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tight on his feet. And he could still taste the stout in his mouth.
    Cinnamon.
There was no breeze this time, but his nostrils were suddenly filled with the scent. Not just cinnamon, but sugar and baking apples. Apple pie, maybe. But layered with cinnamon.
    A floorboard creaked behind him, down in the kitchen. Michael glanced down; in the narrow outline of the door at the bottom of the steps, something shifted. He was looking at it dead on, but it moved like the sort of phantom that usually appeared only in peripheral vision. So quickly that it was little more than an afterimage.
    It left him only with the impression of silver, the color of moonlight on the surface of a lake at night. A ripple of silver. And a whisper. There had been a whisper, too. Not words. And not the wind. The whisper of something moving, pushing the air around it. Rustling down there in the kitchen, with not even a light sheen of dust to disturb as it passed.
    Michael stared for several seconds down those stairs, trying to get another glimpse of whatever he had seen.
    Another chorus of girlish laughter came to him from the back of the house. He looked down the hall.
    Something flashed in the moonlight, ducking into one of the rooms back there. A little rush of air escaped his lips, and he stared again, narrowing his gaze, trying to make sense of what his eyes were showing him. A ripple of silver. An afterimage that stayed on his eyelids when he closed them, as though he had looked at the sun too long.
    “That's enough,” he whispered, the words painfully simple.
    He turned his back on the giggles and the shifting moonlight and started toward the front of the house. Far along the hall, he could see the balustrade at the top of the grand staircase. Michael began to move more quickly, his pulse racing. His own breathing was too loud in his ears. All he wanted was to get the hell out of there before he blacked out again, before his feet could take him in a direction no sober man would go.
    Smells assaulted him now. Too many for him to separate them. It was as though he stumbled now through fairgrounds or a carnival, so overwhelming were the odors that filled the air. His stomach churned and bile burned up the back of his throat. His legs felt weak. A shudder went up his spine, and he knew if he turned and glanced back the way he had come he would see those silver ripples slipping from room to room, or gliding up the stairs in pursuit.
    A soft chant began up ahead, coming from one of those side doors.
    One, two, buckle your shoe.

Three, four, shut the door.

Five, six, pick up sticks.

Seven, eight, don't be late.

Nine, ten, do it again . . .
    He stood frozen in the hall, listening, his heart pounding so hard in its bone cage that his chest hurt.
    A little bit faster or your turn will end.
    The laughter of small children seemed to fill the hall, streaming from every room. It was joined by a rhythmic shuffle, the backbeat of a jump rope. The sound of footsteps echoed off the walls. Michael shifted his gaze from left to right, certain he would see a little girl run into the hall, or do a ballerina pirouette.
    The singsong chant faded. Once more he began to move, thinking only of leaving, of getting to the front stairs and the hell out of there. He reached an open door on the left. From within he heard a soft, lisping, baby-girl voice singing “I'm a Little Teapot.” Trembling, he paused an instant, then stepped over the threshold.
    A child's bedroom. Pale and bleached of life, washed in moonlight. No sign of any occupant at all, and now the voice he had heard was hushed, distant, as though it came from a closet, or from outside the window.
    “. . . Here is my handle, here is my spout . . .”
    Spiders of dread crept all over his body. He flinched, staring at that empty room. As he turned to withdraw, he noticed the scrawl. Graffiti snaked all over one wall of that bedroom, but these were no filthy limericks or spray-painted gang tags.
Miss Friel Cuts the