It let into a bathroom. To her relief, a shower stood against the back wall. She left the door open as she found her room and retrieved her toiletries.

She hadn’t showered since her last night at a motel, and she leaned into the hot water. As she inhaled the steam and let the soap carry away a buildup of grime, she began to feel increasingly in control again. Not normal. She didn’t think it was possible to feel normal when her life had changed so enormously and over such a short time. But she felt less like there was a typhoon dragging her in its wake.

Normally, she would have spent more time on her hair: adding products, drying it, then adding more products. The whole process took more than an hour, though, and she was burning through daylight faster than she wanted. She’d have to live with frizzy hair for the next few days.

Fresh clothes felt good on clean skin. She traded her skirt for dark jeans and her shirt for a blouse. It was still probably too formal for the region, but she had to work with what she’d packed. She brushed her teeth, relishing the burst of mint, then tied her still-wet hair into a tight bun.

Back down the stairs, then through the front door again. She paused on the porch for a moment, staring at the aged growth of trees she’d emerged from. It was too far away to be certain, but she thought she could make out the nooses twisting there, a dark warning at the edges of her vision.

She left the porch and faced the house. Black, dull windows stared back down at her. The roof tiles, highlighted by the sun, seemed older and more lichen heavy than when she’d first arrived.

The previous day, Kant had used a stepladder to change the light. He’d said he was returning it to a shed. It couldn’t be far away.

I can get the answers to one mystery at least.

As long as she could find attic access somewhere in the house, Margot could get into the roof and search for the source of the stain she’d seen above her parents’ bed. Odds were that it was just water damage that had never been property patched up. But she needed to be sure.

Margot turned right and began to circle the house’s exterior. As she’d thought, it was a winding, wild kind of building. Extensions jutted out at unexpected places. New wings, new rooms, all added as the family grew, and then allowed to molder as the descendants dwindled down to just a few.