This house of desolation was built on ruined hope. Yet it remained defiant against the ravages of time. There are those who believe it began after the boy’s father passed away. The pearl white paint of the stucco walls started to decolorize and slowly fade. Cracks materialized like vast scars along the sides of the home. The tinting faded and coalesced into a ghastly hue of maize and amber. The windows splintered and decayed until debris fell like an ungodly rainfall onto the lawn. This was the residence left to Gloria Stephens and her boy. She did her best to shield the truth from her eighteen-month-old child but he was abnormally intelligent for a boy of his age. He could hold a lucid conversation with his mother on many topics and had taught himself to read. Gloria helped him as best she could by cleaning houses and doing minor paralegal work for her late husband’s friends. At first, she did it to buy him books and supplement her meager social security check but later on Gloria kept working because Elliott had begun to frighten her.

Gloria starts to dread the days when she has no work. She is at home and has left her son alone to play. Elliott is always at his best behavior whenever he is in what she refers to as the T.V. room. He has an unobstructed view of the street and she sees no harm in letting him keep his vigil. Every day, it saddens her to watch Elliott as he waits all alone for his dad to come home. Patrick Stephens had died while working as a radio engineer at Rockefeller Center. He was fifty-three when he passed away on the twenty-eighth of October, Nineteen-fifty-one. They had been married only four years. Gloria was forty-three and both she and Patrick had been told they could never have any children.

His Father called Elliott his miracle baby. He was born on May the Third, Nineteen-fifty and Patrick spent every free minute he had with his son. Weekends were outings

in Freeport where they fished for flounder in the azure waters of the Atlantic.



Gloria resents all the time that her husband is spending with Elliott. Those feelings turn to bitterness then to hatred after he dies. Every time she looks at her son, a part of her holds him responsible. Gloria senses that Elliott can feel her coldness. She-worries if it isn’t part of the reason- he seems driven to wait by the window each day for his father’s green Buick Special to pull into the driveway.

Gloria puts the saucepan into the sink and turns on the hot water to rinse it out. She drinks the remainder of the coffee in her cup then refills it from the fresh pot she has made while fixing Elliott’s breakfast. She thinks of Patrick while writing out her shopping list and suddenly the tears start to flow. Gloria wipes her eyes, places the food on a serving tray and sighs softly. The mornings have become almost a ritual. Black coffee and toast for her and strained peas and an applesauce for her finicky eater of a son.

The kitchen becomes a maelstrom before her eyes. The many counters and dark beige wall cabinets tower over her like a mountain. She leans up against the door of the walk-in pantry for support. Gloria feels the tray slipping and carefully balances it again. She steps through the foyer into the living room after composing herself. Her pink slippers sink into the rug with its rich Egyptian print. Gloria pauses by the maple-leaf coffee table and puts the tray down. She looks into its heavily polished surface. The reflection stares back, a sad mirror, and only the eyes seem alive. She has become a person stumbling under the weight of her own private cross.

Her attention is riveted on the current issue of Time by the table. The magazine has two stories Gloria wants to read. One is an article on Gussie Moran who had angered officials at Wimbledon by wearing lacy undergarments beneath her tennis outfit. The second story is on Margaret Truman who had just made her radio-acting debut with Jimmy Stewart. It is 1951, Texaco Star Theater is the most watched television program and U.S. engineers have just built UNIVAC1, the first commercial computer.

Gloria picks the tray up and heads to where her son waits in the T.V. room. He does not hear her when she enters. Elliott is staring out the window, lost somewhere inside his own private world. She tosses back her long grey hair, the weight of the tray bearing down on her.

"Elliott, please move away from there. Come and have something to eat." Gloria is weary, worn out by the emotional turmoil, tired of seeing her son keeping his eternal watch. She approaches him quietly, too exhausted to utter another word and draws the curtains shut. He spins around and turns toward her, the son the image of the father. The pupils of his eyes dilate until they are twin black orbs that glare with hatred. She finds herself stumbling backward as she tries to catch her breath. Slowly, she steps away from her boy and steadies herself. Gloria walks back to the kitchen. She breaks down and cries after the anteroom door closes behind her. Gloria opens up her last pack of Raleigh with trembling hands, promising herself that she’ll quit tomorrow.



