She left the axe in the hallway. Her scalp itched, and her clothes were scratchy from the dirt she’d collected in the tunnels. She hadn’t yet found a place to shower in her new home, but she couldn’t put it off any longer.

Margot turned right, moving through the living room, to access the hallway behind it. She opened the first few doors she passed: a sewing room, back from an era when homemade was cheaper than store bought, the machinery and fabric swatches now gathering dust. A formal dining room with high-backed chairs positioned around a dining table. And then a room with only clutter: tables and desks and chairs of different eras stacked around one another, expelled from their original rooms and relegated to this forgotten space.

She spent a moment staring into that room. The furniture would have been expensive at the time it was built: hand-carved wood, the chairs elaborately upholstered in florals and paisley and velvets. There were pieces of the home’s history in that room, if she only knew how to put them together.

Some of these pieces must be at least a hundred years old. She traced her fingertips across a nearby dining table. Its edges had been carved into a leaf-inspired design. Kant had said her family had lived there since first buying the land. Each new generation must have gone through the process of shuffling out old furniture to make way for newer styles, though these pieces had been deemed special enough to be kept.

She turned to leave the room, then stopped. There were scratches on the inside of the door.

Margot gently nudged the door so she could see them better. The wood had been stained dark, but its outer layer had been scraped off by hundreds of little scratch marks tearing up splinters of wood.

A quiet nausea ran through her.

Don’t overreact.

Her parents had owned at least one dog. Scratch marks weren’t exactly shocking in that context.

Except…

She lifted her hand to trace along the scores. They ran from her midchest to head height.

It would’ve been a big dog.

Margot left, firmly shutting the door behind her. She followed the hallway but didn’t try looking into any of the other rooms.

A staircase loomed ahead. She recognized it; this was the staircase at the rear of the house, closest to her parents’ bedroom. She climbed it again, and only slowed once she’d reached the landing.

She was fairly sure she remembered the halls around her. Ahead, the master bedroom door was closed. Her mind flashed to her memories of the space. Lying in the stripped bed. Staring up at the ceiling and at the dark, stained cracks above.

Margot shivered and forced herself to turn aside. She moved along the hallway and tried the first door she passed.