In this case, the feat being the tuition, room, and board. I would have to somehow patch together a quilt of scholarships, grants, and employment to succeed at such an attendance. Our friends Muffy, Binky, or Blair, you see, have advantages. I have no such thing. So I would have to cobble this whole thing together myself. Out of nothing. Out of magic. Out of dirt.

Look, I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me. I just hope you will see this for what it is. Which is threading the needle. A unicycle act on a tightrope. Underneath, no cushion. No kind words. No second chances.

And this, here, this employment. This summer caretaking job in a lonely house on a winding street outside mainline Pennsylvania, this is the opening act. The one upon which all other acts rest. And it happens to be a huge amount of money. To be here. That’s the lucky part. I got lucky when I knocked on this particular door. It’s more money than I had ever even dreamed of acquiring on my own, straight out of high school, summer before my freshman year. In fact, it’s almost a suspiciously high amount of money, for the task at hand, come to think of it.

But I need it.

Desperately.

So, mes amis, that is the context through which I would like you to view the forthcoming events.

Simply put, I’m in a tight spot.

Let’s say, for instance, I somehow magically decide not to throw myself in front of a vehicle during my first semester. In such a case, my only escape from the horrible past is Bryn Mawr. It is my ejection hatch. A new start. So, there can only be two possibilities: (1) shuffling off this mortal coil; (2) starting a new life in college. Suffice to say, I haven’t quite decided. I am keeping my options open. But there is one thing that is absolutely, positively not an option. And that is . . . going back to Nebraska.

But this job, here, at this strange place is an essential piece of the puzzle. I cannot quit. I cannot flake. I cannot leave.

Which is why I am trying extremely hard to explain to myself right now that what I am feeling, coming from over there, inside the house, is not actually real.

Chapter 7

If this were a real thing I was feeling, and not, as is logical, a figment of my imagination, it would be described first, even though I can’t actually see it, as a live thing. Some sort of entity. A being.

Whatever it is, this nonexistent thing, it is staring daggers at me from inside the house. It is saying to me in a voice that cannot be heard but only felt: Get out.

All five senses are engaged in an instant.

The information that I’m getting from it doesn’t allow me to think of it as anything nice.

It is dark. And it is focused. Fixed, somehow, on me.