Thorn did not sleep that night, sitting instead by the French doors in their room, gazing out into the moonlit night. He could see the forest from there, and it was unmoving, like a single entity in slumber.

Yet it was not slumbering, for he felt somehow as if it were staring back. They kept a pair of binoculars on the porch for bird watching; Thorn went out and got them, raising them to his eyes. At first all he saw was darkness. And then he spotted the eyes, gazing back. Two dark, glowing embers reflecting in the light of the moon; close-set, yellow, they were riveted on the house. It made him shudder and he lowered the binoculars, backing inside. He remained there, frozen for a moment, then forced himself to move; he padded silently down the long stairwell in his bare feet to the front door, then stepped quietly out. It was silent, even the noise of the crickets had stopped. Then he began to move again, as though pulled forward to the edge of the forest, where he paused, staring in. There was nothing. Not a sound. The two glowing embers were gone. Turning, his bare foot stepped on something soft and wet, and he sucked in his breath, stumbling to one side. It was a dead rabbit, still warm, its blood staining the grass where the head should have been.

The following morning he rose early, questioning Horton as to whether he was still setting traps for rabbits. Horton said he was not, and Thorn took him to the place where the dead carcass lay. It was buzzing with flies now, and Horton shooed them off as he knelt to examine it.

"What do you figure?" asked Thorn. "Do we have a predator in there?"

"Couldn't say, sir. But I doubt it."

He lifted the stiffened body, pointing to it with distaste.

"The head's what they leave, not what they take. Whatever killed this did it for fun."

Thorn instructed Horton to dispose of the body and to say nothing of it to anyone in the house. As they headed away, Horton stopped.

"I don't like that forest much, sir. And I don't like Mrs. Baylock taking your boy in there."

"Tell her not to," replied Thorn. "There's plenty to do here on the lawn."

That afternoon Horton did as he was told, and it brought the first indication to Thorn that something in the house was amiss. Mrs. Baylock sought him out in the drawing room that night and expressed irritation at having orders relayed to her through another member of the staff.

"It's not that I don't follow orders," she said indignantly, "it's just that I expect to receive them direct."

"I don't see what difference it makes," replied Thorn, and he was surprised at the anger that flashed in the woman's eyes.