I was afraid of the flight of stairs between the living room and the bedrooms because the hallway was always so dark. There were no windows. There was no light, unless the door to the bedrooms or living room was open, allowing a little light to spill out onto the landing.

At night in the hallway with the doors closed, it was so dark I couldn't see my fingers held directly in front of my eyes--but it wasn't just the darkness that scared me. Alongside the stairway, from the bottom step to about two-thirds of the way up, there was an empty space that led under the stairs, and it was that empty space that terrified me. I could never walk up that flight of stairs in total dark without imagining there was something there, something that hid under the stairs, and came out of that empty space, something that might leap at me, might grab me by the ankle and pull me down.

 the rest of us wild inside him can hurry to darkness he had told him