The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

whipped against my face, moved in a moment from a drizzle
to a downpour. In seconds my dressing gown was soaked through. But in the light
I saw—or thought I saw—an opening in the hedgerow to my right, and I walked, for
I could no longer run, not any longer, as fast as I could, toward it, hoping it
was something real. My wet gown flapped in the gusting wind, and the sound of
the flapping cloth horrified me.
    I did not look up in the sky. I did not look behind
me.
    But I could see the far end of the field, and there
was indeed a space between the hedgerows. I had almost reached it when a voice
said,
    â€œI thought I told you to stay in your room. And now
I find you sneaking around like a drowned sailor.”
    I turned, looked behind me, saw nothing at all.
There was nobody there.
    Then I looked up.
    The thing that called itself Ursula Monkton hung in
the air, about twenty feet above me, and lightnings crawled and flickered in the
sky behind her. She was not flying. She was floating, weightless as a balloon,
although the sharp gusts of wind did not move her.
    Wind howled and whipped at my face. The distant
thunder roared and smaller thunders crackled and spat, and she spoke quietly,
but I could hear every word she said as distinctly as if she were whispering
into my ears.
    â€œOh, sweety-weety-pudding-and-pie, you are in so
much trouble.”
    She was smiling, the hugest, toothiest grin I had
ever seen on a human face, but she did not look amused.
    I had been running from her through the darkness
for, what, half an hour? An hour? I wished I had stayed on the lane and not
tried to cut across the fields. I would have been at the Hempstocks’ farm by
now. Instead, I was lost and I was trapped.
    Ursula Monkton came lower. Her pink blouse was open
and unbuttoned. She wore a white bra. Her midi skirt flapped in the wind,
revealing her calves. She did not appear to be wet, despite the storm. Her
clothes, her face, her hair, were perfectly dry.
    She was floating above me, now, and she reached out
her hands.
    Every move she made, everything she did, was
strobed by the tame lightnings that flickered and writhed about her. Her fingers
opened like flowers in a speeded-up film, and I knew that she was playing with
me, and I knew what she wanted me to do, and I hated myself for not standing my
ground, but I did what she wanted: I ran.
    I was a little thing that amused her. She was
playing, just as I had seen Monster, the big orange tomcat, play with a
mouse—letting it go, so that it would run, and then pouncing, and batting it
down with a paw. But the mouse still ran, and I had no choice, and I ran
too.
    I ran for the break in the hedge, as fast as I
could, stumbling and hurting and wet.
    Her voice was in my ears as I ran.
    â€œI told you I was going to lock you in the attic,
didn’t I? And I will. Your daddy likes me now. He’ll do whatever I say. Perhaps
from now on, every night, he’ll come up the ladder and let you out of the attic.
He’ll make you climb down from the attic. Down the ladder. And every night,
he’ll drown you in the bath, he’ll plunge you into the cold, cold water. I’ll
let him do it every night until it bores me, and then I’ll tell him not to bring
you back, to simply push you under the water until you stop moving and until
there’s nothing but darkness and water in your lungs. I’ll have him leave you in
the cold bath, and you’ll never move again. And every night I’ll kiss him and
kiss him . . .”
    I was through the gap in the hedgerow, and running
on soft grass.
    The crackle of the lightning, and a strange sharp,
metallic smell, were so close they made my skin prickle. Everything around me
got brighter and brighter, illuminated by the flickering blue-white light.
    â€œAnd when your daddy finally leaves you in the bath
for good, you’ll be happy,” whispered Ursula Monkton, and I imagined that I
could feel her lips brushing