was with a sense of complete disorientation. The TV had gone onto standby in the night, and there was daylight streaming underneath the blackout blinds in the media room.
There was a hot, heavy weight on my legs . . . no . . . two heavy weights, and my chest was tight and wheezing. Hauling myself into a sitting position and pushing my hair out of my eyes I looked down, expecting to see the two dogs, but there was only one black hairy monster sprawled across the foot of the sofa. The other hot little body was Ellie.
“Ellie?” I said huskily, and then felt in the pocket of my dressing gown. My inhaler was in there, as always, but it knocked against something unfamiliar as I drew it out, and with an odd rush I remembered the key, and all the crazy events of yesterday. Then wiped the mouthpiece of the inhaler on my dressing gown, put it to my lips, and took a long hissing puff. The relief was instant, and I took a deeper breath, feeling the release in my chest, and then said again, more loudly, “Ellie. Sweetheart, what are you doing here?”
She woke up, blinking and confused, and then realized where she was and smiled up at me.
“Good morning, Rowan.”
“Good morning to you too, but what are you doing down here?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I had a bad dream.”
“Well, okay, but—”
But . . . what? I wasn’t sure what to say. Her presence had shaken me. How long had she been padding around the house last night by herself without me hearing her? She had evidently been able to get out of bed and come all the way downstairs and tuck herself in beside me without me hearing a thing.
There didn’t seem much I could say at this point though, so I just rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and then pulled my legs out from under the dog and stood up.
As I did, something fell out of the folds of the duvet and hit the floor with a dull ceramic-sounding crack.
The sound made me jump. Had I knocked over a forgotten coffee mug or something? I’d had hot milk last night, but I could have sworn I’d left the cup safely on the coffee table. In fact, yes, there was the mug still sitting on its coaster. So what had made the noise?
It was only when I pulled up the blind and folded the duvet that I saw it. It had rolled halfway under the sofa before coming to a halt, facing me, so that its wicked little eyes and cracked grin seemed to be laughing at me.
It was the doll’s head from the attic.
The feeling that washed over me was—it was like someone had poured a bucket of ice water over my head and shoulders, a drenching, paralyzing deluge of pure fear that left me unable to do anything but stand there, shaking and gasping and shivering.
I heard, as if from a long way away, Ellie’s reedy little voice saying, “Rowan, are you all right? Are you okay, Rowan? You look funny.”
It took a huge effort for me to drag myself back from the brink of panic and realize that she was talking to me, and that I needed to answer.
“Rowan!” There was a frightened whine in her voice now, and she tugged at my nightshirt, her little fingers cold against the skin of my waist. “Rowan!”
“I—I’m okay, honey,” I managed. My voice was strange and croaky in my ears, and I wanted to grope my way to the couch and sit down, but I couldn’t bring myself to go anywhere near that . . . that thing, with its mocking little grin.
But I had to. I couldn’t leave it under there, like an obscene little grenade, waiting to explode.
How? How had it got there? Jack had locked the door, I had seen him do it. And he had preceded me down the stairs. And I had the key in my pocket. I could feel it, warm against my thigh with my own body heat. Had I . . . could I have possibly . . . ?
But no. That was absurd. Impossible.
And yet, there it was.
It was while I was standing there, trying to get a hold of myself, that Ellie bent down to see what I was staring at and gave a little squeal.
“A dolly!”
She crouched, bum jutting in the air like the toddler she still half was, and reached, and