She walked her bike around to the back of the building and rested it against a concrete wall facing a field of yellow dandelions. The flowers bloomed all the way to the upper edge of the enclosed highway everyone called the Lodge. It was strangely warm today, and Dune tied her hoodie around her waist before trying to figure out how to get into the small building. There was one door along the back, under a row of dusty windows that were too high for anyone to look inside.

Dune knocked again back here and then jiggled at the door knob. It was locked, but there was no padlock or chain. The door looked weak, the wood warped and swollen. She kicked at it a few times and felt the wood give a bit. Then she ran and smashed herself against it and the door exploded inwards. She crashed onto a floor spattered with old paint and felt a bruise begin on her shoulder. With her foot she pushed the door closed behind her and lay on her back for a minute, letting her eyes adjust to the shadows. The air felt thick.

She stood up and pulled herself together in the messy back hall of the store, regaining her balance and breath between the shelves of floor to ceiling hardware. There was no discernible order to all the things the shelves held up and the shelves themselves were under the agreements of no obvious gravity. Her gut was tense, her body wanted to get out of here. Person, rat, ghost—she was equally frightened of each option appearing in this hidden place. What if she got sick in here? Would anyone ever find her?

Just get what you need and go. She pushed herself to move, bringing her mind away from the image of herself wasting away in the darkness of this abandoned heap.

She slid through and into the soft light of the store, list in her head. Jars, lids, tongs, everything the book said she needed to process the food on her table at home.

Everything she touched had a coat of dust on it. Had the dust of her mother slipped in here? Dune wasn’t quite sure how dust worked, how it moved. Perhaps her mother was everywhere now. There was no space between thinking of her mother, tearing up, realizing she had tears on her face, moving on. This was normal now.

When she left the store, she exhaled, shaking off the creepiness. She pulled the door behind her, closing it unlocked, hoping she could use the store again if she needed, open to others getting what they needed too. She couldn’t get the box of mason jars to balance on her bike without holding it in place, so she walked the bike home.