“You’re gonna love our sweet little date,” he continues.

The tool gleams silver. Lightning crashes. The lady with the felt hat and full skirt is standing on the landing with us. She picks up the hammer, holds it toward me. She smiles at me, a welcoming smile. She gives me the thought. Yes, this is for you.

Is she real? Is she a dream?

I curl my fingers around the handle.

The cold metal touches my skin.

I feel the weight of it in my palm.

The embrace of it.

“You see, I’ve always liked sweet little girls like—”

WHAM!

I don’t know who did it.

I don’t know who did this.

I am looking at him now, his hand clasping his head and his head somehow turning his hand red. His body is weaving now, stumbling back, just like Penelope in that nightmare I had, after the chinoiserie vase crashed into a thousand pieces. And now he lands at the foot of the stairs.

The woman in the felt hat is gone, but as she leaves there are giggles, giggling, and then laughing, and then a cackle. Sinister and ceaseless.

I don’t know who did it, but it looks like it happened because of this hammer. And then it looks like it happened because of the hand holding this hammer. And then it looks like it happened because of this arm holding this hammer. And this arm is attached to . . .

Me.

I am the one who struck him in the head with the hammer in a kind of gesture that seemed like it came from someplace else. Someone else.

“You bitch!” He looks at his hand, eyes wide. His entire hand now a deep crimson.

And then he’s the one doing something this time. Now it is him on his feet and he lunges toward me, throwing my body backward into the wall of the landing.

My head smacks against the wall. Shapes swirl in my vision, wavering and converging.

And then, again, darkness. Another blank moment. Just like when my mom left and just like after the horrible thing that shall not be named.

And then gray.

Almost like we are suddenly floating in the mist, like on top of some South American mountain in the jungle, a cloud city. The cloud forests of Peru.

And then there’s the sound of something.

Like water dripping?

Water being poured?

But it doesn’t smell like water.

It smells like . . .

The gas station.

Filling up the tank.

Tank water.

Fire water.

Gasoline.

Someone’s pouring gasoline.

Over the parquet floor, over the Persian rugs, over the stairs, just willy-nilly, splashing it around without a care.

With glee.

It sounds like that same someone is laughing.

It sounds like Mike is laughing, but his voice is joined by others, laughing at the same time. Sinister. Mocking. It’s several voices joined with a different voice, a deeper voice.

Not even a human voice.

Something much worse.

Something ancient.