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narrow door that hung open to reveal a set of steps leading upward. Back stairs, not at all uncommon in houses of this age and size. But with the luminous moonlight not extending itself up into that stairwell, there were only shadows up there.
    Fire.
    Michael frowned, nostrils flaring. He sniffed the air, and caught the scent again. Logs burning in a fireplace.
    He took a step toward the exit.
    Peppermint.
    Another, and he froze.
    Popcorn.
Fresh popcorn, with plenty of butter.
    A breeze came from somewhere else in the house, one of the cracked windows, he assumed. It caressed his face, and brought with it the smell of new-fallen snow. Yet with the next draft he was sure it was not that clean winter scent, but the smell of spring rain and flowers.
    Michael listed so badly to one side that he nearly fell over.
    It occurred to him that if someone had put something in his drink, he could be hallucinating. A finger of dread traced along his spine, and yet he also found the thought oddly comforting. It was, at least, an explanation.
    He took a deep breath, careful to inhale through his mouth to avoid any more strange aromas. Then he started for the door again, intent on getting out of there. Whoever lived in this fucked-up house, he was happy to leave them to it. A tiny voice in the back of his head reminded him that he had no way of knowing how to get out of the neighborhood, but he ignored it. He just wanted to be gone from here.
    His hand was on the knob. His eyelids fluttered and he thought he might black out again, or whatever it was that had been happening to him before. His fingers curled more tightly on the brass door handle, and he refused to let go. The feeling passed. He tugged the door open and was relieved to see the hallway beyond. A bit further down was the entrance into the dining room. On the far end he would emerge into the foyer, and the front door was waiting for him.
    Come find me.
    He blinked. The little girl—
Scooter, she said her name was Scooter
—had said those words. But now he'd heard them spoken again. Somewhere nearby. In the house.
    Come find me.
    Michael dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and glanced over at the narrow doorway, and the steps that rose up into darkness beyond.
    “Olly-olly-all-come-free!”
    The voice was distant, drifting down those stairs to him, but it made him stagger back a step, just the same. It was not in his head. It had not sprung from a bottle, like the cottony taste in his mouth and the way he had lost seconds here and there since entering the house.
    The voice had broken the silence, and now it was followed by a rapid scatter of footsteps upstairs. Children. Not just the one girl, but several of them. He could hear their laughter, a distant trilling like morning songbirds, like water over stones in the brook behind his childhood home.
    His hand came off the doorknob.
    He blinked, took one swaying step, and opened his eyes to find himself on the third step up that narrow, shadowed stairwell.
    Michael hesitated. His foot hovered, ready to descend, to retreat. But the laughter came again, from upstairs. In his mind he heard those words again.
Come find me.
Hadn't she seemed frightened then, when she spoke those words? Or, if not frightened, then at least very sad?
    She had. He knew she had.
    But now there was this sound, the giddy laughter of little girls.
    The house was a mystery. One that made his skin crawl with doubt and reluctance. Michael just wanted to be gone, but that did not keep his foot from moving up instead of down. One step. Then another. Passing up through the inky blackness of the back stairs until he emerged in a long second-story corridor, lined with rooms. Every door hung open. The moonlight spilled like mist from those open doors, illuminating the hall.
    It's a dream,
he thought with a smile of disbelief.
I've passed out somewhere. That's the only answer. I'm asleep.
    But the texture of the costume was rough on his skin. The boots were too