Touching the visor with gloved fingers, she thinks of Annette again, or maybe it’s that she’s never stopped thinking of Annette and Gary, two horrible mysteries, as if the two had somehow raised her in the new world, the untrustworthy father and the mad mother who, together, birthed the overly protective, ever-on-edge Malorie of today.

“If anybody’s in here, you’re gonna get stabbed.”

But nobody’s in here. She can tell. And she’s done a thorough sweep of the bunks, above, below, and between them.

She exits Cabin Nine and takes the rope to the lodge. There are many rooms in the lodge, including the kitchen and a basement, where much of the salvation for the past ten years has come from.

Sliding the fingers of her left hand along the rope, the knife held tight in her right, she tries to remember if she was touched when the fold was pulled an inch from her face on the river. And if she was…if something brushed against the bridge of her nose…what was it?

And who?

The walk to the lodge is uphill, but Malorie is in good shape. The best shape she’s ever been in. She and her sister, Shannon, were never much for sports, despite Mom and Dad encouraging them to try. The girls would’ve rather walked around town than throw a ball, and neither had ever even attended so much as a high school football game. Yet here she is, able to hike for miles in a day, able to hold her own should someone be in the lodge ahead, confident with a knife and her ability to defend herself.

She doesn’t want to think about Annette. She doesn’t want to think about Gary. But she can’t stop them from coming. As if they’re constantly standing outside the cabin door of her mind. Constantly knocking.

Could you let me in for an hour or two?

Or ten years.

By the time she reaches the stone steps, she’s so encumbered with thoughts of mad people and creatures, isolation and her kids, that she has to remind herself what she’s doing.

She uses the knife to open the lodge door.

She steps over the threshold.

Annette stepped over the edge.

And what held her hand on the way?

Malorie smells the air. She listens. She has no doubt that, over the course of the past decade, she’s stood close to many creatures. It’s a fact of the new world she’s had to accept. Tom and Olympia tell her there are many more now than there used to be. The man at the door said the same. But how many is that? And how much space do they now occupy?