She has almost found the courage to go back for him when a manic laugh emanates from behind the door. A horrific fear creeps up inside of her. It is nearly alive, the way it eats into her bones and seems to crawl deeply into her flesh. She holds onto the counter, unable to even move. The sands pass the hourglass. Aeons flee in mock silence. Gloria is drained, motionless. The circular yellow clock on the wall ticks insanely, the sound pounding inside her head until her entire body shakes with fear. She presses up against the doorframe and lets the hard wood dig into the small of her back. That feeling brings a sense of reality into the world that is collapsing all around her.

She steps quietly down the short hall and opens the door slightly. Elliott is sitting on a hassock that he has pushed over to the window. Gloria pulls the door shut and goes back to the kitchen. The ticking of the clock explodes one last time in her head. She looks up at the wall and sees the hands frozen forever in perpetuity. It is only a quarter until eight in the morning.



Elliott pulls the sheer curtains away from the window. Children are playing on a rusty metal swing set across the street, almost directly in line from where he sits. The home he gazes upon is small with brown siding and grey shingles. The swings are on the front lawn and as he looks, something burns within his soul. The longer he watches the worse the sensation becomes. Elliott falls to his knees, his small hands clutching the windowsill. "Father," the boy cried out in a silenced whisper.

The youngsters are laughing as they play and the sounds of their voices seem to echo all around. They swing higher and higher, the noise like a wave threatening to drown him. He closes his eyes and tries very hard to keep them shut.

Angels weep and ghosts laugh as Elliott tries in vain to call out again. In his young mind the devil’s will becomes a cacophony of discordant music. A symphony of evil engulfs his tortured soul. His screams hang soundlessly on the gallows as the devil reclaims his son. Elliott’s long wait is now over for his father has indeed come home.

He fixes his eyes on the moving swings so intensely that his vision blurs. The children outside vanish for a brief moment and he sees his human father start to make the turn into the driveway. Patrick’s eyes look over sadly from behind the wheel of the Buick. A moment later he is gone… forever. His true father taken away, Elliott’s face never wavers again as he looks through the window. He cries, as Patrick’s image fades and as he does, his tears burn at the devil’s will.

There isn’t any warning as the bolts on the swing set snap with a rending sound. One of the children lands safely on the lawn but another one falls down hard against the sidewalk. The screams and cries of the group brings a neighbor running from his home. He carries the injured child into his house. Elliott quietly laughs, as if the sound is something new to him. Then his laughter becomes louder until Gloria hears him and forgetting everything else, races in from the kitchen to see.



Not a breeze stirs within the stucco prison of their home. Five years have gone by, vanished as quickly as the downing of a single moon by an angry sun. Elliott is nearly seven years old and has become prone to horrible nightmares and prognostic dreams. At night, his screams echo like death itself, pounding on the walls for release. He calls them his visions and one morning after a very bad episode he tells Gloria about an accident.

Gloria sits next to him on the bed holding him near. He tells her about a family named Talbot. "I saw an accident, Mom. I saw a driver strike a man and a lady with his car and then just leave." He starts to cry and she rocks him gently in her arms.

"It’s okay, they’re only nightmares, they can’t hurt you," Gloria said. Two days later while she is reading the morning paper she spots an article about the hit and run accident. Afterwards, she spends entire nights curled up in a beanbag chair in her son’s bedroom. Now that he has come to depend on her, she also has come to rely on him.



Gloria’s only contact with the outside world are the frequent phone calls to her sister, Cathy. She phones her more often now that Elliott has begun school. She hopes that in the classroom, her son will make some friends. Gloria worries that he spends so much time by himself. On a crisp September morning she telephones her sister.

After a few moments of small talk, Gloria finally pulls the conversation to the subject she really wants to discuss. " I’m worried about Elliott," she confessed. "It’s been five years since Patrick died and he refuses to talk to me about it!" Cathy can hear her older sister begin to cry. As always, it is Gloria’s younger sister’s shoulder, she chooses to cry on. The twenty-seven-year-old woman tries to calm her older sister down.

"Glor, give him more time," Cathy said. "Children can take a long while to sort out their feelings. When he is ready, Elliott will talk with you, trust me on this."

"Thanks Cath," Gloria said. "That makes me feel a lot better. I’ll phone you later tonight." She hangs the phone up and steps over to the dresser.

