Rachel was shaken from a dead sleep by the alarming sound of shattering glass. She fumbled in the darkness for her phone. The screen flashed 3:28 am and then the battery died. The air felt electric. Dry, with a fluctuating pressure. Still the terrible noise of breaking glass was loud and reverberating from above. From Aubrey’s room. A window? A mirror? She pulled on her dressing gown and ran out onto the landing, groping the wall for the panel to the service stair.
Her sight refused to adjust to the dark, so she searched for the first step with her bare foot. There was no handrail, so she pressed her palms to the wall on either side, treading slowly and carefully up through the pitch black, stairs creaking. She closed her eyes, her other senses somehow more attuned. Twenty steps up and no
