EXCERPT:

The last three stairs of the uppermost flight seemed to swallow him—the first, his feet; the second, his legs up to the calf; the topmost, his body, crotch-high.  He was wading in darkness now, its fluidity a heavy, palpable thing.  Its strange waters sucked at his clothes, at him, hungry for what had been denied for so long—nineteen years.  "Jenna," he whispered, the words falling involuntarily.  "Jenna."