It was terrifying.

She was fairly sure she’d feel that emotion even more acutely once she’d properly woken. At that moment, it was all happening in a slow haze.

Margot made coffee and cooled it with tap water so that she could drink it faster. The television’s volume was low, but it continued to hiss in the living room. She sluggishly crossed the hallway again to switch it off, then gently slid the tape out of the player and tucked it into one of the empty sleeves.

The label was still visible. Margot’s Tape. She placed it on top of the box, then stepped back, examining the room with a more critical eye now that it was daylight.

The television had been turned on. And she still didn’t know how or by who.

It could have been a power surge. A glitch. The tape might have already been in the player, waiting to be played and spat out.

She felt like she was building excuses for herself. Struggling to make this new life work, to justify her decision, to reassure herself that everything was fine.

But she hadn’t seen any other trace of someone in her home the night before. That didn’t mean she’d definitely been alone, but it left room for doubt.

Maybe she’d jumped in too fast in quitting her job.

The towering statue of nature and metal loomed against the wall behind her, its deer skull’s empty eyes boring into her. Margot placed her coffee on a dusty side table and picked up the effigy’s cloth. She refused to make eye contact with it as she threw the fabric over it, smothering it.

She could make good use of the day, she decided. Kant had said he’d be leaving early, before dawn, so she wouldn’t have a chance to ask him questions until the following day. Still, she could start something that was very overdue: an exploration of the house and the lands.

The coffee smarted her throat as she drank it, but it felt good. She’d never actually gotten the meal she’d come downstairs for the previous night, so she made up for it then, cooking toast and eggs and making a bowl of cereal.

As she washed up, she flipped her phone back over to check the time. After ten. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept in that late. It was making up for all of those other days of short sleep, she supposed.

The kitchen window overlooked her car and, beyond that, the grassy slope down toward the trees. She stared through it as she dried the plates, enjoying the way the light moved over the scene. Then her eyes flicked toward one of the nearer clumps of trees. Something seemed to move inside.