Resisting a shiver, Rose asked, “Who’s this him, anyway? We don’t know what happened, Mom. It’s going to be a really big laugh when Nancy comes waltzing back home.”

“I’ll be the first to laugh if that happens.”

There was no escape. The Emersons were on the late news that night. Horrible interviews that made Rose wriggle with embarrassment. Mr. Emerson made a plea for Nancy’s safe return. He had tears in his eyes, his voice broke, yet it seemed ludicrously like a TV miniseries instead of real life. The newscaster wore a silly half smile the whole time he talked about it, as if he’d forgotten how to erase his permanently pleasant TV face. “We’re all praying for you, Nancy,” he said. “And now this. .. .’•’ An ad for snowblowers came on.

Mom told them to go to bed. She said it a few times politely, then got tough.

Jerram stuck his top teeth over his lower lip and gave an evil leer. “I never sleep at night. In the night, in the dark, I feed on the bloooood, and the blooood is the life.”

Mom began to laugh, then clamped her mouth shut. “Jerram, please, don’t talk about blood after that broadcast.”

He had the decency to look abashed.

“Fear is like thick syrup,” Jerram said as he and Rose went upstairs. “If you’re not careful, it spills and you get covered with it.”

“Is that advice? Because if it is, I’m not planning to spill any syrup on myself. I’m putting Nancy Emerson out of my mind.”

“Good for you,” Jerram said. “Eat your pancakes plain.”

“Sometimes you’re weird.”

“That’s always my intention.”

“Good night,” Rose said, but knew Jerram would stay up for hours yet, reading, studying, doing whatever things he did at night. He wasn’t a vampire, but he did seem to feed on the night.

She washed her face and brushed her teeth. Got into bed and fell asleep almost instantly. And had a dream.

Three

It 1hardly seemed like a dream at first. She was asleep in her bed, in her room, and everything was the way it always was. But then, a lot of extra space suddenly appeared in between the furniture, so that things were dotted here and there on a vast expanse of floor. It looked like a painting by Salvador Dali, where everything seems stretched out.

Instead of the double sash window there were French doors leading onto a balcony. The moon was shining in a bright, uncanny way over the tips of pine trees and distant mountains.

Someone was standing on the balcony, looking in. It was unsettling to have someone staring in at her from the dark, but she recognized who it was: Nancy Emerson.

“What are you doing here?” Rose said, feeling more annoyed than scared. “Everyone’s worried about you; you’d better go home.”