Laurel wrapped the toes in soft gauze, then a protective layer of thick tape.

“How about a nap? You can use my room. It’s dark and quiet.” Laurel helped Ash up from the floor. “I’ll get some snow, so we can ice that foot.”

“Yeah, I think that would be good.”

“You can have one of my pills.”

“You brought pills? What pills?” Ash looked ready to fight, broken toes or not.

“For my headaches. They should help your pain.”

“Oh. Yeah, I want some.”

With Ash tucked into her sleeping bag, a bitter pill dissolving in each of their throats, Laurel crept from the room. She tiptoed down the long hallway, avoiding piles of dust and debris that had all taken on a uniform shade of grey-brown. She turned a corner, and the black hole of the elevator shaft yawned to her right. Ash’s faulty pulley swung overhead, a scrap of broken bookshelf still tied to the line.

At her feet, a dark pool of blood crept across the floor, running along the gaps between boards. Laurel frowned. She knelt at the edge of the puddle. She hadn’t seen this much blood here before. It thickened in the dust till it became a dark paste and slowed under its own weight. She pressed her fingertip into the mess, and it came away wet and reeking of whisky, not blood. Laurel lowered her face to the puddle and sniffed—spirits and grit. She resisted lowering her tongue. Imagined the dust stuck between her teeth if she lapped up the liquor. She pulled away and stood, steadying herself against the wall as her head spun. She looked at her finger again. Blood. Definitely—red and sticky as she wiped it on the knee of her jeans. Maybe I should nap, too. But the call of the library was too strong.

One of the elegant bookshelves leaned on a dolly against the wall on the other side of the opening. Laurel stepped over the blood. She felt the hair along her arms rise. The quality of the light in the hall changed as if a dark cloud passed in front of the sun. The dry chill of the mountain air stiffened her neck.

There were trenches carved through the debris along the floor, tracks through the dust. They led from the base of the bookcase down the hall to an open set of French doors. She stepped onto the cleared path. Bright scraps of threadbare carpet showed through the dust. This place must have been amazing once. It hasn’t held on to its past; it’s buried it.