Here She Lies

together through a strange week.
    That evening, as the day waned through shades of lilac, burgundy and brown into a black country night outside, we all wore our matching psychedelic sweatshirts and danced to Tina Turner belting out a ballad about love-and-what’s-it-got-to-do-with-anything. A pot of rosemary beef stew simmering on the stove filled the kitchen with its rich fragrance. We were happy. After dinner I nursed Lexy in a rocking chair Julie had moved from the loft into the Yellow Room. Put my baby to bed, put myself to bed, and slept...
    Until my sleep-self was pulled unwillingly and in total confusion out of a deep well. That was how my dream-mind transformed itself from sleep to abrupt,panicky wakefulness. I was in a well attached to a rope that pulled me up up up up up and I did not want to go up, I wanted to stay asleep. But it was out of my control.
    Gradually as I awoke I became aware of a tremendous, awful, deafening sound. The alarm system: it had been triggered.
    Someone was in the house.

Chapter 4
    Lexy was screaming, though her screams had little impact against the shriek of the alarm. I had never heard anything like it. The sound was large and overwhelming and so shocking that I couldn’t think of what to do. I picked Lexy up and tried to mute her hearing by pressing her head between my chest and one hand. Holding her, I darted into the hallway; then, terrified, I went back into our room and locked the door. The panic and hysteria of the moment made it impossible to think. To know what to do. I threw open window after window, looking for a way out. Where was the maroon car? Either it was too dark out to see it or it was gone. Chilly air streamed into the room. The fourth window opened onto an abutment that Julie had earlier explained was original to the barn, tacked-on grain storage or something like that. I couldn’t remember. Looking down at the lower section of tar roof I could hardly see its edges in the country darkness. How would I know where to step? How could I take a baby out there?
    But I had to. Someone was in the house.
    I swung one leg out the window, straddling half in and half out, and was about to lift my other leg over — holding on to Lexy for dear life — when the alarm went off as suddenly as it had blasted on.
    The abrupt silence froze me. What did it mean? Outside my door, footsteps grew louder. I raised my other leg to swing it out the window so I’d be sitting, ready to jump down.
    My doorknob jiggled.
    I inched myself forward, ready. I felt turned on in a way I never had before, not in a good way but like a machine. I didn’t like it, being animated for pure action. And yet the urge to survive was irresistible.
    “Annie?” It was Julie’s voice. “Open up. It’s okay.”
    Movement, fear, urgency gelled. Coolness spread over my skin. The phone started ringing, just as Julie had said it would; if it was a false alarm you gave your password and the alarm company called off the police. Was that what this was: a false alarm?
    Coming back inside, I felt sick at what I had almost done. If I had made the small leap down, I might have dropped Lexy. Anything could have gone wrong.
    I opened the door and there was Julie in black-and-white cow-print pajamas, ear pressed to phone, telling someone the password: “Peanut Butter Jealous.” (A stuffed monkey we’d both loved and claimed and fought over as young girls; she had funnily mala-propped the name.) I bounced Lexy, calming her, while Julie recited information about herself and her house to prove that she was who she said she was. After the call she looked at me apologetically. “Sorry,A. I turned it off from the control pad in my bedroom. It flashed something about a battery in one of the kitchen windows.”
    “A battery?” Impossible! The epic battle I had just waged against fright could not have been caused by a battery — faulty, expired, whatever.
    I followed her downstairs into the dark kitchen. She flicked on the light and the room glowed, quiet and still, just as we had left it after dinner. The door and windows were closed. Nothing looked out of place. Julie inspected the window nearest the door and pronounced, “There’s no sensor magnet. It must have fallen off and triggered the alarm.”
    “Why would that happen?”
    “Beats me. I watched while they installed the system. The magnet’s about an inch long, stuck on with glue. It makes contact with the battery.”
    Just then a face appeared outside