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shadows shifted, towering, reaching. Muffling her sobs against Charlie, Emma tried to make herself smaller, so small she couldn’t be seen, couldn’t be eaten by all the ugly, squishy things that hid in the dark. Her mam had sent them because she’d gone with the man in the pictures.
The terror built so that she was shuddering, sweating. It burst out of her in one high wail as she scrambled out of bed and stumbled into the hallway. Something crashed.
She lay sprawled, clutching the dog and waiting for the worst.
Lights came on. They made her blink. The old fear dissolved in a new one as she heard voices. Emma scooted back against the wall and sat frozen, staring at the shards of china from the vase she’d broken.
They would beat her. Send her away. Shut her up in a dark room to be eaten.
“Emma?” Still dazed with sleep, floating a bit on the joint he’d smoked before he and Bev had made love, Brian walked toward her. She curled into herself, bracing for the blow. “Are you all right?”
“They broke it,” she told him, hoping to save herself.
“They?”
“The dark things. Mam sent them to get me.”
“Oh, Emma.” He dropped his cheek to the top of her head.
“Brian, what—” Still belting her robe, Bev rushed out. She saw what was left of her Dresden vase, gave a little sigh, then crossed to them, avoiding the shards. “Is she hurt?”
“I don’t think so. She’s terrified.”
“Let’s have a look.” She took Emma’s hand. It was fisted, her arm taut as a wire. “Emma.” Her voice had firmed, but there was no meanness in it. Cautious, Emma lifted her head. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Still wary, Emma pointed to her knee. There were a few drops of blood on the white T-shirt. Bev lifted the hem. It was a long scratch, but shallow. Still, she imagined most children would have wailed over it. Perhaps Emma didn’t because it was nothing compared to the bruises Brian had found on the girl when he’d bathed her. In a gesture more automatic than maternal, Bev lowered her head to kiss the hurt. When she saw Emma’s mouth drop open in shock, her heart was lost.
“All right, sweetie, we’ll take care of it.” She picked Emma up and nuzzled her neck.
“There are things in the dark,” Emma whispered.

“Your daddy will chase them away. Won’t you, Bri?”
The Irish in him, or perhaps the drug, made him weepy when he looked at the woman he loved holding his child. “Sure. I’ll chop them up and toss them out.”
“After you do, you’d better sweep this up,” Bev told him.
Emma spent the night, the first of her new life, snuggled with her family in a big brass bed.

Chapter Three

A S SHE HAD every day for nine days, Emma sat on the big window seat in the front parlor and looked through the mullioned glass. She stared beyond the edges of the garden with its nodding foxglove and bushy columbine to the long graveled drive. And waited.
Her bruises were fading, but she hadn’t noticed. No one in the big new house had hit her. Yet. She’d been given tea every day, and presents of sugar plums and china dolls from the friends who came and went so casually in her father’s house.
It was all very confusing for Emma. She was given a bath every day, even if she hadn’t been playing in the dirt, and clean-smelling clothes to wear. No one called her a stupid baby because she was frightened of the dark. The lamp with the pink shade was turned on in her room every night, and there were little rosebuds on the walls. The monsters hardly ever came into her new room.
She was afraid to like it, because she was sure her mam would be coming soon to take her away again.
Bev had driven her in the pretty car to go shopping in a big store with bright clothes and beautiful smells. She had bought bags and boxes of things for Emma. Emma liked a pink organdy dress with a frilly skirt the best. She’d felt like a princess when she’d worn it the day her da and Bev had been married. She’d had shiny black shoes with little