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stuck in the house. It happened from time to time and the nasty little
creatures almost always seemed to find her room. Just last winter her father
had sent her into the hallway while he took care of one of the vermin with a
pitchfork. Before she could enter the room afterward, her mother had gone in
with a bucket and a rag. For over a month she had stared at the clean spot on
her floor as if it might suddenly attack.
    But she was older now, and she had to face her fears. That was what
her father said was the difference between a good farmer and everyone else. So
Gail slid off of her bed and onto the floor. As quietly as she could she put
her feet into her slippers and moved toward the door.
    Something heavy fell to the ground in another part of the house, the
impact loud enough to shake the floor beneath her slippered feet. Gayle stared
at the door and tried to make herself move, but her legs didn’t want any part
of the notion. The soft, scrabbling noises near her door stopped and were
replaced by several light taps as something moved down the hallway.
    Gayle listened, wishing she could muffle the sound of her own heart in
her ears, and when she heard nothing else out of the ordinary she carefully
opened her door.
    There was no sign of life in the hallway and nothing moved near the
banister but her own faint shadow. Gayle started down the stairs as carefully
as she could, her feet testing each floorboard to see if it would creak. Light
spilled across the ancient throw rug at the foot of the stairs, coming from the
living room where she knew her folks liked to sit and read quietly before they
retired. If the lights were on, they were likely still awake.
    She almost called out to them, but hesitated instead. They'd be
awfully upset if they found her awake and creeping around the house. As
careful as she had been in the hallway, her trek down the stairs took longer
and made less noise. Somewhere up ahead she could hear the scraping sounds
again and wondered if she was right about the rats. Perhaps they were eating
her dolls even now, tearing away the fabric and chewing on the finely crafted
porcelain faces.
    The idea finally got her to move faster, and Gayle moved across the
foyer and looked into the room where her parents liked to read. Her pulse
raced at the notion that anyone would hurt the beautiful figurines and she
looked quickly at the couch as if to reassure herself.
    She would have preferred the rats. They would at least have made
sense.
    Instead she saw her father on the ground, his face mashed against the
wooden floor, his eyes closed and a thin line of reddish drool trickling from
between his clenched teeth. Her mother lay on the couch, her legs spread
farther apart than was proper for a lady, and her hands over her head, one
wrist crossed over the other. Gayle’s eyes sought the source of the scratching
noises. The soft clinks and tinkles of fine porcelain and glass touching hard
surfaces assailed her, and she looked down to the foot of the couch where she
fully expected to see a black brute of a rat feasting on the delicate dolls
she’d somehow managed to bring in from the field intact.
    But there were no rats.
    The dolls were moving on their own, toddling closer to her father’s
prone form. Her throat tightened as she watched them tentatively touching him,
as if to make certain her was not merely injured but properly dead. Gayle
stared for several heartbeats, saw the figure closest to her father grab hanks
of his hair and tug sharply, throwing its entire body into the effort.
    Her mother made a soft noise and Gayle turned just in time to see one
of the larger dolls—a jester dressed in red and black, with a smile that
showed what seemed to be a hundred teeth—take her mother’s hand in both
arms and drag the woman’s arm upward. Fine red lines of blood trickled down
from where the jester’s cold white fingers touched her mother’s skin.
    Gayle screamed.
    The tiny figures let out screams of their