Moth Balls

There, suffocating on his own silence, he stood breathlessly eyes closed waiting... and waiting...

The voices of the policemen, the voices of Ivy and Colleen--muffled or clear--kept Milo informed more or less as to the groups location in the rambling old house.  But it was impossible to make much sense of the fragments of conversation.  Occasionally there was conspiratorial laughter.  At moments he swore that they were whispering.  Why?  

Ivy seemed almost aggressive in her use of the officers names.  "I understand Officer Olson," she would say or "That sounds like an unsafe presumption, Officer Kriley."  And Officer Kriley's voice was unnaturally high with a rasping quality that inflated the mystery of these men.  Milo could not help himself.  Cautiously, he began to pivot his head.  He burrowed between the wool and leather until his left eye, black from dilation, opened like some terrible flower or a chrysalis crawling out of the shadows, a flutter of eye lashes, of brand new wings, before he could (finally) somehow take flight.