“My memory is fine,” I say.

He rubs his forehead with his hands, then his eyes.

“There’s lots of confusion here. Locks would be a bad idea.”

“Not even my bathroom door has a lock!”

“No one’s going to bother you while you’re in there.”

“How do I know that?”

Jack steps closer.

“Do you forget you had a fall when you climbed up onto your desk?”

“Desk? I fell from a chair. In my apartment. In my kitchen.”

I feel myself instinctively bring a hand up to my forehead, where the scab is. I don’t feel anything. I run my hand all over my forehead. No scab. No scar. Nothing. Just dry, wrinkled skin. That can’t be. The scar was still there yesterday. I’ve been here only a few days.

“Is there something I don’t know about, Jack?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here. Her. This house.”

He smiles, puts a hand on my shoulder.

“You’re fitting in so well.”

“I’m talking about a feeling. It’s been growing.” Something’s wrong in this house. In my room.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Are you watching me?”

Jack rolls his eyes, shakes his head. “Penny, come on. We have to know what’s going on around here. To make sure everyone’s safe.”

I can hear the faint buzzing again, from high up. I try to peer up at the light without letting him see. I don’t want him to know what I’m looking at.

“So, there’s nothing I don’t know about, in my room? I don’t feel like myself. I feel something is… here with me, and I don’t like it.”

In me. Inside me. I don’t say it, but it feels like it’s expanding, growing, connecting us, binding us forever. “Why are there only four of us living here?” I ask. “Only four residents?”

0.1666666666

“Because we’re a small residence. It’s good to be curious, Penny. But we don’t want curiosity to become paranoia.”

“I’m not paranoid!”

“Didn’t you think you were being watched at your old place, too?”

I think back to my days at the apartment. The person standing on the street, staring up at me. The voices next door. The man who came to fix my outlets. Mike, checking on me, packing, bringing me here.

“There was someone on the street,” I say.

Jack bends down, leaning over me. “And you say they were watching you? They never said anything, never tried to approach you, or hurt you?”

“They never talked to me, no. But I believe they knew that I was alone. And they were watching me. It could have been her.”

Observing me, selecting me, preying on me because I’m old and alone. Maybe I didn’t pick this place. Maybe I was picked. Selected. Now that I’m here, she has each day planned for us. Meals and naps. She decides when we wake up and when we go to bed. There’s no one to check up on me, visit, or ask how I’m doing here. She would know that.