Oh, come on. My fear found a tremulous voice and spoke for me. “Nope,” I said. “Sorry.”

She continued to stare at me, as tranquil as a statue of an angel.

The whole situation was so bizarre that I actually hated to say no. But no, no, no. I had no desire to go back into that room. I’d already spent several hours there. Just the stale smell wafting out was enough to make me feel a thrill of fear.

“I can’t, Agatha,” I said. I could hear a note in my voice that was almost pleading. “I don’t like it in there.”

She reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear as she turned her face away.

“You go in,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”

Nothing.

I took a deep breath and let it out with a little hint of melodrama, to show her I wasn’t happy. Then I walked in.

She followed close behind me, but when I got to the center of the room and stopped, she kept walking—toward the window that had been open that first night. A few feet away she stopped and stared at the floor, like something was missing.

“What are you looking for?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

Her shoulders slumped a little, a posture of disappointment.

“Wait,” I said. “Hang on.” I went to the desk and retrieved the trash can I’d put away. “This?”

She watched me, with no clear expression of interest but also not with complete blankness, while I carried it over and set it down.

Then she knocked it over.

“Oh, come on,” I said. I reached down and set it back up.

She knocked it over again.

“Okay, fine, I’ll leave it,” I said. But that wasn’t right, either. So finally, I reached down and slowly flipped it so it was upside down. Now that I thought about it, that was how I’d found it the first night. “Now what?”

She stared up at the window frame, made of thick, dark wood.

“Yeah? I closed it. Did you like it open?” That didn’t require an overturned trash can, though . . . “Agatha, is there something up there?”

No answer. She simply stared.

But why would she need me for this?

Maybe she just wasn’t confident enough in her ability to climb? I thought of the way she always hesitated at the stairs, how her hand always gripped the banister tightly.

I dragged the metal trash can closer to the window, and then, praying that its load-bearing capacity didn’t max out at Agatha’s weight, I stepped carefully up onto it.

The top of the window was still almost out of my reach. I stretched my arm to the point where my shoulder began to cramp, and the very tips of my fingers brushed against something up against the wall.