I come to the middle of the block where there is an old back door locked with a heavy chain. But the chain has slipped, and I see it’s not actually locked and the door is open a crack. The chain hangs limp, and I imagine the bottom link is still swaying from someone recently passing through the door.

You wouldn’t go in there, I think. Would you, Pearl?

Closer Than They Might Appear

I peek in through the narrow darkness and listen. The wind picks up and the door opens another inch, but the unlocked chain holds it in place. I check the alley. I lift the chain and pull it through the handle so that it makes a rhythmic clinking. I twist it into a loop and lay it on the crumbling alley. I look around again, nudge the door open another few inches, and poke my head inside.

“Pearl?” I call out in a quiet voice, too afraid to shout into the shadows. There is a sense of sleeping things that don’t want to wake. “Pearl?”

I should walk home. You’re probably there, resting in the armchair by the front window reading a book, or sitting at the large dining room table working on the map. You’re probably fine. But the thought of even the possibility of you in this building, hiding alone, makes it impossible for me to leave until I have at least checked inside.

I push the door open, wide open this time to let in as much light as possible. The floor is covered in debris, dust, old boards, and plaster that has fallen from the walls and ceiling. It is an abandoned construction site—interior walls have been demolished, and new wires poke out of outlet cases, never reconnected. There is more light than I expected, and while the windows facing the alley have been filled in with concrete blocks, the windows facing south are still glass panes coated in a decade of grime.

“Pearl?” I say again, this time louder. My voice comes back to me after wandering the building and finding nothing. Another open door gapes by the far wall, revealing a stairwell going down, the beginning of broken stairs, and a thin handrail.

If you came in here, you will be down there. I know you well enough to know this.

“Pearl,” I mutter, because while I don’t entirely believe in ghosts, I don’t not believe in them. And even more pressing, I am not completely naive about the types of characters who might be lurking in a building like this, in our city, at the end of a lukewarm fall day.

I go over to the steps and put my hand on the rail. It wobbles back and forth, barely attached to the wall.

“Pearl?” I shout down the steps.

Walking into the basement of that old warehouse is like descending into pitch-black water. I hold my breath. Something like old glass crumbles under my feet, and the air carries a strange combination of stale dust, moisture, and the smell of cats. Each step lets out a weary groan that shoots right up my spine alongside the fear. When I stop, when I am silent, I can hear something dripping in the basement, some liquid falling into a pool.