“What?” He peers at me.

“The frog. You know in the jar?” I look up. “Did you steal it? And then . . . use it . . . to scare me?”

He looks at me for a long moment. He tilts his head.

He walks out of the room, whistling to himself the whole time. The others in the room flash in and out of view, like a TV channel being switched back, then forth. They stand. They disappear. They stare. There’s one. Then another. Then another. They lunge for one another. Gnashing their teeth and tearing at each other’s clothes. Locked in a kind of undulating battle. First silent, then billowing, then loud as a car crash.

Mike comes walking back into the dining room.

And he has a jar in his hand.

A jar full of murky water.

And in that jar.

Is a frog.

Just like it was the first time I laid eyes on it.

That day with the professor.

The professor.

And then I see him. There, in the room, billowing.

He winks in and out in the space next to Mike, his expression serious as death. Is he trying to warn me? How am I seeing him right now? Why is he blinking in and out? What the hell is happening right now?

Mike very deliberately places the mason jar with the frog in front of me.

It brings everything into sharp focus. Everything into now.

The frog doesn’t know it’s boiling until it is too late.

Silence.

“You’re talking about this frog, right? This one right here? In this jar? Right in front of your face,” he mocks.

“No, but, you don’t understand it was—”

“No-but-you-don’t-understand-it-was.” He imitates me in a whiny voice. “It was what? It was . . . a figment of your imagination maybe?”

“I’m telling you—”

“You’re not telling me anything!” He lurches, and the professor is behind him, making the same movement, his arm swooping down. A double exposure. A mirror world. Mike grabs me by the back of the neck and lifts me up, seemingly through sheer will, with the strength of two men, out of the chair, out of the dining room, and over to the landing, up the steps, and—

The lightning flashes and now the professor is gone.

Now it’s just Mike.

“This is gonna be fun. You and I are going to have our date now. You see? It’s going to be very romantic. Just like it was supposed to be. Meant to be, my darling.” He whispers this last part. “And then we’ll be together forever.”

Chapter 48

We are headed up the stairs now. Mike’s grip on my neck like a vise. I can’t breathe. I kick my legs, but his hold on me stays firm. A supernatural strength.

On the second part of the landing, there’s a side table, which has always been there, except that now there is something on it. Something that wasn’t there before.

The hammer.