"I miss you, Patrick Stephens," Gloria said aloud, as she sits down before the vanity. " I really miss you." The eyes that stare back at her in the mirror show a look of defiance. It is as if Gloria is able to see herself clearly for the first time in months. She picks up a silver and black metal hairbrush and brushes her hair. Time forms a cocoon of reverie and silence within the room. There aren’t any tears now as she remembers Patrick’s gift of the brush and hand mirror set. Fondly, she thinks back to that last Christmas together. Gloria sees it all inside the reflection. She recalls Patrick’s gift of the train tickets that will speed them on their way to their new life. It was their dream to travel America together before one day returning home and settling back down. They only needed to wait until he retired from NBC broadcasting. All of those hopes end with Patrick’s death and her unexpected pregnancy. The ticking of the clock reminds her she’d have to pick Elliott up from school soon. For a few minutes more, she wants to drift away into the silence of the old house. A sudden ringing of the phone disturbs the stillness. The mirror

slips from her hand and shatters on the hard wood floor like the dreams they once shared. She reaches for the receiver as she stares at the broken glass.

Her heart aches as she looks at all the fragments and cries. Each shard of glass is like a memory lost to her forever.

"Hello?" Gloria answers, in a sad, quiet voice.

"This is Mr. Franklyn, is Mrs. Stephens at home," the caller replies.

"This is she," Gloria responds.

"We need to talk with you before you pick your son up from school today!" the voice says curtly before hanging up. She is upset at the rudeness of the principal on the phone and angry with herself for crying over a mirror. The one thing Gloria clings to since Patrick’s death is her independence. Lately she feels that independence slipping away with an onslaught of emotions. Each day is a battle for control.

It is only a ten-minute drive to the school but she takes the long route. She parks her dinosaur of a car on Grand Avenue and walks around the corner to the entrance. Drawing near, she notices how faded the bricks have become on the old building. It does not help her nerves a bit to find the corridor to the principal’s office empty. Her footsteps echo loudly behind her as she marches by the secretary’s desk on her way to the office. The secretary thinks better of asking Gloria if she needs any help when she glares at her.

The second person who sees her coming is old Mr. Rhodes, the custodian, and he ducks into a maintenance closet when he sees the expression on her face.

She knocks on the door with its faded gold lettering and waits. He opens before she can knock a second time. Gloria brushes by him and enters his office without speaking.

"We’re glad that you could make it on such short notice, Mrs. Stephens," he said, as she walks by. Ignoring him completely, she looks out the window at the gym class running laps on the track.

"Have a seat," he said, cordially.

"No thanks, I’ll stand," Gloria snapped, "I won’t be here that long anyway."

{"I can see where he gets it."} Mr. Franklyn mumbles under his breath.

"Excuse me," she said, as she turns toward him.

"It’s about your son, Mrs. Stephens. He doesn’t mingle with the other children. He seems to be lacking in many social skills and is prone to displays of anger."

"Since when is not being sociable a crime?"Gloria asked, as she clutches her purse.

He takes off his glasses and places them down on his desk. Leaning back in his chair, he folds his arms across his chest. The clock on the wall creeps beyond three as they speak.

"It’s a lot more than that, Mrs. Stephens, a lot more!" His voice explodes with his temper. The office where she stands is cramped and Mr. Franklyn’s eyes seem to bore into hers as he speaks. Gloria tries to picture him as the kind grandfatherly type but fails. His pale flesh and wrinkled old face tell her he is a man who has spent too many years at the same job. She knows he’ll prove unyielding in his views and waits for him to make the first move in the game that is about to be played out. Her eyes keep drifting back to the bald spot, he so carefully combed over, as he lectures her.

"Maybe you should have a seat while I tell you what happened during your son’s first few weeks here at Ridgewood." He makes a hand gesture toward the corner of the room. Gloria sits down on the hard wood chair and stares across at the man.

"Please, do tell," she tells him, as the sarcasm drips from her voice like melting ice. He pretends not to notice as he returns her look, glare for glare.

"All of the children are required to stand in front of the student body and tell the class something about themselves," he begins saying.

"Your boy told Mrs. Peterson that if she wanted to know who he is she could read the damn name tag on his shirt!" His face turns beet-red as he talks but Gloria cannot help herself and bursts out laughing. Mr. Franklyn’s temper shoots from hot to livid when he sees her reaction.

"I would not be so quick to laugh, Mrs. Stephens, it’s not at all funny," he tells her, as he lets his arms drop to his sides. "When a child such as yours shows such open hostility toward his teachers and classmates, it invariably leads to problems, at both home and school!" He shakes his head. Gloria feels her face begin to flush and clutches the hard wood chair to control her temper. She holds on until her knuckles turn white. Silence pervades the tiny cubicle of an office until Gloria speaks up defiantly.

