Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. Crash!! Stomp, stomp. Laughter.

　　The sounds are echoey but loud enough to wake me up. My headache is pounding.

　　Cackling, merciless laughter.

　　And suddenly I think I might be sick. My chest is tight, my hands are shaking with a violence sufficient to make me clumsy. I snatch at my phone and promptly drop it, a dizzying state of hyperventilation similarly dropping me to my knees after it.

　　"911, what`s your emergency?"

　　"People in my house!" Comes the desperate gasp for both air and haste.

　　More laughing, a mocking cruelty in its tone. Followed by pounding on my bedroom door.

　　"Oh gosh, please help me!"

　　"Ma`am, what`s your address?"

　　"I-I`m-I live& Soward`s mansion."

　　"Soward`s mansion?"

　　"Yes, S-S-" I gulp back a rising scream, my hand clamping against my mouth.

　　Sssssoward`ssss mansion&. It hisses back, making fun of me, mocking me for being afraid of it. And I drop the phone, sending it clattering across the splintery wood. Bang, bang, bang, bang!! My door is used as a drum and then that laughter, a contradiction of shill and booming&.

　　I sink to the ground in an uncoordinated daze- a fearful, numbing daze- and collect my phone with trembling, fumbling fingers.

　　"Ma`am? Are you there? Hello? Are you still- no, she`s still connected! She`s just not responding. Hello?! Ma`am? Can you hear me? If you can hear me, we have officers close by. They will be there in just a few minutes. Hello? Ma`am?"

　　"I`m here," my voice is a ghost of a whisper, and the choking sensation in my throat will not be dislodged. "I`m here. Heavens, please&."

　　"Ma`am, the cops are... one minute out. I need you to breathe and talk to me. Are you hurt?"

　　"I`m& I`m not hurt."

　　"Can you-"

　　Lottieeeee&..

　　"AHHHH-HA, a-huh-huh-huh-" my hand doesn`t reach my mouth in time to stifle the cry and follow-up sobs.

　　"Ma`am!!"

　　"Please hurry!"

　　Silence. It lasts an eternity as time ticks by in agonizingly prolonged seconds.

　　The door creaks open, and it`s all I can do to not devolve into hysterics.

　　"Lottie? Oh my- Lottie, are you alright?!"

　　The fear gives way to convulsive sobbing, and I can do nothing to stop it. I just sit and cry as Officer Milton drops to one knee and sets a hand on my shoulder. He`s scanning me for injuries. He will find none. I`m only vaguely aware of Officer Boyd somewhere behind him, his defensive stance in the frame of the door a protective blanket shielding me from my terror and its perceived source. And I feel a certain gratitude for his unassuming steadiness.

　　I`m exhausted. The cleansing tears have washed me out, and now I`m left to grapple with the experiences of the night and feel foolish when I realize that the sounds were the product of my headache and not an intruder wishing me harm.

　　"Lottie, are you ready to tell us what happened here?" Milton`s quiet concern meets my eyes when I find the strength to look up.

　　"Tea first," I say, and Milton stands up, offering me an assist up behind him. I take it, and his gentle but firm grip makes up the difference for my continued trembling. I successfully find my feet and lead the way to the kitchen where I stoke and feed the waning coals and busy myself boiling water over the fresh flames in my stainless steel kettle. The officers are patient with my idiosyncrasies; eventually satisfied that there is no longer or never was an intruder, they each take a seat at the small kitchen table with mismatched chairs and accept equally mismatched mugs of herbal teas.

　　"Alright, Lottie," Milton says with a small sigh after sipping down an initial taste of chamomile, "from the top. What happened here this evening?"The author`s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

　　"I`m sorry, gentlemen. I`ve been& having headaches. I`m seeing a doctor about it sometime&. Um." I pull out my phone and check the calendar for my doctor`s appointment. "I`m seeing my doctor about it today actually."

　　"Headaches?" Milton prompts. "How does that connect with what happened tonight?"

　　"Sometimes I hear things with these headaches. I am pretty sure it`s just a migraine aura - you know, the sensory stuff that you can get with a migraine?" I look up and watch the officers exchange a furtive glance.

　　"Lottie, I don`t think migraine auras cause& hallucinations."

　　"My sister gets migraines," Boyd chimes in with his discordantly higher-than-expected voice. "She`s something of a home brewed expert on the subject. Don`t think auditory auras for migraines are a thing, but I could ask?"

　　"No. It`s alright. Like I said, I`m seeing my doctor today." But if not the migraines, then what is causing these& sounds? Hallucinations?! My fingers move to my temples as a sudden wave of panic strikes the center of my chest in a concussive wave of electric anxiety at the crest and a debilitating numbness at the trough as it spreads through my body.

