The head tilts, face bobbing in the gap. Pink lips with a hole punched in the center, a circle of airbrushed blusher on the cheek. I know it, of course I do, but there’s no time to process—too busy screaming, “Leave me alone!” Turn, seizing the first thing I see—trash can—heaving it at the mask. Garbage explodes. Grab the magazines, pelt them at the door, heave the other chair, grab it on the rebound and throw it again. “Get out of here!”

When I stagger back, gasping, the mask is gone. The door is closed.

I breathe, waiting. It worked. I scared him off. Then headlights flash through the windows, the real reason he stopped trying to get in: someone’s coming down the hill, slowing, signaling a left turn.

I run to the door, start to yank the chair free so I can make a dash for the road, flag them down. A spiderweb-thin strand of chill adheres to my spine. I look over my shoulder.

The princess mask is there, in the far window. Just looking. I stare back, hands locked on the chair, unable to do anything but watch as it gives a slow, condescending dip of its head . . . and leaves.

Twenty-Four

COPS MOVE AROUND our kitchen, visible to me only from the waist down as I sit, head bent over the cup of coffee Ma made me out of desperation, the need to do something. Face bathed in steam, blanket around my shoulders, I watch legs clad in navy uniform slacks pass back and forth. Outside to the cruiser, back in; outside to the stoop to make some clandestine call to the station. Back in.

Murmured conversation among the adults. I’ve answered the same questions enough times to write the cops’ script. Did you get a look at him? What was he wearing? I described the mask; didn’t say who it belongs to. They’re already thinking Halloween prank gone wrong, another gotcha on par with Jell-O bombs and Ping-Pong balls; one of the hoodies, probably, coming back to finish the scare.

The eye, though. That damned eye glittering in the recess behind the molded plastic—the iris was dark. Not Trace’s coyote greenish-gray. If that guy has the mask, maybe he hurt Trace before he took it. All I want is my phone so I can text a quick you ok? at him, but it’s still out there on the street somewhere; the female officer, Donohue, is looking for it. My school stuff has already been gathered, stacked on the counter.

The next time the door opens, Dad says, “Found him yet?” his voice sharp.