"He’s only a small child!" She spits out the words hardly concealing the contempt she is beginning to feel toward the man. The principal simply wrings his hands and continues, unruffled by her words and actions.

"There have been a number of unexplained accidents on the school grounds," he speaks sternly to her, as he pushes his chair away from his desk. Gloria stares at Mr. Franklyn from her chair with her jaw tightly clenched. Her hands are balled up into fists.

Gloria is furious. This is the second time she has had to defend her son from these accusations, at least, earlier, the police at been polite about it. She tries to calm down but her heart is racing. She knows her son had lied to the police. Gloria is afraid to find out why.

"I don’t know what to say, Gloria," he said, in a fatherly tone of voice. "All I know is an older boy was bothering your son and then there was an accident."

"What kind of accident?" Her voice carries an air of indifference that infuriates him.

Mr. Franklyn answers her in a hushed voice, as he toys with the papers on his desk.

"We don’t know how but a large dog, possibly a German shepherd, got onto the school grounds," he said. "It mauled the child who was troubling your son!"

"If you’re trying to make a point, make it!" Gloria spits the words out angrily. He sighs to himself as he tries to regain his self-restraint. Haltingly, he begins to speak again.

"There is a crossing guard, a Mrs. Rose Jenkins who taught at this school when I was a boy." His voice has become a harsh whisper as he speaks the words. He hangs his head down and lets his breath out from between clenched teeth.

"Go on," she said, impatiently. "I haven’t got all day." Mr. Franklyn looks around the room and recalls when he was a student at Ridgewood. He glances over at a bookcase that is chipped and worn by time. Mr. Franklyn pushes his chair even further from his desk and stands up. He walks by Gloria, to the bookcase, and leans up against its frame. Mr. Franklyn reaches across to the top shelf and removes a worn leather-bound copy of Moby Dick. The clock closes on four. Outside, the hallway is now empty.

"Mrs. Jenkins, Rose, gave this to me when I was a troubled student here." He hands the book to Gloria and sits back down. "Are you at all familiar with this work by Herman Melville?" He does not wait for her response. "It’s about a whaling expedition. The novel is an allegory really, about a person driven to face their own destiny. Think about that, Mrs. Stephens. Rose is dying, Gloria. She’s in the hospital in critical condition. While everyone else was running away when the animal attacked the student, Rose didn’t. She ran over from the crossing station and got between that animal and the boy."

"I don’t understand," Gloria said, as she looked away from him. "What does any of this have to do with my son?"

"Before Rose lost consciousness, she told the E.M.T. medic she had seen your boy with this animal before the attack. She said they were walking by the fence that protects the school and I believed her story, even if no one else does. I really love that old woman." Mr. Franklyn stops speaking long enough to dab at his eyes with a handkerchief he procures from his vest pocket.

"She must have been mistaken, " Gloria said, adamantly.

He stands up so quickly that his chair falls over with a loud crash. Mr. Franklyn’s eyes are wide with disbelief. Gloria pushes herself back until her seat is leaning against the wall. Mr. Franklyn storms toward her, lumbering like a rusty old tank.

"We found your boy three blocks from the school just wandering by himself," he screamed. "Your son couldn’t explain how he got there. What’s worse of all is, he denied everything!" He has turned a deep shade of scarlet as he towers over her.

"How’s the child who was injured?" Gloria asked, as doubt floods her mind.

"The boy’s name is Benjamin Peters and he’s dead! I’m sorry, Mrs. Stephens, but I don’t want your son back at our school. The other children are all terrified of him." Gloria’s mouth is dry from tension. She lets her breath out and looks at the principal.

"My son is the kindest, most gentle soul you could ever know and I refuse to believe that he is involved with this." The principal turns away from her and walks over to his desk. He sits across from her looking into her eyes. They are moist, he knows she is upset by all of this, but there is something else, a look of fear. She is afraid, terrified and he knows it isn’t because of him. He picks up his copy of Moby Dick from the desk where Gloria had placed it and thumbs through the pages.

"I know that the police have already spoken to you. That’s not why I asked you to come here today. I’m sorry that I lost my temper and yelled because I want to try and help you. You’re terrified of him, aren’t you, Mrs. Stephens?" He walks over and places his hand on her shoulder. Gloria puts her hand on his and bursts into tears.

