“Josh!” she demanded. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay!”

She heard his voice as if from a distance, as if more than simply a closed door separated them. It was a strange sensation and a frightening one, and she kept talking to him, telling him to push on the door the same time she pulled, as his voice grew fainter and fainter and then finally disappeared entirely.

She yanked once more on the door handle, then looked frantically around. There were no windows in the entryway save for the one high above the door, no way she could look out and see her brother, so she ran around to the front sitting room to look out the window, but when she pushed aside the lace curtains and pulled up the shade, she saw not the drive, not the yard, not the trees, not the porch, not Josh, but thick white fog that pressed flat against the glass, obscuring the entire world beyond.

She felt like a child again, like a little girl, scared and frightened and alone, and she wished that, dreams or no dreams, strange experiences or no strange experiences, they’d never come up here.

There was the sound of movement, the quiet shuffle of shoes on hardwood floor. A chill stabbed through her, but she did not turn around.

The clearing of a throat.

A man’s voice.

She recognized it, and though she didn’t want to, she knew that she had to look behind her.

She turned, faced him.

It was exactly who she’d known it would be.

“Laurie,” he said quietly. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

THIRTEEN

Norton

When Norton awoke, his bed was covered with burnt toast.

Pieces fell as he stirred, dropped off the bed as he sat up, but he could tell that someone—

something

—sometime during the night had placed burnt toast over every square inch of his bed: the quilt on top of him, the empty pillow next to him, the spaces of open mattress.

Donna.

For some reason, he did not suspect Carole’s ghost. It was that evil little girl whom he believed had covered his bed. A burnt toast trail had led him to her, had been laid for him to follow, and he assumed that the consistent use of the toast here was purposeful, was meant to send him a message.

The pressure was being increased. Whatever lay behind this campaign desperately wanted him to hurry up and get back to Oakdale.

Return.

He picked up a piece of toast, smelled it, tentatively touched it to his tongue. It was real. It was burnt bread, not some sort of disguised alien substance or supernatural manifestation.

What was the significance of it? he wondered. What did it symbolize? What did it mean?