When her mother excused herself to make lunch, Laurie followed her into the kitchen. Another full-fledged blast from the past. She recognized a salad bowl she’d forgotten about, remembered the pattern on the sandwich plates and iced tea glasses.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“Just stay out of the way.”

Laurie took a deep breath. “I’m going to go outside.”

Her mother looked at her. “Don’t go too far. We’ll be eating in a few minutes.”

Laurie’s heart was thumping with excitement. It was the first time she’d been out of the House in three days, and whether this world held or disappeared when she walked through that door, she was intoxicated with the thought that she could once again go outside.

She’d taken only one step when a goat appeared in the center of the kitchen, directly behind her mother. The air was suddenly filled with the smell of fresh daisies. Smoothly, easily, almost without thought, her mother grabbed a long knife from the counter, turned, and in one quick movement skillfully slit the goat’s throat. She picked up the spasming animal and, kicking open the screen door, tossed it into the yard. Without pausing, she unrolled a sizable length of paper towel, ran a portion of the perforated sheet through sink water, and began wiping up the blood on the floor. She looked up at Laurie as she scrubbed. “If you’re going to go outside, go. It’s almost time to eat.”

She was tempted to ask her mother if Billington would be joining them for lunch, but more than anything she wanted outside, wanted to leave the House, and she walked over to the screen door, pushed it open.

And was out.

The air was fresh, clean, glorious. She’d smelled it from the window, but that wasn’t the same as being in it, of it, surrounded by it, engulfed by it. At the bottom of the steps was the broken body of the goat, so Laurie walked instead along the wraparound porch, toward the front of the House.

Billington was nowhere to be seen, but Dawn was waiting for her around the corner of the House, playing with a nasty-looking doll made from dried weeds and twigs.

Laurie stopped in her tracks, stared at the dirty figure in the girl’s hand.

She thought of Daniel, shivered.

“About time,” Dawn said, standing, brushing dust off her shift. She dropped the doll, picked up a tin cup from the porch next to her, walked over to Laurie. “I’ve been waiting out here for ages.”