.”

So she had been—and so she continued to for years afterward. She easily could have reached into her own head and taken them out, but she did not. Instead, Lavinia devoted herself to the study of the human mind, and against great odds went on to become one of the first female doctors of psychology in America. She founded a successful practice and helped many people, and though she often suspected nightmare thread was lurking in the ears of her patients, she never used her talent to get rid of it. There were, she had come to believe, better ways.