She wasn’t certain what was causing the strange fogginess in her mind—the suffocating heat, or the pills the doctor had given her the day before and insisted she keep taking through today. She had awakened twice during the night, each time with the hideous specter of Mary-Beth hanging in the darkness, empty eye sockets staring accusingly at her. It had taken all of Julie’s willpower to keep from screaming out loud, and the second time it happened, just before dawn, she wanted to go down the hall to her aunt’s room. But she had decided it was a childish urge, and forced herself to stay where she was, finally falling asleep again only when the gray light of the rising sun washed the last remnants of the vision of Mary-Beth from the dark screen of the night. Now she lay in the damp heat of the morning, a sticky film of perspiration covering her body. Outside she could hear a mockingbird singing, and every now and then there were footsteps in the hall. Her father had come in earlier, and her aunt, but neither of them had stayed more than a couple of minutes, telling her she should go back to sleep.
