The Dark Stairs R/I by Betsy Byars

and turned to face the crow.
    â€œIt’s open now. Come on, crow. Nice crow. See the open window?”
    She began to move toward the dresser. “You want to be outside, don’t you? You want to be out in the great big world, don’t you?”
    The crow watched her. Its head was cocked to one side. It paused, and then flapped toward the window. It stopped on the sill.
    â€œThat’s right,” Herculeah said. “Look at that great big wonderful world. Go on! Fly!”
    The crow’s head bobbed. Then its wings spread and flapped. Herculeah could feel the dusty wind from the sill.
    Then the crow lifted its wings, sailed out the window, and swooped across the street.
    Herculeah leaned out the window, bracing her elbows on the dusty sill.
    â€œBye,” she said.
    Her face grew thoughtful. The bird had to have gotten in somewhere—a chimney, maybe a door left open. She decided to look.
    She paused with her elbows on the sill, and she noticed three things:
    1. The crow had disappeared.
    2. The afternoon air felt wonderfully fresh as she inhaled.
    And
    3. The Moloch was on the sidewalk below, making his way steadily toward the alley ... and toward Dead Oaks and her.

21
    SOMEBODY’S UPSTAIRS
    Herculeah started for the bedroom door. She ran down the hall to the head of the stairs. She had gone down five steps when she heard the Moloch’s voice.
    â€œMrs. Jones?”
    He sounded as if he was at the door to the side porch. Herculeah paused with one hand on the banister. For all his slowness, he was already at the door!
    â€œMrs. Jones?”
    This time he sounded as if he was in the living room.
    Quietly Herculeah began to back up the five steps. She turned and glanced down the hall. All the doors on the hall were closed except the one to the front bedroom. She couldn’t risk opening a door.
    Herculeah went back inside. She didn’t close the door, because she feared the noise would betray her presence.
    She stepped quickly to the window. She looked out. The porch roof was there, and for a moment she considered climbing out on it.
    She paused and listened. The Moloch’s steps had stopped at the foot of the marble stairway. He was not coming up.
    â€œMrs. Jones?” he called again. There was something almost like dread in his voice now. “I know somebody’s up there.”
    Herculeah leaned against the marble windowsill and waited. Her eyes moved to a portrait over the old fire-place. She had not noticed it before.
    Like everything in the house, it was covered with a layer of dust, but Herculeah could make out the figures of a mother and her son, the child as tall as the mother.
    Herculeah moved closer, drawn by something she couldn’t explain. Even through the dust, she saw the features of the young boy. She drew in a breath. It was the Moloch.
    It wasn’t just the size of the boy, it was a certain furtive look in the eyes, the straight mouth that seemed never to have smiled, the hands that hung down as if too heavy to be of any real use.
    Herculeah was still staring up at the picture when she heard her mother’s voice in the hallway below.
    â€œMr. Crewell!”
    Herculeah started, and then sank against the bed with relief. Instantly she straightened. She didn’t want her mother to know she was here. She had to hide.
    The window—she would climb out the window. She stopped and shook her head. Her mother would come into the room and slam down the window, and Herculeah would be out on the roof for the rest of her life.
    She would have to find some other place. But she wanted to hear the conversation in the hallway below first.
    â€œI thought you were upstairs,” the Moloch said.
    â€œNo, I just arrived.”
    â€œSomebody’s upstairs.”
    â€œYou’re imagining things.”
    â€œSomebody’s upstairs.”
    â€œAre you talking about your father?”
    Silence.
    â€œI learned this morning,” her mother