Justin kissed the tip of her nose and set his empty glass down on the hearth next to hers, then headed upstairs. Susan listened to his footsteps as he moved along the upstairs hall, then giggled when she heard him literally crash into the bed. Her amused giggle erupted into laughter when she heard him call down to her, “I’m all right!”

Sometime later, as Susan laid the final document on top of the fourth pile, she swallowed down the last of her water. Setting the empty glass back on the hearth, she crossed her legs Indian-style beneath herself and put her arms out in front of her. Stretching out the sore muscles of her back, she could almost touch the antique screen in front of the fireplace and facing the floor, with her head tucked between her arms, she was inches away from the glasses. While she leaned over, further stretching her aching back muscles, above her head in the wide fireplace mantel one of the heavy stones began to move. Lifting out of the mortar slightly, the flagstone rocked up and down as if wiggled by an unseen hand. As she rotated her head to relieve the stress in her shoulders, the stone broke free and dropped from the mantel. Just missing Susan’s head, it grazed her shoulder and landed on the two empty glasses, shattering them and showering crystal shrapnel all over the room. Surprised and then peppered with glass shards, Susan jumped up, her bare feet coming down on the broken glass which covered the floor.

She screamed in pain as fragments of glass embedded themselves into her feet, arms and face. Unable to stand because of the glass in the soles of her feet, she sat back down in the debris, crying as a few remaining fragments slipped over the edge of the hearth, raining down onto the wooden floor. Sitting there, rocking forward and backward slightly, she heard a faint rumbling in the distance, it sounded almost like a quiet roll of thunder. Within seconds the volume of the noise increased and the sound became more distinct until the deep ringing of maniacal, male laughter echoed, hauntingly, off the walls around her. The laughter became so loud it almost drowned out the sound of Justin’s footsteps as he rushed to her aide.

The laughter was just beginning to fade as he entered the room. Recognizing it as belonging to Archibald, Justin looked around for a source of the strange sound then saw Susan sitting amid a circle of sparkling rubble, and ran toward her without looking where he was going. He swore, harshly, when something sharp stabbed into his foot. He lifted his foot and saw a sliver of glass sticking out of his left heel; removing it he looked over at his wife and noticed that she was holding her hands over her face. Hobbling across the room, he called, “Susan, baby, are you hurt?”

When she looked up and moved her hands away from her face, Justin gasped in horror at the rivulets of blood and tears that were trickling down her cheeks. Squatting beside her, he quickly assessed the injuries to her face, hands and feet. Seeing the glass glistening in crimson drops appearing on the soles of her feet, he said, “Don’t move. I’ll take care of you.” Scoping her up in his arms, Justin carried her to the upstairs bathroom, limping when he placed too much weight on his left heel.