CHAPTER 1

The psychologist was head buried in Antonio Damacio's book, the feeling of what happens next although she was a Daniel stiegs regular. She was not a woman accustomed to darkness. The room was dark save for a dull lamp used for reading, the entire home electrically dead.

She decided to channel her mind where ever her distractions led as long as they did not rest on the shadows. It reminded her of her claustrophobic childhood.

Whatever had happened to the electrical outlets, had killed it-a power surge, or an unnoticed problematic old wiring, she could not tell. She was mowing the lawn outside this afternoon when the room lights blipped off, the entire home dead. It had not kept her up and nervous, but it did now. She questioned herself awely why she hadn't called for the electrician ealiar.

It was quite responsible to allow that she was a very calm woman herself, right now, the book was paying off.

She was at page 32 when there was a barring sound, like two hinges scringed to eachother. Her door was apparently locked she was very sure so it did not make her completely jumpy, but she did stop to read and frown.

She grabbed her mobile and used its screen to fend for her torch in the cabinet. She was lucky to find it dead but with a saved battery underneath. Her hands trembled while she turned the tailcap counter clockwise, the old battery falling on her palm. She inserted a new battery.

There was another sound, this one like the shattering of mirrors. The therapist thought she heard something like a whistle too but resisted the urge to believe it. She knew that she herself was getting more than uptight these days and she'd failed to take the mental note seriously. She always punished herself, these difficulty processing and controlling these feelings was close to her much cynicism and pessimism, anxiety--or was it? God, Rylee. You're burning out. You're catching fire, slow down. Slow down, she thought, it always turned out to be 'nothing.'

Still wearing her shimmery bridal nightie she had been expecting her husband this evening, but he sent a voice note speaking of an urgent APA meeting to attend tommorow in San Diego so he'd better crash at Bob's to catch up.

She did not call him back, she knew she was very furious. She had hoped to bed him this night in pursuit of her affinity for children she had barely been able to produce. but this therapist was stubborn.

Whirling the torch light out the window then down the door, she did not walk carefully as though expecting anything. She walked briskly, swerving the torch around. She did not tell herself that she was stupid, that there hadn't actually been any sounds but the hooting of owls outside. The therapist , as usual as every ordinary human evening did not find a sociopath creeping up her bedroom window. This was vergil, and that was rare, non existent even. There were crimes, grousome ones--but tax evations, extortions, loan sharking, illegal gambling, youth jokes of being in a sing sing for robbery and acting-up bandit roost, an imitation of mulberry street 1887, newyork where some teens loitered in alleys but went to jail as quickly as they'd started.

She checked the guestrooms, opened walk in wardrobe doors, philberts spare room but happed to see nothing. There was not anything to find anywhere either.

Intuitively, she reached for the staircase wall to observe, just beside the dinning. it did not take much time before she almost got bruised from a glass particle on the floor. She and philbert decided to arrange their albums here because they felt there was enough low humidity for its perfect storage. she had part agreed and part disagreed with the idea, she would be proved right again.

The wall was a photograph achieve. The first picture on the wall was a photo of a baby diagnosed with pertussis. It was her. The other was a child with longing eyes in a kindergarten class in a catholic grammar school, then there was that of their wedding, and then med school graduation together, a photo taken in a residency program that they had attended together, on ash Wednesday, philbert giving her his first peck on her cheek in the Dominican convent. The other was she working for a covershift nurse whose daughter was unable to walk and depressed because she had lung complications. Ursa Pearson was the child's name. Dr montoya could not tell why she remembered it. There was a conversation she remembered she had with the girl who had wanted to jump down the patriots bridge. She had threatened that if they came any closer she was going to let go. She told montoya that she had been sexually repressed, however all boys were dessame, they just wanted your body, they see you as an object, you give them pleasure-they don't, not even your closest friends, really care about what you think.

Ursa Pearson had not jumped, but she took suicide pills the following morning.

Dr montoya was a successful therapist, she moaned failures and had the habit of self blame even when she was rational enough to disagree with the assumption

that itd been a fault of hers. It was the photograph of Ursa pearson now, which had fallen from the wall, and piecesed on the stairs.

Its only a photo, she told herself, but could bare the understanding why she felt too shaken for words.

She was about picking album, then two more crashed down on the stairs without causation. The therapist gasped, reaching back.

She looked back to the door. The whistle. She heard it so clearly.

The door swong open as though pulled by the wind, repeatedly swinging before slamming itself shut.

Dr montoya did not mutter a no way. She simply stared. She remembered her black African neighbor Tibo whom she had refused a book for spiritual protection called '112 signs your home might just be haunted. ' but she found the idea of after life residence even in her own home disturbingly funny. She believed in God, not ghosts. She was a catholic. It should have all been a trance because what the therapist quite assumed she imagined to have seen was Ursa Pearson staring right at her through the window with eyes that were somber. But Ursa was dead. The therapist walked yet casually to the window, there was no Ursa but a dark city with many hooting owls.