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He tipped his head and stared directly at the pool of darkness down the long hallway where she stood shrouded.
She knew objectively, logically, that it should be impossible forhim to see her. How many times had she stood in his precise spot, in his exact pose? How many times had she looked down the dark, off-kilter hall toward the oldest part of the house, where she now stood in her son’s room? Trying to tell in the middle of the night if the door was open, if her little boy was standing there, never once able to see anything but shadow. Because that night-light on the landing, close to the floor and faint as it was, blinded her to anything beyond its dim reach. Always, every time, she had to be almost at the boy’s bedroom door before she could be sure that yes, there was her son, back out of bed, silently watching her. Instead of safe asleep.
The light has to—it must—blind him.
The man’s face was made a skull by the shadows. Solid black where eyes should be. The light snagged on his lips to cut an over-grinning smile. His whole self seemed to her so huge it was beyond the bounds of reasonable. So substantial it was as though even his mouth, his nostrils, his ears, must be filled with flesh.
She struggled for air. It was the reality of him, the human details, that choked her. His short, sandy hair stuck out sideways the way a child’s does after pressing flat against a pillow overnight. His dark shirt was only half tucked in. He shifted his weight. Scratched at the side of his nose, then rubbed at the spot where he must have hit his head.
Her eyes went wide. Her blood surged thick and pounded her ears to deafness. She realized she was shaking, had a flash of shame at her total inability to control her own body. She remembered this shame. Saw in memory a linoleum floor. No fight, no flight, just complete and utter shuddering immobility.
And time.Tick, tick, tick, a clock must be saying somewhere.Tock, tock, tock, uncountable seconds passing.
One minute, two? Ten? Breathe. Think. He sees you. Can he see you?
The man’s size was a suffocating reminder of how small she was.His shadow stuck to the ceiling, cast high by the low glow of the night-light.
He’s in your house. Your house!
This was why her ears were deafened by blood. Why terror hollowed her out weightless.
Someone who would take that step, someone who would snap aside that curtain?
Oh yes. Someone like that is serious.
But—maybe he isn’t real? Maybe you’re seeing things.
This idea melted through her. The man could be a vivid nightmare. Or one of the fears she rubbed between thumb and forefinger, one of the worries she would rumble and burnish to smooth morbid fantasy staring sleepless at the bedroom ceiling.
Where do you come up with these awful things? That’s it, that’s all. Overactive imagination. A dream. One-two-three, air in, air out, open your eyes. Then, poof! He’ll disappear. You’ll see.
But when she forced her eyes closed, forced them open again, the man hadn’t vanished. For the first time she noticed he was wearing sneakers.
She understood the implications somewhere deep and visceral. He couldn’t have walked through the blizzard in those sneakers. She imagined him sitting on the bench in the entryway downstairs. Taking off his snow boots. Placing them neatly on the floor, side by side. Pulling the sneakers out of a bag and putting them on. A conscientious houseguest. Planning to stay a while.
He is very, very serious.
Her eyes skittered to the side to see the snowflakes still falling. Their whiteness was the only thing visible outside, touching then spinning away from the sliver of window glass visible between the curtains, resting in and softening the corners of the panes. Before the nor’easter began, there’d been at least a foot of accumulation. Bybedtime there’d been almost two feet on the ground. Now—well, she couldn’t tell from where she stood. But she knew that her house, the whole property, the whole world, was wrapped tight.
Next to the window was her son’s bed. The little boy was curled into a tiny, soft, sleeping lump, his chest moving ever so slightly up and down under his green blanket. A bit of hair and a curve of his ear were the only things discernible in the darkness.
As she looked at her son’s shape, her heart was squeezed by such love and panic she nearly groaned with the pain of it. She thought of his soft, full cheeks, how they intersected with the tiny bone of his chin. The sweet, cartoonish proportions of his little self. The tender, potbellied gourd of his torso. His thin limbs and straight hips. Her own small, perfect boy who was fully and completely a person, however tiny. However new here.
And now?
What’s going to happen to that little person now?
She dragged her eyes back to the man.
Ten seconds? Ten minutes?
He’d been there for just a moment. He’d been there forever.
But it can’t happen. This can’t happen. Not to you.
These things happen. These things happen every day.
It must be your fault. What did you do?
