We sat quietly for a moment. We were all thinking it through, figuring out if our plan could work. I could see Mom worrying about every detail, looking at it from every angle, and Mo seemed to have decided it was a done deal. She was already scratching out supply lists and possible business hours on the back of a paper bag. After talking it through a half-dozen times and establishing a schedule based on how quickly I thought I could restock the contents of the apothecary, we had a solid plan for reopening it.

Mom and Mo talked excitedly as they meandered upstairs and into their room for the night. It made me happy to think we could stay, that I could spend some more time with Karter, and hopefully see Marie again. Her face was emblazoned in my mind.

I closed up the apothecary and went to my room. I brushed my teeth and put on a bonnet. As I walked past the fireplace, the plants by the hearth tangled themselves together and knocked over their planters.

As I righted them, I noticed something odd. Unlike thefire-place in my moms’ room, this one didn’t have any debris inside. The raised grate where the logs would sit looked brand-new aside from some dust. It didn’t look like anything had ever been burned in it at all. I crouched down and craned my neck to look up into the chimney. I couldn’t see anything, but figured it was probably blocked like the other one had been, so I grabbed the chain and stood as far away from the opening as I could before yanking it down.

I waited for the metal on metal grinding as the flue opened and braced myself for the subsequent shower of dead birds and leaves. Instead, I was met with a low rumble, a sound that might have been mistaken for distant thunder, as a cloud of dust engulfed me. The hearth sank into the wall, then rolled to the right, revealing a small room.

I stumbled back coughing, my eyes watering. I expected Mom and Mo to come running but there was only quiet. This wasn’t exactly the same as a strange door appearing out of nowhere like in the scary stories I’d talked about with Karter, but it was close enough to make me briefly consider taking a flying leap out the closest window.

The fireplace wasn’t real. It was a false facade, and behind it was a space the size of a large closet. A rolltop desk sat against the far wall, a wooden chair tucked underneath. Above it, a large map was pinned to a corkboard. I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight, sweeping the light upward. There were three pins stuck in the map, right over Rhinebeck, and three more scattered across different continents.