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The long walk home from St Patrick’s Cathedral in a driving rain was a revivifying tonic for Janice. The sharp spears of rain striking her face had a cleansing, therapeutic magic to them, and Janice held up her head to receive them. They were reality: cold, stinging, painful, shocking her into a full and sudden awareness of herself and the world around her - the real, present, only world there was in her particular speck of eternity.

Drenched, she arrived at the corner of Sixty-seventh Street and stood a moment gazing up at the massive stone and glass facade of Des Artistes, glistening wetly in the faltering autumn light. Bill’s fortress, she thought with a grim smile. Their bulwark of defence against the enemy without had been useless against the enemy within. Somehow, in planning the building, the artists had failed to provide against intruders from the spirit world. Garlic and wolfbane should have been mixed into the mortar.

She found Carole and Ivy playing checkers on the living-room floor. Ivy’s cheek felt cool against her own. Carole remained to finish the game, then picked up her needlepoint and went to the door, flashing Janice a high sign to accompany her.

‘He insists on seeing you tonight,’ Carole whispered in a kind of delight. ‘He said he knows that Bill is away, but that you and he gotta talk for Ivy’s sake.’ Her face twisted into a funny fright mask. ‘Gee, hon,’ she tremoloed, ‘why don’t you call the cops? Like Russ says, this guy’s bananas.’

Janice smiled wanly and said, ‘I may do just that if he keeps it up.’

‘If you need help, give me a yell. We’re having dinner with Russ’s brother, but we’ll be home by eleven.’

‘Thanks, Carole, for everything,’ Janice said, meaning it, but glad to see her friend leave.

Janice had failed to shop for food and had to scrounge together a supper for them out of odds and ends. She found a half-filled box of spaghetti in the cupboard and prepared it with butter and Parmesan cheese. They ate it with gusto at the dining-room table, along with canned Bartlett pears and glasses of milk. Afterwards they watched television until eight thirty, then went upstairs.

While Ivy sat up in bed, reading her newest Nancy Drew mystery, Janice went about preparing the room.

‘What’s that for?’ Ivy asked, referring to the large four-panel screen Janice had brought in from her own bedroom.

‘It’s for the window; there’s an icy draught coming through the edges of the panes. We’ll have to have them resealed.’

‘I don’t feel it.’

‘It’s there,’ Janice said, spreading the screen to its fullest extension and raising it above the radiator. For some minutes, the sheer bulk resisted all efforts to force it behind the radiator, causing Janice to swear softly and Ivy laughingly to admonish, ‘Watch your language, Mother; there are children present.’ But the screen finally found its way past the various pipes, and now a Chinese red and gold motif totally obscured the window.

‘Hey, that looks nice,’ Ivy said, surprised. ‘Can we keep it there?’

‘We’ll see,’ Janice said, as she packed layers of blankets around the offending radiator. ‘I don’t want a repeat of what happened last night,’ she explained, moving about the room, tidying up, but mainly pushing the bulkier pieces of furniture off into corners, out of harm’s way, and setting the stage for possible action.

At ten minutes past nine, after tucking Ivy in with Panda and kissing them both, Janice turned off the light and left the bedroom, closing the door behind her. She then walked into her own bedroom, opened her little phone book to the letter K, and placed it facedown next to the telephone. Her mind briefly reviewed all she had done, and only after having assured herself that she had forgotten nothing did she allow her head to seek the softness of her pillow. She would rest. Not sleep, she hoped. She would remain dressed, and keep the light on, and just rest, as she waited.

A sound woke her. She keened her ears, listening. She heard the rain, very softly, against the window. And even softer at first, the faint patter of feet - mincing, tiny steps, and the terrible twittering voice: ‘Daddydaddydaddyhothothothot—’ rising, fading, then rising again, louder: ‘Hothothothot!’

Janice shook the sleep from her eyes and looked at the clock. Ten five. She had dozed off after all.

The voice suddenly rose to a shriek, became chambered, ‘HOTHOTHOTHOTHOT!’ reverberating, grating across the corridor into Janice’s ears. She covered them with her hands and heard the rush of blood and the pounding of her own heart The telephone!

- Fists pounding, beating at - something!