"He’s my son, I’m supposed to love him but God help me, he frightens me!" She gets up and walks over to the window and stares out. "He’s not even seven years old yet and he’s read almost all of the books at the local library. He has these dreams at night, these terrible dreams! Elliott sees things, Mr. Franklyn, he sees things and then they happen! I thought we were getting closer, that these dreams were somehow bringing us together. When he cries at night and I hold him, inside of me, there is this terrible fear. I want to love him, to protect him but I can’t anymore! I just can’t!"

The years that melt like ice against time, nature herself all rage war against the house at 94 Dover Street. It is a home set apart in the center of a block with a dying vacant lot for a neighbor. Silently people curse and fear its presence. A sad lot this broken home with bricks in decay and hope only a withered rose. Perhaps if life were different some might have heard the cries of a wolf as it bayed forlornly.

Gloria hardly notices the changing colors of the trees as she drives along Lakeview Avenue toward home. She is thinking of the principal. Gloria had marched into his office to wage war but instead she had broken down and cried. In place of an enemy, she has found a friend. He promised to get psychological help for her son as soon as possible.

Elliott had done what she told him to do. He had asked old Mr. Rhodes to phone for a taxi when she wasn’t there to pick him up. As she turns west onto Dover, she spins the radio dial to WGBB and "Secret Love" by Doris Day begins playing. She sings along until her house comes into view and finishes the tune off-key in the driveway. Gloria steps out of the Chrysler and walks over to the cement walkway that leads to the front of the house. She is careful to avoid the broken and chipped bricks as she fits her key into the lock of the door. It gives way with a low shudder as it pushes inward. She enters her home and stands in the small alcove before the inner door. When Gloria touches the doorknob it is freezing cold. She moves over to the window that looks out onto Dover and stares at the Maple tree directly across the street. The inner door, with its white-latticed curtains is wide open when she turns around. She looks into the open maw of her home. The lights come on and begin to flicker wildly in the afternoon’s sudden gloom. She enters her home on unsteady legs. Gloria forces herself to climb a few feet of the landing until she hears voices upstairs. She recognizes only one of those speaking, her son. Gloria is certain the other voice is a man’s. She prays silently to God that Elliott hasn’t let anyone into the house. Terror makes a feast of her hollow bravery. She clings to the worn banister for support. The few steps that remain seem to defy her to cross them. Her heart pounds in her chest "Mesphisto," the boy says loudly. She runs up the stairs to her son’s room but he flings open the door before she can enter.

"Where were you Mom?" Elliott asked. " I was worried." Shadows play on the wall behind him like spiders in a web. She looks at her six and a half year old son standing there and suddenly sees a stranger. Terror returns to toy with her.

"Elliott, please tell me the truth. I thought I just heard a man’s voice, was anyone here while I was away?"

"No Mom. I’ve been here all alone. I was playing with dad’s old radio set."

{"The radio," Gloria thought. "That’s what I heard."} Gloria bends down and holds him. "I love you Elliott, you know that, don’t you," she asks quietly, in a trembling voice.



Months passed by, months that saw the bond that had developed between mother and son begin to unravel. In her heart she wanted to believe her son. The police had visited her simply as a matter of protocol before she had even spoken to Mr. Franklyn. They were of the theory that it was simply mass hysteria following the brutal attack. The police had accepted her son’s word that he wasn’t involved. Why couldn’t she? He was her son and she loved him but there is something about his eyes, something that she fears. It is a look that could freeze a person’s soul and fill a heart with dread. They were the eyes of a child who had no soul, whose only redemption came at the side of a beast. They were the eyes of both hellfire and damnation.

On an April night, after a long talk about school, she reminds Elliott of her movie date with her younger sister. "You be sure and behave for the babysitter while I’m gone," Gloria says, before kissing him goodbye. She stands outside his room and is staring at the dim beige wall when she hears the doorbell. Gloria turns around and heads down the stairs. She opens the front door and finds the babysitter waiting, schoolbooks in hand. "Hi Susie, thanks for coming on such short notice," Gloria says, as she toys with her wedding band. "Cathy just got it into her head that I needed a night out."

"No problem, Mrs. Stephens," Susie answered. Gloria looks down with a bit of envy at the petite young blond with the blue eyes and ponytail.

"We’ll be back home around eleven-thirty or so. Help yourself to whatever you want in the fridge."

