I stood on the landing and half expected a cold burst of wind or will to shove me back, but nothing of the sort greeted me, so I let myself inside. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Inside waited a hallway with a dozen or more doors standing ajar and a big open room down at the end. Sunlight gushed and fractured through the jagged shards of glass that lingered in the windows, and even though this place was as filled with forest and human garbage as the rest, it seemed bright and almost friendly in comparison to the rest of the places I’d checked. Best of all, it held the four tall filing cabinets up against the wall. A fifth had toppled to the floor and splayed its contents across the room, so I knew they were full of files and folders.

All I had to do was find my mother’s.

It took some time. The files were not so alphabetically arranged as they should have been, and they were organized according to some grouping system that I didn’t understand—possibly by age or by classroom standings. By the time I pulled Leslie’s up out of the others, the flood of natural light had dimmed into a late afternoon stream, or perhaps it had grown cloudy. It had certainly grown quiet, and in light of my earlier supernatural greeting, quiet couldn’t possibly be good. I climbed to my feet and stretched my stiff legs, wondering after the comforting hum of bugs and birds that had been my background noise all day.

I wiped at my sweaty neck and listened.

Still in the distance water leaked and tapped, and down on the road below a car zipped by. I didn’t hear the low, rhythmic pulse anymore, or the jagged breathing, but its absence wasn’t enough to set my mind at ease. I could tell myself it was my imagination, but deep down I knew better than that. I wasn’t welcome here. Whatever eyes were watching, they didn’t belong to my late mother.

Without opening it, I lifted the lightly stuffed folder.

Another engine roared down the winding road at the foot of the hill. This one slowed as it approached the gravel turnoff, and I thought I might have been discovered. But then the engine revved high again and left.

Back in the hallway I kicked aside the beer bottles and filthy, mildewed clothes and boxes that clogged the floor. Somewhere above I heard a muffled snap, and I froze, straining my ears. I heard it again, then again. It could have been a shutter flapping. It could have been a squirrel working on some nuts. I gripped the folder against my stomach and went back towards the front door.