“It was the same as always. I’m a kid again—“

“How old?”

“Ten, eleven, I don’t know. But I’m in our old house in Elm Haven. Sleeping in the upstairs room with my little brother, Lawrence. . .”

“Go on.”

“Well, Lawrence and I are talking, there’s a night light on, and Lawrence drops a comic book. He reaches down and. . . well, this hand comes out from under the bed and grabs him by the wrist. Pulls him down.”

“A pale hand, you said last time.”

“Yes. No. Not just pale, white. . . grub white. . . dead white.”

“What else about the hand. . . or is it hands, plural?”

“Just one hand at first. It grabs Lawrence by the wrist and pulls him off the bed before either one of us can react. The hand—the white hand—is weird, long fingers. . . I mean, way too long. . . eight or nine inches long. Spiderlike. Then I grab Lawrence by the legs. . .”

“He has already been pulled under the bed at this point?”

“Just his head and shoulders. He’s still screaming. That’s when I see both of the spidery white hands, pulling and cramming him under the bed.”

“And sleeves? Cuffs? Bare arms?”

“No. Just the white hands and blackness, but blackness darker than the dark under Lawrence’s bed. Like the sleeves of a black velvet robe, perhaps.”

“And you don’t succeed in saving your brother?”

“No, the hands pull him under and then he’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone. As if a hole has opened up in the wooden floor and the hands had pulled him in.”

“But your brother—in real life—is still alive and well.”

“Yes. Sure. He runs an insurance investigation agency in California.”

“Have you discussed this dream with him?”

“No. We don’t see each other that much. We talk occasionally on the phone.”

“But you’ve never mentioned the dream?”

“No. Lawrence. . . well, he’s a big, gruff guy sometimes, but he’s also sensitive. . . he doesn’t like talking about that summer. Or about his childhood, actually. He had a rough time as a teenager in Chicago and had sort of a nervous breakdown after he dropped out of college.”