Susie’s boyfriend arrives not long after Gloria has gone. At seventeen, Peter is a year older than she and captain of the senior football team. They look like a thousand other teenage couples in fifty’s America as they sit together on the sofa. Peter reaches over and picks the TV. Guide up from the end table. He begins flipping through it until he comes to Friday night. "Let’s see, at eight ’o’ clock we’ve got, Adventures of Jim Bowie on ABC, Trackdown on CBS and Court of Last Resort on NBC."

"It’s up to you, whatever you want to watch is fine by me." He puts the Guide down and sits closer to her on the sofa. Peter leans over and kisses her. Susie pulls away from him. "Hands off Peter we’re not even going steady yet." She flings her long ponytail back. He picks the magazine up, throws it at the end table and misses. Peter walks over and turns the television on. "Let’s just watch Jim Bowie," she said, sweetly. Before sitting back down, he turns the volume all of the way up. "Lower it a bit. You’ll wake the kid."

"Relax, kids can sleep through almost anything," he responded.

Voices arose from the stillness of ash and within that nothingness the television seemed almost quiet.

"Hey, did you hear something coming from upstairs, like a man talking?" Peter asked.

She never answered. The lights all go out and the house plunges into a stillness as quiet as death. A raven begins to circle Dover Street, watching. It continues to fly until it spots the home it is seeking. Its eyes glow fiercely in the dark.

Up one short flight of stairs, Elliott has been all but forgotten by the frightened teenagers. Using charcoal taken from the outside grill Elliott draws the sign of the pentagram on his bedroom floor. He carefully strikes a match and lights three candles, placing each on a point of the star. The child begins to chant: "Mesphisto, you who reign by the charred pits of hell, grant me heed." Downstairs, the television suddenly erupts back to life flooding the tiny room with sound. Susie screamed! Peter gets up from the sofa and reaches into the back pocket of his jeans. He pulls out his Boy Scout knife and flips the blade open. "Don’t worry. I’ll protect you!" Peter walks through the room holding the knife out in front of him like he’s seen in a dozen movies. When he reaches the staircase the voices on the second floor become clearer and he feels his knees growing weak. He turns around to go back and sees Susie. Peter swallows hard and steps onto the first step of the stairs. Before he can let go, the knife burns his hand until he can’t hold on any longer. "Look at my hand, Susie, look at my hand," he screamed, as he held it up for her to see. The palm of his hand is burnt and covered with blisters. Susie turns pale and Peter reaches over and holds her.

"Let’s just wait for Mrs. Stevens to get home, she’ll know what to do," she whispered in a shaken voice.

The devil watches the scene through the eyes of a raven that is perched on the windowsill.

In the boy’s bedroom the candles continue to weave their spell. The light casts eerie shadows that dance across the wall in bizarre patterns. Elliott speaks his incantation and the gloom swallows the light and casts darkness. Somewhere far away an angel weeps. The boy rises up from the pitch he has created. "Mesphisto, ruler of shadow, hear my plea," Elliott beckons, "I wish to roam tonight with my wolf-brother, Mesphisto, father of death, master of decadence, answer me!" The boy closes his eyes as the room fills with blackish blue-grey smoke. The candles flicker and die as an unholy wind sweeps the room. The child and the great beast are gone.



The silence is a poised sword broken by the baying of a wolf. Elliott strokes the coarse fur of his guardian. He blinks his eyes and looks around as he tries to find his baring. The child strides around the huge animal until they stand eye to eye. Together they roam the cavern of night under starless skies. The wolf is his protector, his brother, and it has led him to Powell Street and the residence of Mr. Franklyn. The home is nestled in solitude and darkness with a broken gate on a short chain-link fence. A crooked sign reading: ‘THE FRANKLYNS’ sets it apart from the other houses on the block. They move in stealth toward the backyard. Reaching the porch, the door opens without a whisper to the boy’s touch. The beast forces its huge bulk through the open doorway. {"Wait outside for me, my child, by the apple tree in the yard but do not fear, I will not abandon you," } the voice inside Elliott’s mind spoke. The wolf moves through the house as a slight breeze blows in. It sniffs the air and finds the scent of its prey. Like the great predator it was created to resemble, it moves as a ghost past each door. Entering the main room, its tail brushes up against an end table and a picture frame falls over. It drops slowly as if it were hung on a wall of eternity but finally