Erin either did not notice these details or was unfazed by them. Their visit had been brief, ending once the ugly little man who dwelt in the cabin had begun slipping from pidgin English into some demi-language. It was akin to the glossolalia one hears from the faithful while in fervor, but it had apparently communicated to Erin whatever it was she’d been seeking beyond that door.

Their final visit had been to a half-built house on a development lot. Erin had wandered around to the rear of the structure, where an ominous iron door had blocked their way. She’d rapped on it three times, which had been enough to push the imposing barrier back from its jamb. Inside the house they’d found, amidst the must and melancholy, an incongruously cozy scene: a parlour table that had been set for two. A tea service of newly polished silver shone defiantly against the gloom. A pair of china cups had been set upon the tabletop, presumably just for them. The oolong they’d held had been fresh, steaming.

Erin had gone right to one of the waiting chairs and was about to partake of the tea when Kolkamitza smacked the cup from her fingers. It had chinked against the marble floor but did not shatter. Eventually he’d convinced Erin to leave. They’d argued for the rest of the journey home. Kolkamitza had pressed her to confess to setting up the tea party beforehand, but Erin had been vehement that she’d never so much as laid eyes on that house until the two of them had been swept there by fate.

When Kolkamitza had told her that he refused to ever again knock on unfamiliar doors, she’d scolded him, saying that all things had their protocol, and in matters such as this, those of the liminal, things must always be met out in threes. She’d felt that two had now been completed. The third and most important discovery was yet to come.

“We have one last call to make before the cycle is complete,” she’d told him. In less than a week she was dead. But her habit of knocking on strange doors lived on in Kolkamitza, who now found himself helplessly impelled to rap on closets, refrigerators, gates, crypts, cars, warehouse loading docks, houseboats, cupboards, hutches. He had yet to receive a proper response to his summons.

*