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froze.
    To the right was, she guessed, the living room. Guessing was all she could do. It wasn’t a room so much as a cave, a dwelling hewn from solid stone. Torches burned on the walls for light. Dolls and figurines sat in irregular niches chipped into the stone. An empty cauldron lay askew in a dip in the ground, soot and ash marking it a firepit. In the far corner, a drooling old woman slept in a perfectly modern La-Z-Boy recliner. Though the power cable clearly wasn’t plugged into anything, the chair’s massage feature hummed happily. Kristen noticed the woman’s hair and grimaced; it was a single, crusty, matted mass, laid over her shoulder like a blanket to gather in her lap. The woman’s hand rested on it as if it were a dog.
    Kristen’s eyes drifted along one of the walls. There was a door with a window; past the window, just more stone.
    I’ve gone absolutely batshit.
    She backed away from the living room, turning left to the kitchen. Hardwood floors were stained with soot from an enormous coal-fired stove, its stovepipe passing into the filthy wall behind it. A table laden with pots, pans, and bottles stood in front of a wooden icebox. Beside the icebox, another door—through its window, she saw grass and sunlight. Beautiful, brilliant sunlight. She rushed toward it, passing a sink that drained not to a sewer, but to a bucket beneath it. Grasping the door handle, she threw it open and ran out.
    Her feet hit hardwood. Kristen slid to a dazed stop. She’d run back into the kitchen. She hazarded a glance over her shoulder and saw the door again. It was closed. She turned, opened it, and stepped out.
    She stepped back into the kitchen.
    Footsteps sounded from the stone floor of the living room. Hyperventilating, Kristen’s panicked hands grasped the door handle a third time. She threw it open, but looked before she leapt. She saw beautiful green grass cut by a cobblestone path, all of which was enclosed by a white picket fence. She took a breath and walked through the doorway.
    Back in the kitchen. The old woman, hunchbacked with her matted hair worn like a bear’s pelt, glared at her. She spoke with a thick Slavic accent. “You use front door.”
    “Where am I?”
    “You are fine. You don’t need to be here anymore. Leave now.”
    “I’m trying!” Kristen swung an arm at the door. “I tried three times!”
    The old woman pointed at the hallway. “I said use front door. Go. Use.”
    “How? I saw that door. It goes into a wall!”
    “Jane bring me fools. Don’t tell fools who I am. I say you use the door. You don’t say no. You use door. Do you understand my words?”
    Kristen took deep breaths. Everything is weird. Just embrace it. Go with it.
    She nodded. “Yes. I understand. I’ll use the door. But can you tell me what this place is? Why did Jane bring me here?”
    The woman shrugged. “I live here. That is what it is. Why Jane bring you here? You were hurt. I owe her favor. I hate those things. Favors, you know? What a bother. How you got hurt? I don’t know. She no tell, I no ask. Nie mój cyrk . It’s good life. Now get out of my house.”
    Nie mój cyrk. What the hell did that mean?
    The woman pointed to the hallway more incessantly. “I said get out. Go.”
    Head down, Kristen scurried to the cave of a living room. She opened the front door. The stone remained. She glanced over her shoulder, and the woman gestured her forward. Kristen took a breath and stepped into solid rock—onto the bottom step of a concrete patio with a path leading to the road, a perfectly suburban street with a Chrysler sedan parked in front of the house. Kristen pulled her keys from her pocket. On her keyring was the key to a Chrysler. She rushed from the house, but allowed herself a single glance back. She saw a beautiful two-story home with an enormous front window, its blinds drawn back to reveal a bright white living room furnished with modern black leather and a wall-mounted plasma TV.
    “What the