She tensed, thinking for a moment that it was a runaway horse somewhere outside in the darkness. Something else. Something indistinct seemed to be rushing out of the prairie night toward the old house. One of the boys coughed in the bedroom and she was momentarily reassured. But then she heard the vague noise again ; it seemed to be moving rapidly over the distant rooftops of town, then out across the three miles of intervening grasslands, until she finally distinguished the sound of human voices.
Ten minutes later, a noisy crowd was hurrying down the road toward the house. That´s when it happened. She was certain of it. Her back doornob turned and the door squeaked open. Pearl stood and faced the rooms behind her, listening.
Moments later, she heard another noise : someone moving in the kitchen. She took a sharp breath and pushed the boys´ door closed, then turned toward the hallway, her ears probing the shadows, her heart pounding. Nothing. No movement of the air. No sound. But someone was in her house.