Keep all the closets shut. Let them be tombs for my denial and my grievance. My only lasting instruction for you concerns the fourth closet. It is not enough to keep it shut, you must keep that one sealed and buried. My grief was already beginning to waken me to reality when I began what was to be her final stage. When I rose, slightly, from the depth of my despair, I saw that I had no choice but to cease my work, for I was only feeding my own delusion. My old faithful partner, who I can only hope now is in a grave of his own, took what I had begun, and made something of his own—something dreadful. He crafted my beloved work into something of his own, and endowed it with who knows what kinds of evil. I was able to stop him, and to seal away what he made, and you, Jenny, must ensure that the seal remains.

I would instruct you to demolish the house if I could trust that it could be done effectively. Keep it, and make sure the world forgets it. Then, someday, after many decades have passed and no one remembers, fill it with every kind of flammable thing and burn it to the ground, standing close guard to put a bullet into anything that emerges from the rubble, no matter what, or who, it looks like.

I’m going to be with my daughter.

Love always & to the end,

Henry

“Charlie?” John was standing behind her. Wordlessly, she held the pages out to him. He took them, and she moved aside the box the letter had been in and stared down at the next one. It was sealed with packing tape, but the sticky side was old and dry, the edges curling up from the cardboard. John shuffled the pages, still reading. Charlie shivered, despite the warm air, and she put her arms through the sleeves of her father’s shirt and rolled them up to her elbows.

“Do you know what it means?” John asked quietly. Charlie looked up at him and shook her head. “Scoot over,” he said with a small smile, and she did, making room for him in the little space among the boxes. He sat down facing her, crossing his legs awkwardly. He handed the pages back to her, and she scanned them again. “What did he mean about the closets?” John said.

“I don’t know,” Charlie said drily.

“Think,” John protested. “It has to mean something.”

“I don’t know,” Charlie repeated. “You were there; they were always empty. Except the one with Ella.”

“You don’t know that,” John said softly. “There was one that was locked,” he continued, almost to himself.