The ungainly monster slams the playhouse door open, barges inside, and slams the door shut. Rose blinks, trying to recover a few of her wits. Night’s quiet reknits around her. No more shouts or smashings come from the main house.

Silent on bare feet, she slips around the corner of the half-pint house and stands on the faded welcome mat. The door is four feet high, the small window at the level of her chest. Faded curtains, ragged at the hems, are looped back with rotting ribbon. Rustling, like a mouse burrowing in silk, can be heard through the door. With one knuckle Rose raps shave-and-a-haircut gently on the wood.

“Go away!” is shouted from within.

Rose turns the knob and eases the door open an inch or so.

“I said go away! Leave me alone!” Something soft fluffs into the door and falls.

“Grasshopper, it’s me, Gigi,” Rose says softly.

There is no answer. Rose opens the door. “Cease fire,” she whispers. Stooping, she steps through, closes the door, and kneels. The ceiling is only five feet high, the entire house seven feet square. “Is the lady of the manor accepting callers today?” Rose asks, as she’d been instructed when Melanie was seven.

“Gigi?” An incredulous whisper emanates from a dark nest of girl, pillows, and blankets—undoubtedly the mass that formed the monster’s head when Mel ran from the house.

“It is indeed Gigi,” Rose says.

“Did you wander off again?” Melanie asks cautiously. “I’d better go get Uncle Daniel.”

Uncle Daniel: Rose recalls Daniel is Harley’s younger son, her other stepson.

The amorphous shape evolves into a girl sitting up, her legs crossed beneath her.

Adrenaline abandoning her, Rose’s exhaustion hits in a rising tide. She leans back against the door, crossing her legs as Mel does. Rose has used this playhouse many times. Melanie ceded it to her as a meditation retreat when she visited. As a child, Mel was delighted with the cushions, the incense—which Rose hardly ever burned at home—and the candle. For safety’s sake, the candle was only allowed when Rose was present. Often Melanie meditated with her, though seldom for more than a few minutes.

“This is heaven,” Rose says, and sighs deeply.

“No,” Melanie says carefully. “This is a playhouse. Let me get Uncle Daniel. Dad’s out of town.”

“May I tell you a story first?” Rose asks.

“I guess,” Mel replies dubiously.

Rose planned the transformation of bed clothes to street clothes, the poisoning of the night nurse, the theft of the keycard, the escape, and the search for Mel’s house. In all that time she never planned what she would say when she got there.

“Gigi,” Mel prods hesitantly.

“It’s a long story,” Rose says. “Why are you hiding out in the playhouse?”

“Uncle Daniel and Stella are fighting.”