Penny awoke to shouting from below and opened her eyes on bright sunlight slanting down through her parted curtains. Glancing at her alarm clock, she saw it was almost noon.
“Penny, get up! You have a visitor.”
“I’m up,” Penny shouted. “Give me a minute!”
She rolled out of bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and reached for the clothes lying in a heap at the foot of her bed.
Before she could start to change though, she saw the mirror on her nightstand. She remembered the startled face of Tovar The Red staring up through it, and shivered.
Penny opened the top drawer of her nightstand, put the mirror inside, and after a moment’s hesitation, swept a stack of books over it before closing the drawer.
Penny let down the attic door, the ladder sliding smoothly down to the hallway below, a
