I can still see the bannister, I say. I can still see the stairs and the carpet on the landing. If I look down I can see the floor of the hall and if I crouch I can see a little of the front door. And if I look up, toward the top of the stairs I can see the window, the bathroom door and the roof light on the landing.

“So you can see a little of what’s above you and some of what’s below. This is you, Olivia. Night-time at the bottom, and me in the upstairs and you in the middle, joining us. You are the connecting point. Only one person is going to save us. You.”

The cord glows positively rose-gold as I swell with pride.

“All you have to do is go up,” Lauren says. “Try.”

But …

“I don’t mean literally go upstairs,” she says, impatient. “I mean, it’s not like any of this is real.”

OMG. WHAT DO YOU MEA—

“Never mind that now. Again.”

I shudder. I feel the old stair carpet, rough under the velvet pads of my paws. I like my paws. I don’t want to be a ted. I want to be me.

I’m scared, I say. I can’t move, Lauren.

“Tell yourself a story,” Lauren says. I can tell from her voice that she knows what it’s like, to be pinned by fear. “Pretend something you really want is up there and go to it.”

I think about the LORD, and his many shifting faces, and how good he is. I try to picture him on the landing above me. My heart fills with love. I can almost see him, with his tawny body and tiger’s tail. His eyes are golden.

I climb up one stair. For a moment the walls shiver around me. I feel utterly sick, like I’m falling from a great height.

“Good,” Lauren says, voice cracking with excitement. “That’s great, Olivia.”

I look up at the LORD. He smiles. Then I see that he wears Ted’s face. Why is he wearing Ted’s face?

I turn and run back down the stairs, rowing in distress. Lauren is shouting indistinctly in our head.

I can’t do it, I say to Lauren. Please don’t make me. It is horrible.

“You don’t love me,” Lauren says sadly. “If you loved me you’d really try.”

I do, I do love you! I say, with a little row. I didn’t mean to upset you.

“You’ve done it before, Olivia, I feel it. You take down the barrier and come up. It happens every time you knock the Bible off the table. There’s thunder, right, and the house moves? You do it when you make your recordings. Remember when you opened the refrigerator door? The meat really went bad! You just have to learn to do it on purpose.”