　　"What sorts of things are you hearing?" Milton hazards.

　　"Usually just little noises- squeaking and creaking and bumping and sighing."

　　"Sighing?"

　　"Yeah. It`s like&. It sounds like the type of sigh one would make when they are just really tired. I sometimes imagine that it`s the house sighing- like she`s expressing her irritation or resignation."

　　Another furtive glance passes between my guests. "Is there anything else? Do you hear anything more human? Voices maybe?"

　　I decide not to tell them about the laughing and voices I heard tonight. But&. "I once thought I heard Thomas-" I cut myself off, biting my lower lip as I silence myself.

　　"Who`s Thomas?" Milton encourages me with a gentleness in both voice and gaze that makes the rest of my thought slip out of my mouth without me hardly choosing.

　　"My son."

　　"You have a son?!" Milton`s eyes widen.

　　"We don`t talk. He cut me and my husband out of his life a few years back."

　　"What happened? If you don`t mind my asking&."

　　"Fred didn`t take the news that Thomas was gay very well when Thomas `came out`. Fred& he was a good man, but he was a tough man, very conservative, very religious. Thomas came home planning to spend a summer looking for work after he graduated from Hestinia State University, and that`s when he told us. There was a fight, um.... Fred and Thomas both said horrible things to each other, and then& and then Thomas left. He completely cut us out of his life, moved in with his boyfriend we didn`t know about until that night, blocked our numbers and eventually changed his number&. At one point, I filed a missing person report. The cops found him pretty quickly and told me to not abuse public resources by putting them in the middle of a petty family squabble`. I haven`t heard from or even about Thomas since- not even when Fred died last year. I`m sure Thomas feels like I betrayed and abandoned him. I didn`t choose a side when he and Fred fought, and I lost the window of opportunity to reconcile. In truth, that wasn`t the first fight that Fred and Thomas had; it was just the last straw that broke the camel`s back." There is a pause while my eyes focus on the flames in the hearth that they had hitherto only been staring at blankly and unfocused.

　　"I`m sorry, Lottie. That`s tough."

　　"Yes, well&." A small pick-me-up smile forms on my face while I look back at Milton and Boyd. "Do either of you have children?"

　　"I`ve got two little boys at home," Milton nods. "Boyd`s got three little girls and a boy."

　　"Oh. That`s very nice. Thomas was an only child. It would have been nice to have had at least one more, but I had a hard enough time getting pregnant the first time. Thomas was a miracle baby."

　　Milton nods and then stretches out in a laid back sigh. "Well, Lottie, if you don`t mind the change in subject, you`ll remember the last time we were here?"

　　"The prostitute incident?"

　　"Mhm. Apparently it wasn`t Cindy`s` first time getting caught. She has a record dating back to when she was just fifteen. Petty stuff across a few different counties. Prostitution, shoplifting, uh& trespassing, driving without a license, underage drinking, misdemeanor drug possession, public disturbance&. You get the picture. The judge waived the fees in favor of a few weeks jail time followed by a six month parole checking in with the local halfway house three or four times a week to try and help her find a more legal occupation."

　　"Do you think that will honestly help her?"

　　"Well, it was better than fining her money she doesn`t have and then expecting her to not go back to `work`," Milton shrugs.

　　"What about her customer?"

　　"He actually had a spotless record. The judge fined him appropriately for illegal solicitation and sent him on his way."

　　"That`s interesting."

　　"Yeah. I thought so too," Milton says with a sleepy yawn. "Well, Lottie, if you`re all set, Boyd and I need to get back to our regular patrol duties."

　　"Yes, of course. Thank you."

　　"You are going to that doctor`s appointment today, right?"

　　"Yes," I say with a forced smile to ease his fussing.

　　"Let me know how it goes, ok?" he continues to fuss anyway. "You still have my number, right?"

　　"I do. I`ll let you know," I agree, and then wonder if promising such a thing is a good idea. "Why do you want to know?"

　　"Well," Milton shrugs with false casualness, "hallucinating isn`t a good thing, Lottie. I just want to make sure that you`re taken care of and that things get sorted out and resolved, you know? You were pretty shaken up when we got here tonight. I don`t want to see that happen to you again."

　　"Ah," I nod with an automatic social smile that covers a certain level of suspicion. "Well, hopefully I will have answers soon."

　　"Very good," Milton smiles much more genuinely and heads for the door, and Boyd gives me a nod of polite acknowledgement as he walks past me on their way to showing themselves out.

　　And then it`s just me and my thoughts and the house again.

　　Sigh&.

　　And I don`t know if it`s me or her who`s doing the sighing anymore.