Her hands shaking, Janice turned over the directory and sought ‘kaplan.’ Her fingers had trouble staying in the holes as she dialled.

- Scratching, ripping sounds - tearing at - what? ‘Dr Kaplan’s service, hold on, please—’ ‘Damn!’

Seconds passed, then a minute.

‘HOTHOTHOTHOTHOT!’ The screaming shook the house.

‘Dr Kaplan’s service, thank you for waiting—’

‘Dr Kaplan, please!’

‘Is it serious?’

‘Yes!’

- Pounding, tearing, beating— ‘Name?’

‘Janice Templeton.’

‘Phone number?’

‘555-1461.’

‘The doctor will call you shortly.’

‘Hurry, please, it’s an emergency!’

- Scraping, bruising, scratching, shouting—

Janice dropped the receiver on the cradle and pushed herself off the bed and made her way to the door…

‘HOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT!’ echoing, rebounding, filling the hallway with madness and terror, lashing out at Janice with shattering impact, rushing to meet her as she stumbled past the staircase and across the corridor to the bedroom door still closed as she had left it. She paused, panic growing in her, then pushed it open and stared into the sound-consumed darkness.

‘HOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT’ blasted into her face, pitifully sobbing out the words in choked, agonized, throat-rasping bursts!

Vague outlines appeared in the darkness as Janice’s terrified eyes sought to adjust. The spectre was at the window, flailing white sleeves and bandaged hands digging, scratching at the Chinese screen, prodded, impelled by the continual, unabating ‘HOTHOTHOT!’

‘Oh, God - the screen!’ Janice heard herself gasp and, reaching for the light switch, illuminated the room.

Her hands jerked up to her eyes. ‘No! Oh, God!’ she said, nearly voiceless, her eyes blurring with dizziness. ‘Oh, dear Mary, Mother of God, No!’ she cried, feeling a deep nausea rising within her.

For at the window stood her child, screaming, beating, tearing at the Chinese screen, ripping at the varnished and painted canvas with the nails of her hands, now bandageless and exposed, the scorched and blistered fingers bleeding from her superhuman efforts to tear through the barrier and reveal the thing she both craved and hated, desired and feared - the window, her symbol of hope and despair, of horror and salvation, the fires of hell, the doorway to heaven - her unattainable goal.

‘Ivy - dear Mary!’ Janice tried to say the names - to link them together in a cry of desperate appeal to the powers above, to seek the intercession of the Mother of Jesus in this her moment of severest agony - but her voice wouldn’t work, refused to obey her brain’s command, and all that emerged was a soft and abject sob.

‘Help me,’ she cried to herself. ‘Dearest Mary, help me to help my child!’

Her hands clenched and unclenched, the nails of her fingers biting deeply into the flesh of her palms, as she struggled to keep from fainting.

‘Dearest Mary, Mother of God,’ she whispered chokingly.

The telephone rang, barely audible beneath the sounds of hysteria surrounding her. She felt something that was dying inside herself flicker back to life, energize her numbed, inert body into action. Finding her legs, she turned and stumbled out of the room and headed for the telephone in her bedroom, where the bellowing screams followed her with increasing intensity.

‘Has the doctor reached you, Mrs Templeton?’ the woman’s voice asked.

What? No!’ Janice snapped back.

Well, he’s en route from the hospital and will call you the moment he gets home—’

‘HOTHOTHOTHOTHOT!’ The screaming voice suddenly grew stronger, and the patter of nuked feet emerged Into the hallway, running—

Janice froze. The door! She had left the bedroom door open!

There was a flicker of silence - a heartbeat’s suspension of all sound - followed by the awful noise of the small body tumbling down the staircase, descending to the floor below with a scream that coincided with Janice’s scream as she dropped the phone and plunged headlong into the hallway and up to the railing. Her hands clutched the fanciful balustrade to steady her weak and trembling body.

The child had landed in a light, crumpled ball of flesh and flannel and was just getting to her feet as Janice forced herself to peer over the railing. Miraculously, the fall seemed not to have injured her seriously, for she was up in a flash, scampering and twittering about the living-room, reviving the same plaintive diatribe: ‘Hothothothotdaddydaddydaddyhothothot—’ Driven by the same desperate need to escape the torments of the all-consuming flames that still burned hot and bright in the foreground of her unconscious, she rushed towards the long bank of windows overlooking the rain-soaked city and began making her fearful, fretting obeisances at them.

