"But there will be quite another dance for you with the tennis ball. My very last ball."

"What damned tennis ball?" Cried Elina.

Thomas didn't answer. He was dead.

Elina staggered into the bathroom and in the shower she began to cry inconsolably. Despite all the horror she had endured she was satisfied with herself. She knew she had done the only right thing. If Thomas had lived he would soon have found a new girlfriend and begun to hit her also. She had saved some unknown girl from a similar tragedy; she was a benefactress, not a murderer.

Suddenly, Elina felt extremely tired. She lay down to rest. It was impossible to sleep. Later on she would have to do a lot of housework including the removal of several litters of blood from the floor.

She went into the kitchen to drink a glass of milk and to look at her dead husband. But the corpse and all the blood had disappeared. Elina screamed with horror.

There was just a single tennis ball on the kitchen floor. Slowly the ball rolled towards her and began to bounce. The laws of physics seemed to have drowned in a sea of black magic.