I suddenly understood how the glass panes beside the hallway doors had come to be painted. I reached inside my parka, produced a bag of potato chips and a Snickers bar, and put them on the table without a word, sliding them down within Keeshiana's reach.

"It's okay, honey," her mother said, and the girl gingerly took the potato chips, pulled open the bag, and started eating them quickly, one by one.

I took advantage of the distraction to break the ice with her. "So, Keeshiana, you haven't been outside for a time?"

She looked a question at her mother, got a nod, came back to me. "No."

"You ever want to?"

She ate another chip, this time looking down at the table in front of her. "It's 'cause I'm bad, Momma says. That's why he wants me."

"I been prayin' every day," Lettie said. "Every night. She gettin' better."

I wasn't sure I understood, but I didn't like the sound of any of it. "How are you bad, Keeshiana? You don't seem bad to me."

"Momma says."

"No," Lettie said. "I don't say. But Satan, he callin' her."

"How does he do that? Lettie? Keeshiana?" I looked from one to the other. Finally settled on the mother. "Lettie. How long has it been since you've let her go outside?"

Her eyes went to her baby. She shook her head. "Since he got here."

"The devil? When was that?"

"I don't know exactly."

"A couple of weeks? A month?"

Lettie blinked against the onset of tears. "She go out and you can't fight him. He take her."

"He won't take her," I said. "I was just out there, and there was no sign of him."

At that moment, the wind gusted with a low shriek, and the kitchen window shook above us. "There's your sign," the mother said. "He laughin' at you, waitin' his chance."

"That was the wind, Lettie. Just the wind."

"No! He got you fooled."

"Momma," Keeshiana said. Now she was holding the Snickers bar. "Please."