But then a new illusion presented itself. Phil knew that the house was in the heart of the city, hemmed in by gigantic buildings on every side. There should have been tiers of lighted windows and, far overhead, a square of night sky. Instead there was only darkness, as if the pre-atomic house existed in a private night. Then headlights of a turning car in the street two levels above swept across the upper third of the house, and he saw that all around the house were surfaces painted a dull, non-reflecting black. The flat black "ceiling" could hardly be a foot above the top of the house's highest spire. "Some legal business," Juno explained, coming up beside him. "Jack wunct told me sumpin about it. Seems the original owners couldn't be rooted out, but the city seized the air-rights and built over them. Creepy place, looks as if it were about to rot apart--just right for those Akeleys." Then, more loudly, "Well, I said I was going to bust in on them, and I am. C'mon." Phil followed her across the yard to the ricketty steps leading to the porch. His hand groping for the rail touched peeling ancient paint. Halfway up a cat darted past him. For a moment he was swallowing his heart, then as the cat paused at the top he saw that it was splotched with some sort of dark and light colors--hardly Lucky. It loped around a corner of the porch. Following it, Phil and Juno found themselves facing a six-paneled door lit by a dingy globe, which Phil guessed must be an ancient tungsten-filament lamp. There was no sign of the cat, or indication of how it could have vanished, until Phil noticed a tiny and possibly swinging door cut in the bottom of the big one. Ignoring a cat-headed knocker, green with verdigris, Juno pounded on the door in a way that made Phil hunch his shoulders and duck his head, keeping an apprehensive eye on the ceiling. But the house didn't collapse. After a time a peephole opened above the knocker and a watery gray eye surveyed Juno. "I want to see that no-good husband of mine," she shouted, but it didn't seem her usual self-confident roar. "Now Juno, you're all upset," came the response in a voice Phil recognized as that of Sacheverell Akeley. "Your aura's all muddy; I can hardly see you through it." "Listen here," Juno bellowed, "you let me in or I'll bust your lousy house down." Phil thought that, even granting some lack of certainty in Juno, this was not a threat to be taken lightly, but it didn't faze Sacheverell. "No, Juno," he said firmly. "I can't let you in when your vibrations are like that, and when hate hormones are streaming off you. Later perhaps--then we may even be able to help you achieve inward tranquility--but not now." "But look," Juno complained in surprisingly docile tones, "I got a friend with me that's got business with you." She stepped aside. "What business?" Sacheverell asked skeptically. Phil looked straight at the oysterish eye and said, "The green cat."