Either way, he could not face his family now, could not meet them. He would do so later, when he felt stronger, but for now he needed to be alone, to think, to sort things out.

One thing he’d always tried to impart to his students was the effect of the past on the present, the extent to which actions had reactions and events had repercussions that rippled forward into the future. Perhaps that was at the root of what was happening to him now. Maybe the House was giving him an opportunity to discover the source of the ripples that had spread outward to resurrect Carole and affect the lives of Daniel and Stormy and Laurie and Mark.

Maybe it was giving him a chance to change it.

The thought was at once exciting and terrifying, but both emotions were small and intensely personal. If what Billingson—Billings—said was true, if the House—the Houses—really did maintain a barrier protecting the physical material world from the intrusion of the Other Side, then this was as big as… no, bigger than… being granted the chance to go back into time and kill the pre-Nazi Hitler.

But emotionally it didn’t feel that way. He supposed it was because these were things he had just learned and the enormity of Nazi Germany and World War II had been validated by society, by the world, and had been drilled into him for over half a century, but the fact remained that this seemed much smaller in scope, much more personal and localized.

Considering the consequences, he supposed that was a good thing.

Norton moved away from the doorway, back down the hall, careful not to make a sound. Even after all these years, he remembered the location of the creaky spots in the floor, and he made a concerted effort to avoid them.

Once again, he found himself at the top of the stairs. He started down, but when he glanced up from the steps, he saw graffiti on the wall of the stairwell ahead of him, a huge blue chalk drawing of a face, a simplistic rendering that looked as though it had been done by a not particularly talented five-year-old.

The chalk figure winked at him.

Smiled.