Eddie couldn’t stomach it; the smell was making him sick.

Reaching out toward his mother, he touched what he thought was her hair sprawled across the pillow. But the feel of it was unlike his mother’s long curls. His fingers clutched at what felt like cobwebs-thin, sticky strands that clung to his hand as he pulled away in horror. “Mom!” Eddie screamed. But instead of sitting up suddenly, his parents continued to lie in bed. His father even started to snore. “Wake up!” he said. He drew his hand away, as what he thought had been his mother finally turned over to look at him.

It was a shape blacker than the shadows that rose from the bed and towered over Eddie, who continued to lie on the mattress frozen in terror.

He knew who she was. Impossible as it seemed, he’d seen her staring at him from the wood grains in the library table that afternoon. Eddie thought he might puke.

Her weathered face, so white it was almost green, hovered near the ceiling and glimmered in the darkness like an alien moon. Her skin was chapped, transparent, like wet paper. Her tattered, malignant hair hung from her head like rotting seaweed-long, ragged, and blacker than the deepest part of the ocean. Her eyes were dark empty holes, and her lipless mouth gaped like a fish. Heavy black robes stretched away from her body like shadows being pulled away from the walls. As she moved forward, she clenched her hands in front of herself. Her face tightened as she seemed to squint at him.

Eddie wiped a tickle at the back of his collar. Sweat.

Wake up, she said in a mimicking, high-pitched voice. Wake up, she repeated. Wake up. Then she started to laugh-a dark din totally unlike the voice she’d just used to taunt him. The sound hurt his ears. Her robes lifted and swirled around her as she reached toward him. The woman’s hair whipped at her face. Her black eyes expanded until they were all he knew.

He was falling into them. He couldn’t stop. There was nothing to hold on to. Nothing but darkness and the sound of laughter and the rush of-

Thump!

Eddie fell off the bed and hit the ground. He scrambled backward and toppled his mother’s bedside table. Her lamp turned over and crashed to the floor. Eddie leapt to his feet, suddenly furious. “What did you do with my parents?” he shouted at the woman, remembering the book in which Dylan finds two soggy piles of pajamas on the living room floor. If he stuck around for much longer, he knew he’d end up just like that. She reached toward him, but Eddie ducked. He managed to run to the end of the bed and around the corner of the bedpost, where he had a straight shot for the door. But halfway across the room, he slipped on the rug. As he struggled to stand, he felt a chill run up his spine. The Woman stood inches behind him, her face nearly a foot over his own. Before he had a chance to scream, she seemed to smile. A horrible, humorless, manipulative smile, but a smile nonetheless.

Eddie…, her voice purred-deeply, vibrantly. It reminded him of the soft string-quartet music his parents sometimes played on the stereo during dinner. Why do you want to hurt me?

“I… I don’t want to hurt you,” he heard himself say. He looked at his hands; for some reason, he wasn’t melting.

Good boy…, she continued. Stay away from things which do not concern you… Put that book back on the shelf… Her hair reminded him of plant tendrils floating in underwater currents. Read something else instead, she continued. Something… happier. Prettier. Less… frightening.

Eddie didn’t know what to say. “I… I…,” was all that came out of his mouth when he tried to speak.

Unless you like being frightened…, she whispered. Do you? Her eye sockets widened. She waited for his answer, as if she were truly curious, or almost amused. Do you like being scared, Eddie? Because scary is something I am quite good at… I have had many years of experience…

Her face was no longer a face. It was a long hallway in a secret, underground place through which he found himself hurtling, his feet skidding against the slick, dark floor. At the end of the hallway, twenty feet away, a swarm of black insects so dense it seemed to fold in upon itself beckoned to him like a hand. He reached for the walls, trying to find something to hold on to, but his fingers kept slipping against the wet stone. He clenched his mouth shut, trying to keep his screams in and the insects out.

Eddie turned and to his surprise found he was still standing in his parents’ bedroom. He grabbed at the doorknob, wrenching it open and running blindly into the hallway. When he reached the top of the stairs, he grabbed the handrail and swung himself around the corner. Taking three steps at a time, he leapt down the staircase, until he missed one and slid the rest of the way to the rug in the foyer.

Someone clutched at his shoulders, shaking him.

His father was leaning over him. “Edgar! Are you okay?”

Eddie glanced around, unsure of where he was or what was happening. As he tried to sit up at the bottom of the stairs, a dull pain throbbed in his tailbone. He groaned.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mom. Eddie turned to find her peering up from her place at the kitchen table. She appeared to still be writing, as if she hadn’t moved since Eddie had come home from school.

“He fell down the stairs,” said Dad. “I saw the whole thing from the couch in the living room.”

Eddie stood up. His parents both seemed so calm. He nearly grabbed his father to give him a hug but stopped himself. He didn’t want to alarm them by being upset. “When did the power come back on?” said Eddie evenly. He held on to the banister at the bottom of the stairs to keep his hands from shaking. His parents were looking at him funny.

“The power’s been on all night,” said Dad. He felt Eddie’s forehead with the back of his hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Eddie wasn’t sure of the answer to that question. He turned around and looked up the stairs. He could see the light spilling from his bedroom. “But the lights were…” Eddie peered out the window next to the front door. The entire town was lit up as usual. Had the whole thing been a dream? Impossible. Eddie was certain that he’d been awake the whole time. He’d been too excited by Nathaniel’s story to fall asleep. “What-what time is it?” he said.

“Nearly midnight,” said Mom. “We thought you were asleep upstairs.”

“You mean you’ve been down here the entire time? But I thought you were… I thought you were…” Eddie tried to speak, but he realized he didn’t want to finish his sentence.

Plus, at this point, he wasn’t sure what he had been thinking.

15

Eddie was late for school the next morning.

In class, Ms. Phelps called on him for the third time in twenty minutes, and he had to admit, once again, he didn’t know the answer. He hadn’t done any of the homework. He didn’t blame Ms. Phelps for being upset-how could she possibly know that last night he had been haunted by a malicious spirit who once upon a time might have been banished from the Garden of Eden, and who might have been responsible for the disappearance of Nathaniel Olmstead? Of course, he didn’t try to explain this. He knew she wouldn’t understand. He would save his explanations until he met up with Harris and Maggie during lunch.

After class, Eddie found them sitting near the windows in the far corner of the cafeteria. He was late because he’d wanted to make photocopies of his translation so they could read it themselves. He’d convinced Mr. Lyons to help him by volunteering to reshelf books next week-if he was still alive…

Neither Harris nor Maggie looked like they had slept much, but when they saw him approaching, they perked up. He knew they’d be excited to hear about his translation, but he didn’t know how to explain everything else that had happened.