Page 56 of The Delivery

They brace themselves. Ease forward to the nursery.

Shadows from the fallen tree limbs wag jerkily against baby blue walls.

The room and prism are empty.

Rebecca’s lungs burn with anticipation. She remembers to exhale.

Back into the hall.

A creak issues from the kitchen.

Mark moves more swiftly now, and she skips once to keep pace. She does not want to be out of his reach.

They come through the brief foyer and into the kitchen, and there Mr. Man is, standing before the open bunny cage, holding not-Bao-Bao in his arms.

The fallen fork of the tree twists outside the bay windows, a tentacle heaved up from the deep. A strobe of lightning flickers across Mr. Man’s bland-featured mask, patterning the wall behind him with fans of needles.

Rebecca’s words come as a hot hiss: “What did you do?”

Mr. Man strokes the rabbit. “Nothing you did not want me to take care of.”

“That’s not true,” Mark says. “That’s not true at all.”

“ You have not consulted yourselves, ” Mr. Man says, “ deeply enough. ”

His hand tightens on the rabbit’s scruff, tugging it upward. Rebecca braces herself for a snap or a crunch, but none comes.

“I want this to end,” Rebecca says. “We want this to end.”

“Listen,” Mark says, trying for calm and steady, “we don’t want this to turn violent. Let’s just get you back in the prism.”

Mr. Man stares at them with that blank face, those dead eyes. Beyond the bay windows, the branches of the fallen tree shudder in the breeze, a procession of the dead. Lightning shocks the night again, throwing his shadow gothically across the cornflower blue of the Pottery Barn couch and the rest of the ridiculous furnishings. The stainless steel facade of the microwave flashes, as does the titanium business card on the desk, the card that started this all.

His mouth shapes a crescent. It is a smile, though it does not look like a smile. The mouth says, “But our work is not done. I have not taken care of your mother yet.”

Ice water moves through Rebecca’s veins. She tries to take a breath but cannot. What else is on Mr. Man’s checklist? On her checklist?

“Mommy? Daddy?”

“Go back to your room, Maddy,” Mark says. “Right now.”

But Maddy does not listen. Holding Mr. Fox by the ears, she stands and observes Mr. Man.

“You killed Bao-Bao,” she says.

Mr. Man’s head cocks as he regards her. “Yes. I did.”

“You didn’t understand what to do.”

“No. I did not.”

“You don’t understand a lot,” Maddy says. “That’s okay. I sometimes don’t either.”

“We are trying,” Mark says through clenched teeth, “to get Mr. Man back into his prism.”

“He’s not safe right now, honey,” Rebecca says. “He’s not safe anymore.”

Maddy’s calm gaze moves from them across to Mr. Man and then back to them again. She gives her one-shouldered shrug.