‘Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddyhothothothot!’

Janice descended the stairs, clinging to the railing, feeling her way down with her hands, unable to tear her eyes away from the frightening apparition below.

Ivy was now standing before the near window, in profile, whimpering in terror, her bleeding hands making undulating, praying-mantis motions towards the dreaded glass, seeking, yet repelled by its proximity. Descending closer to her, Janice could see that she had not escaped from her fall entirely unharmed. The left side of her face was badly bruised, and a thin line of blood trickled from her nose.

A sudden misstep. Janice fell down the remaining three steps, descending to the wooden floor and landing heavily on her hands and knees. The clatter and noise of the fall and the accompanying scream elicited no reaction whatever from the child, whose agonized and haunted eyes remained totally locked in the grip of her own terrible plight at the window. ‘Daddydaddydaddyhothothothot!’

Spears of pain shot up through Janice’s legs, drawing sobs from her lips, yet she did not seek to rise from her knees. -It was correct that she be on her knees, for wasn’t this the attitude of penance, of contrition and confession, and acts of reparation?

Forcing her body upright, so that her full weight might be brought to sustain itself on the points of her sore and aching knees, Janice heard the words come tumbling out of her in a torrent of passion. Clear, bell-like, plucked intact from the forgotten halls of childhood, her voice spoke out to the God of her one and true faith.

‘Oh, my God! I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love …’

‘HOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT—!’

The child’s voice rose to a shriek as she drew back from the window in horror and, spinning about, went stumbling across the room towards the far bank of windows, climbing desperately over chairs and other pieces of furniture as they got in her way.

The voice in Janice continued without interruption as she tracked across the room on raw and smarting knees in pursuit of her tormented daughter.

‘… Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen!’

‘Daddydaddydaddydaddyhothothot—’ She was on the sofa, seeking to stand on the soft and giving cushions, losing her balance, falling to the floor…

‘Lord, have mercy on us.

‘Christ, have mercy on us.

‘Lord, have mercy on us.

‘Christ, hear us.

‘Christ, graciously hear us.

‘God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy onus.

‘God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

‘God, the Holy Ghost…’

-Rising; whimpering; climbing back on the sofa; standing; swaying; falling…

‘Holy Mary, pray for us.

‘Holy Mother of God,

‘Holy Virgin of virgins,

‘Mother of Christ,

‘Mother of divine grace,

‘Mother most pure,

‘Mother most chaste…’

-Struggling to her feet; panting; weeping; climbing; falling; striking her head against the table edge; bleeding…

The telephone rang.

The voice in Janice stopped. A wondrous look came into her eyes. The doctor!

She clambered to her feet and fell forward on to the sofa, as her legs gave way beneath her. She reached across to the phone and snatched it up. A hum. A long, steady hum. Still the phone kept ringing. It kept ringing distantly. Humming and ringing at the same time. With Janice poised at the fulcrum of both sounds. Her mind could not take it in, could make no sense of it.

The house phone! It was the house phone that was ringing! In all the hysteria she had forgotten to hang up the receiver upstairs, and the doctor was contacting her through the house line.

‘DADDYDADDYDADDYHOTHOTHOTHOT!’ - Bruised; bleeding; climbing back onto the sofa; on her knees; swaying precariously to and fro in genuflection before the altar of her despair…

Janice rose, pulled the cocktail table out of harm’s way, and ploughed across the living-room and into the hall corridor, hands grasping at furniture and walls to keep her upright, and finally falling to her knees just within reach of the telephone. With a pained cry, she grabbed at the receiver and pulled it down upon her.

‘Doctor!’ she gasped.

Dominick’s voice answered. ‘Miz Templeton, there’s Mr Hoover down here in the lobby.’

Janice’s tearstained face blanched, stiffened, then quieted. Her stark eyes became impassive, while the house around her shook with the cries and bleatings of her one and only child. She had asked for God’s help, and He had answered.

‘Miz Templeton?’

‘Yes!’ she said inaudibly.

‘What’d you say, Miz Templeton?’

‘Yes, send him up!’ Janice cried, dropping the phone.