Something was bothering me. A thing I couldn’t put my finger on but nagged at me, like a word that wouldn’t step to the front of my brain when I wrote my stories.

Off to the north, through my French doors, heat lightning flashed and pulsed over the lake, briefly outlining the willows, the starkly bare maples, and the craggy, worm-stripped oaks. Storms had the power to unsettle me. I thought maybe that was why I couldn’t sit down, couldn’t just open a can of soup for dinner and read a Sue Grafton I’d picked up at a used book sale a while ago.

It was one of those hot Michigan nights when not a single breath of air moved. I heard, not far off, an animal scream. Night forces were at work. I thought maybe I was nervous about facing Cecil Hawke in the morning. What did I say to the man? I hate your main character. Why in hell did you want to write a piece of crap like this? How many more sadistic chapters will I have to read before you actually get to a story? How many before I grab a pen and kill off this ‘Tommy’ myself ?

I watched as sideways lightning cut directly above the lake. Closer.

So, I told myself, in the morning I’d get a check for a thousand dollars from Hawke.

I looked at the stack of bills on top of my refrigerator and asked myself, What price my soul?

The answer was easy—a thousand dollars.

_____

The rain, when it came, blew sideways but was gone fast. Not a single tree came down. Nothing flew through my windows. A wimp as Michigan storms went.

What I needed, I decided, was to be in touch with another human being. I called Jackson.

“Emily! How … eh … nice.” His bright voice signaled there was probably a woman with him. “Are you calling about my work? Have you gotten those pages done?”

“Not yet. I’ve been busy with Cecil’s manuscript.”

“Of course. And how are you finding his writing? Amazing, I’d imagine. Certainly it will be the absolute definitive work …”

“Interesting.”

“That’s all? Just ‘interesting’?”

“I really can’t say anything. Remember that confidentiality contract?”

“But this is me.” He was hurt, then brought himself back to where he was and, maybe, who was with him. “But of course you wouldn’t, would you? I’d hardly have recommended an editor who couldn’t keep her word …”

So. There I was. Not able to talk to him about evil and madness in literature and where the lines were drawn. I fumbled with words and was about to hang up.

“Do you have your costume yet?” he went on, making conversation though I could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

“For what?”

“My God, Emily! The Blithe Spirit party this coming Saturday. Someone from fiction that you’d love to meet, a writer, even an historical figure. You haven’t forgotten.”

“Oh … that. I’ll come up with something.”

“Lila’s talking of nothing else …”

“Is she there with you?”

A hesitation. “I hope you’re joking …”

“Please Jack. It’s pretty obvious what’s going on. The woman’s not exactly subtle.”

“Wouldn’t I be an idiot …” He stopped himself.

“Not for the first time.”

“For heaven’s sakes …” He sounded much like Cecil Hawke. Probably his perfect ear for language.

“Do you think,” he changed the subject, “that you could bring my work with you to the party next Saturday? I mean—a whole week more, Emily.”

“I’ll try.”

“I’ll pay you …”

“Of course.”

“Well, then, don’t forget to find a costume. Wait until you see mine …”

“Someone from Chaucer?”

“Ah ha! That would be the expected choice, wouldn’t it? But no. I’m out to surprise.”

There are times when you just can’t help but heave a big sigh. “Say good-night to Lila, Jack,” I said and hung up.

_____

Sleep wasn’t easy. The air never cooled. I tried my bed but Sorrow thought that was an invitation to join me so I went back out to the sofa. All the doors and windows were open. A fan in the kitchen stirred dusty, damp air. I propped my feet on the sofa arm, closed my eyes, and drifted off.

A few hours later I sat up straight. My skin was clammy. A whippoorwill sang in the bare trees at the front of the house, and then moved off. Nothing stirred outside. That wasn’t what had wakened me.

It was that thing going on in my head. At first I was afraid the uneasiness came from the manuscript, that I was having nightmares about a kid locked in a basement, but that didn’t seem to be it. I ran everything quickly through my mind before it all disappeared.

An image.

A door.

Cecil Hawke’s front door.

Well, no wonder—all those gargoyles and doves.

But something. Just beyond.

I lay down and drifted back to sleep.

When I next awoke, it was to voices in my head. Something was in there trying to come out. I hated nights like this. Dreams and voices and things I couldn’t catch.

Gargoyles. Doves. A woman’s voice. Gargoyles. Doves. A woman’s angry face.

Lila.

That was what bothered me …

Of course, no wonder she was in my head. I suspected she was with my ex-husband at that moment, laughing while Jackson tickled her as he sometimes did during sex. I’d hated being tickled but Jackson thought it part of his charm to be slightly sadistic.

Sadistic …

No, something other than the manuscript.

A man’s dark face.

A voice … What are you doing at the front door? Listen here, to me. Don’t you ever enter my house this way. I don’t …”

Listen here, to me.

Odd sentence construction.

Listen here, to me …

… to me …

Or was it something else and I’d heard it wrong.

To me.

To me.

Toomey.