Lights flicker in the storage room a brief second before Twilight darkens. Twyla gasps, springing from the red Victorian settee. Despite everything she’s seen today, childhood fears persist in murky corners of the basement. She glances toward Grams’ trunk, expecting age-old demons to arise in the tenebrous space. Snow mounds blanket the windows from top to bottom, blocking daylight from the cellar. The whirr of electronics, the subtle kettle from the boiler, and sweep of water through every pipe halts across the silent home. Braced for rattles, clangs, or any sound, storm noise assures her the blizzard, not paranormal forces, snuffed the electricity. Through vertical slits of the sliding door, the basement emerges coal black.
“We’ve lost power.”
“Or your dark void sucked us in,” Jayson t
