SOMETHING SNATCHED Emerie’s ankle and yanked her off
the bed.

 

At first, she assumed she’d rolled the wrong way and sat up, trying to
figure out why her bed was so hard and cold. She blinked owlishly at the
leaning tower of laundry across from her. She registered that one of her
windows was open, which accounted for how cold her bedroom was.
But before she could center herself and fully realize she was no longer on
her ebony sleigh bed, an invisible force grabbed her leg and pulled her
out the open bedroom door. She snatched desperately at the door jamb,
but it slipped through her fingers. She heard it vibrate ominously as she
was towed along.

 

“Hey!”

 

Her head hit several boxes as she careened down the hallway. Emerie
attempted to seize the wall, but only succeeded in slamming her body
back and forth against the plaster like a pinball. She kicked her free leg
fiercely at the imperceptible aggressor. She felt something icy-cold, as
though she plunged a bare foot in slush—but she was released.
Emerie scrambled to her feet and punched the air wildly. She was at
the tail end of their long hallway, almost in the upstairs parlor. Monsters
crouched in the darkness until her eyes adjusted and they became
unpacked boxes strewn across the room. She squinted and steadied her
breathing. There was nothing there. As usual.

 

Dylan poked his head out of their bedroom. His eyes narrowed.

 

“Emerie?” His clicked his teeth. “Did it happen again?”

 

“No,” Emerie said. “I just—went to get a glass of water. Tripped on a
box.”

 

Dylan snorted audibly. But Emerie knew three a.m. was too late for
this particular fight for her early bird boyfriend. He retreated into their
bedroom and she sighed with relief. This wasn’t the first time she had
been forcibly jerked out of bed and dragged down the hallway. She
considered herself lucky it always pulled her into the parlor, rather than
making a sharp right turn at the end of the hall to push her down the
stairs. These unfortunate instances were just one of the many examples
Dylan had of why they should not have moved into this house. But Emerie

refused to accept that kind of negative thinking about their home renova-
tion plans.

 

She started to follow him back to bed and bit back an angry squawk
—she stepped in a paint roller tray. Creamy-cold goop covered her foot.
Her lip curled and she carefully removed her bare foot, resisting the
urge to kick the roller tray against the wall. This was getting ridiculous.

 

She took care to walk on the plastic sheeting which covered the floor
and detoured into the bathroom to wash off the paint in the clawfoot tub.
She loved that tub, with its strange taloned feet and a showerhead faucet
combination styled like an old-fashioned telephone. It was one of the
reasons she moved in—along with the huge kitchen overflowing with
cabinet space, three extra bedrooms, and wraparound porch. She exhaled
as she flicked the light—they’d been having electricity problems since
the move. Thankfully, it buzzed on.

 

“Are you kidding me?!”

 

The doors of the medicine cabinet were flung open. Their collective
toiletries littered the floor. Her Spider-Man toothbrush floated sadly in
the toilet over Dylan’s electric toothbrush head. She stared at the mess,
balancing on one foot. Dylan would be furious. His assortment of hair
products far outnumbered her own and he had organized them so care-
fully. She scooped them up and haphazardly stuffed them back into the
medicine cabinet. Gingerly, she reached inside the toilet and threw both
toothbrushes away. She eyed the shower curtain, which had been torn
down for good measure.

Scowling, Emerie hopped on one foot to the tub. She twisted the knob
and hissed as the icy water blasted the paint off her foot. She had not
been getting much sleep since they moved in. Their first night here,
booming explosions of thunder woke them up repeatedly through the
night—but the skies were completely clear. After making sure there was
no hidden bowling alley in the attic, she blamed the neighbor’s pickup
truck.

 

The following night a high-pitched scream interrupted them while
they tried to unpack the dining room boxes, shattering a crystal tea set.
Emerie didn’t much care for the gaudy collection, so she made an
offhand comment about the squeaky pipes in the basement and
pretended she had dropped the tea set. At this point, Dylan began to
grow suspicious.

 

After a week, Emerie started feeling cold pokes and prods, like
someone slipped ice cubes down her shirt. Of course, this eventually
evolved into chilly hands that wrenched her out of bed and towed her
down the hallway. Terrifying the first time, scary the second, and then
painfully annoying the rest—not that the experience wasn’t frightening.

 

But an awful case of carpet burn converted fear into deep irritation.

 

Not to mention, different rooms kept getting trashed—like their bath-
room. The longer they stayed, the more the activity seemed to increase.

 

Emerie stepped away from the tub, shaking her foot dry. An ice-cold
draft enveloped her body and she shivered. She noticed with alarm the
water in the toilet bowl had frozen. She wrapped her arms around
herself as the mirror fogged over. Words started to appear on the
condensation.

 

Emerie squinted. “LLIK...Lick? Wait, are you trying to write ‘kill’?”

 

The words halted.

 

“It’s a mirror.” Emerie placed her hands on her hips. “Are you on the
other side of the mirror? Then you’ll have to write words backwards.”

 

The mirror fogged over again and new words appeared. KCUF