I remained calm, even when the basement light didn’t switch on. The bulb had burned out since I’d last gone into the basement – which wasn’t all that often. Truth be told, I hated the basement. It had a dirt floor and stone walls – a good solid stone foundation, Brock said – and many, many spiders. The only times I ever went down there were when one of the fuses went out or the one time I’d forgotten to refill the oil tank (who knew you had to order heating oil?) and the man from the oil company had had to “reprime the pump.” Whatever that meant.

I grabbed a light bulb from the pantry and headed down, keeping one hand on the stone wall beside the staircase to keep my balance. I didn’t need anymore falls. I went slowly down the stairs and stepped into several inches of water.

At least it wasn’t cold.

Resisting the urge to sit on the stairs and weep, I screwed the old bulb out of the overhead socket and screwed in the new bulb. The bulb burst into light and lit up the basement in garish detail. I’d hoped somehow that the puddle I was standing in would be the worst of it, but in fact the bit I stood in was high dry ground compared to the rest of the basement. The ground sloped down from where I stood and water covered the entire surface. The furnace and hot water heater were in several feet of water.

Which probably explained why the hot water heater wasn’t working. I scanned the murky surface of the water as if I might find a plug I could pull to make it all go away. Instead I noticed a dead cockroach bobbing on a current heading my way.

Shuddering, I backed up the stairs, afraid that if I turned my back something might rise out of the water to grab me, all the way to the kitchen. Then I closed the door on the mess and sat down at my kitchen table and gave in to the urge to weep.

I had a good ten-minute cry. I threw in all the bad things I could think of. I was alone in an ancient house that was falling apart. Brock was never coming back to fix it and that was my own damned fault. No one was coming to fix it. Certainly not Liam because I didn’t love him. I probably wasn’t capable of love. My friends were all going to leave me and go back to Faerie. I was going to grow old all alone while my house decayed and fell apart around me until it looked like Lura’s house and I looked as shriveled and dried up as Lura.

And smelled as bad as her.

I already smelled like cat pee.

I surprised myself by making a weird sound. Something between a burp and a hiccup. It burbled up out of me twice more before I realized that I was laughing.