Maren let out a sigh of relief as the shop door closed behind her, shutting away all those nightmares that might have been swirling around in the dark. She wiped her hands on her jeans, in case any dregs had gotten on them.

“Bye, Artax.” She felt reluctant to let her only friend go, but she couldn’t dither in the shop.

Outside, beyond the small patch of lamplight, everything was shadow and fog, and the salty wind kept slithering in from the sea. Maren could barely make out the alley leading back to Main Street. Hunching her shoulders, she stuck her hands in her pockets, then remembered the right pocket held nightmares. Her shiver became a shudder.

As she tiptoed through the alley, water plinked behind her. On second thought, maybe it wasn’t water; maybe it was footsteps. The click-clacking of someone wearing high-heeled shoes. Someone trying not to make noise. Maren stopped. The tapping stopped. Gulping down the rock of fear lodged in her throat, Maren started walking again.

Click clack click clack.

Closer now. Something small and flitting grazed the top of Maren’s head.

She broke into a run.

Out on Main Street, in a swirling bank of blue fog, a figure sat hunched on the bus stop bench. Maren slid to a halt a few yards away, gasping as much from fear as from running. The figure turned to peer at her through the gloom. It was the spindly man from the pottery shop, now wrapped in a black coat. He held a pipe in his long fingers, and as Maren approached, he exhaled a plume of smoke that swirled into the shape of a bat and flapped away into the starless sky.

“Why are you out so late, little girl?” The man’s centipede voice raised goose bumps on Maren’s arms. He tapped the embers out of his pipe onto the pavement and stowed it away in his pocket.

She shook her head, not trusting her own voice and also following the rule about not talking to strangers. Especially strangers in empty places at night. Places she had no business being alone. Places where nobody would hear her scream. Maren eased her phone out of her bag, tipped the screen away from the man’s flinty gaze, dialed the numbers nine, one, one, and let her thumb hover over the “send” button. If the bus didn’t come in a minute or two, she’d walk down toward the waterfront and pick it up at another stop. But from out in the cloudy blue darkness came the click-clack of those shoes.

Maren took a few more steps away from the man and stood with her phone at the ready. If she could just manage to stay safe, to not panic, and to get on the bus, this would all be over soon.

Click clack click clack.