I even have the thought, Don’t close your eyes again, because if you close your eyes it could change again.

Which is a crazy thought, but why not?

Why not at this point?

If what I’m seeing clearly can’t be.

Could never be happening.

Then absolutely anything can happen.

So, I do what anyone in my shoes would have to do at this moment.

I slowly back away, back out to the landing, back down the stairs, all the while staring at the obviously not happening thing, until I am firmly, triumphantly in the professor’s bedroom. There, I close the door in front of me.

I notice there’s a key in the lock on this side, an old-fashioned silver one. I lock the door without thinking, as I’m in robotic mode now. No room for emotions. And I make my way over to the bed.

I will sleep in the professor’s bed tonight.

The professor’s bed will somehow protect me.

I get into the bed, pull the covers over my head, and stay there, waiting for sleep to come.

Waiting for some sort of sound.

Hoping not to hear it.

Chapter 42

At dawn, the morning light streams through the velvet curtains, awakening me to a posh kind of day. In the throes of sleep, waking up here, you could imagine yourself to be some sort of countess, awakening the day before a ball. A ball! What should I wear to the ball?!

And I wish I could be a contessa right now, with sartorial quandaries and vanities alike. I would stay in the bed all day deciding on my night’s adornments.

But as the sun comes in, the circumstances of my not being a countess become evident and I realize what exactly I am. A girl trapped in a remote house where the furniture moves around on its own, where there are scratches on the siding outside, and where everyone around me seems to be going crazy.

Sweet Jesus, can’t I just go back to sleep? I will dream about a wealthy, brooding lord who everybody hates but who falls in love with me after many misunderstood signals and prejudiced judgments. He was just surly because he loved me all along! I will dream about the pale blue poofy dress I will wear to the ball with loads of pearls and some giant froofy thing in my hair.

But it’s no use.

I am already up and I know what I must do. I grasp the hammer laying on the bed just next to me.

I know my curiosity will get the best of me and before I can complain to myself, I am up and at ’em.

There I go, seeing myself jolt out from under the sheets. There I go, seeing myself pounce up the stairs in one sweeping motion. There I go, seeing myself go to the door and stand purposefully, almost defiantly, in front of it. Waiting to see the impossible thing. As if to say, “Do your best!”