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I couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary

Apparently, neither did she Yet when she spoke again, she did not relax Her thin hands were locked clawlike on the cordial glass "I couldn’t figure how the thing got inside, into the house December wasn’t overly warm that year No s or doors were open"

"You didn’t hear it enter the roo noise with the cookie sheets, theon the table a minute or two, anyway, because by the tierine"

Her gaze swept the kitchen, as though from the corner of her eye she had seen purposefulher nerves with brandy once ht on the kitchen table, of all places"

Gri hand across the polished pine, as though a few of the creature’s hairsto the table four years after the incident

"What did you do?" I pressed

"I edged around the kitchen to the back door, opened it, hoping the erine, feeling pretty couessed

"Yeah It looked at the open door, then atnoise"

"I swear I’ve seen dogs laugh now and then Monkeys probably do, too"

Angela shook her head "Can’t re what their lives were like…they didn’t have h spirits"

She looked up uneasily at the ceiling, on which three s eyes of an apparition: iing her to continue, I said, "It wouldn’t go outside"

Instead of responding, she rose from her chair, stepped to the back door, and tested the dead bolt to be sure it was still engaged

"Angela?"

Hushing me, she pulled aside the curtain to peer at the patio and thecaution and only an inch, as if she expected to discover a hideous face pressed to the far side of the pane, gazing in at her

My cordial glass was empty I picked up the bottle, hesitated, and then put it doithout pouring ela turned away froh, Chris It was this frightening sound I could never adequately describe to you It was an evil…an evil little cackle, a vicious edge to it Oh, yes, I knohat you’re thinking--this was just an aniood or evil Maybe mean but not vicious, because animals can be bad-tempered, sure, but not consciouslyyou, this one was h was the coldest sound I’ve ever heard, the coldest and the ugliest--and evil"

"I’ to her chair from the door, she lass in the s above the sink was covered by the curtains, but she plucked at those panels of yellow fabric toeyes

Turning to stare at the table as though the uring I’d shoo the thing onto the floor and then toward the door I , just brushed at it You know?"

"Sure"

"But it wasn’t intie Thren the half-eaten tangerine and grabbed the brooo, it started to cliht towardSo fast Teeth bared and screeching, spitting, coo of the broom, and the monkey fell to the floor with it, and I backed up until I buerator again The muffled clink of bottles caht in front of me It knocked the broom aside Chris, it was so furious Fury out of proportion to anything that had happened I hadn’t hurt it, hadn’t even touched it with the broo to take any crap from me"

"You said rhesuses are basically peaceable"

"Not this one Lips skinned back fro atup and down, tearing at the air, glaring atthe floor with its fists…"

Both of her sweater sleeves had partly unrolled, and she drew her hands into theht This memory monkey was so vivid that apparently she half expected it to fling itself at her right here, right now, and bite off the tips of her fingers

"It was like a troll," she said, "a gre out of a storybook Those dark-yellow eyes"

I could al

"And then suddenly, it leaps up the cabinets, onto the counter near ht there"--she pointed--"beside the refrigerator, inches from me, at eye level when I turn my head It hisses at erines That’s how close we are I knew--"

She interrupted herself to listen to the house again She turned her head to the left to look toward the open door to the unlighted dining rooious And because of what had happened toin my chair, I cocked my head to allow any sinister sound to fall into the upturned cup of ht shi silently at the s

After a while Angela said, "Its breath serines It hissed and hissed I knew it could kill h it was only a ht When it had been on the floor, maybe I could have drop-kicked the little son of a bitch, but noas right in htened she had been A seagull, protecting its nest on a seaside bluff, diving repeatedly out of the night sky with angry shrieks and a hard burrrr of wings, pecking at your head and snaring strands of hair, is a fraction the weight of the

"I considered running for the open door," she said, "but I was afraid I would erator Eye to eye with the hateful thing After a while, when it was sure I was intimidated, it jumped off the counter, shot across the kitchen, pushed the back door shut, cliain, and picked up the unfinished tangerine"

I poured another shot of apricot brandy for myself after all

"So I reached for the handle of this drawer here beside the fridge," she continued "There’s a tray of knives in it"