5

"I appreciated the gift, honey, I swear it."

"It's not that," she says.

Something else, there, in her features. Not just a hint of disappointment, not just hurt feelings. Something that reminds me of that fatigue I saw in Mistress Karen.

"Was this a set up?" I ask.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Did you know? Did you tell her to do what she did?"

Gina stands up. The pajamas, checkered in black and red, are much too snug on her hips. She looks one hundred percent a woman, looks a lot like her mother, as she puts her hands to those hips.

"What exactly are you accusing me of?" she asks.

I try to back off, not sure how to answer her. "What made you think that I would enjoy this, Gina?"

Her hands slip to her sides, and the woman is gone. She shakes her head, looking at the railing. She picks at a piece of the wood, something I've asked her not to do for years. The bannister and railings are littered with damage from that one bad habit.

"You had to see it," she said.

I feel cold permeate my spine, spread out through my shoulder blades.

"See what?" I ask.

"All my life, you told me it was nothing. You thought it went away, after mom died. But it didn't."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Gina slams her hand down on the railing. "Yes you do!"

I hang my coat on the rack, trying to breathe, trying to feel like an adult. "No, I don't."

"You really don't remember? The woman under the bed?"

I do remember. When she was young, this one dream, this one night terror. How often she'd have to come and sleep in our bed because she was terrified. Doctors said it wasn't unnatural. They called her a nervous child.

"I remember," I say. "You grew out of it."

"No. I didn't. I just stopped telling you. You could barely handle yourself, at first. Maybe still."

His turn to have his feelings hurt. "I did my best."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Did you see her? Did you see the woman under the bed?"

I sigh, feeling exhausted despite the late-night caffeine. "Honey, why would you think I'd see the monster under your bed at the fortune teller's?"

"She's not a fortune teller. She said she could make you see."

"So she did do it! You planned this with her!"

"Did what?" Gina said, taking a step down the stairs.

There's movement above, behind her, shifting shadows in the darkness of the upstairs landing.

I glance over her shoulder, then stop myself. I'm being silly.

I choose to ignore it.

"Planted some craziness in my head," I mumble.

"You saw her, didn't you?" Gina asks. She moves again. The world tilts, fuzziness at the top of the stairs.

"What's going on?" I ask, feeling sick. I'm afraid to look up the stairs, afraid of what's in the hallway.

"The woman! You did see her! Just tell me, Daddy!"

I step back.

Gina comes toward me.

"You have to tell me if you saw her. Do you know how long it's been? How long I've been trying to believe I'm not crazy? Karen, she said it might be real. She said maybe it's something that's out of my control. She said it could be the family that's tagged, not just me."

"Tagged?" I say. I look up at her. Behind her, where the shadow meets the light on the staircase, there are feet.

I grab her by the shoulders.

Gina's eyes get wide. "Fuck. You can see her now, can't you? Is she behind me?"

I force myself to nod.

"It's okay, Daddy. She won't hurt me. She never has."

The feet walk down a step. The world is thick, like I have the flu, only magnified by ten.

"Look at me, Daddy. If you don't look at her, she goes away. She gets bored."

I can't. Another step and I can see the tips of the fingers, straight like a mannequin's.

"Maybe…maybe there's a reason she never hurt you," I stammer.

Only three steps from the bottom, now. I can see the split-ends of her long, black hair.

"Maybe she didn't come for you."

The woman closes the distance, so fast that I can't see how she's done it. No locomotion, no tricks, just one moment she's half in the darkness, and the next I can see her raw, red mouth coming toward me.

"Daddy?" Gina asks, seeing the terror on my face.

I fling her aside. She careens hard into the coat rack.

The woman is upon me, clamping those lips over my mouth and nose. I can feel the little teeth worming into my flesh as I look up into her black, shark-dead eyes.

My body jerks. There's so much pain, so much numbness, so many little lights.

I know, before she sucks the life out of me.

I know they'll think I had a heart attack like my father.