“All garbage, Tomí,” I reply. “But thank you so much for being here.” I peek into the guardhouse, where I see a steaming microwaved cup of noodles laid out. The poor guy was eating dinner.

He straightens his collar. “It’s not so bad. The cot is comfortable, and in a couple days, I’ll be rotated out, so I can spend time with my daughters.”

I spot the cot, this tiny half-folding contraption in the back, and instantly feel awful. He lives here? I look out to where the mannequin—my bad, the state-of-the-art security system—stands, some feet away. “You have daughters?”

He beams. “Two. One is getting her degree in fine art at the institute—she wants to be an artist!—and the other works in the factory at Clouded Cage.” He pats his heart. “We’re a Hammick family, through and through.”

I think back to when we arrived, to when Noni asked if Mina was his wife, and I said nothing. “Your wife, too?”

His smile falters, and he rubs at his stubbly chin. “She worked at Hero Pharm, but she died five years ago. Cancer.” We meet eyes, and it’s like he knows what I’m thinking. “They couldn’t do anything about her kind. They tried everything. She even met with your father.” He breaks eye contact, looks into the woods. “Up at the house.”

I thank him, before we get all teary-eyed and I ask for a slug of his booze, and he sits back in his folding chair with a creak.

I’ve never seen so much loneliness as I have this week.

Daria. Baba Yuki. Mrs. Arakit.

My own dad.

Was he like that, toward the end? So afraid of reentering the unpredictable outside world, of that world knocking down his door, that he stayed locked inside his home for years on end, building paper barriers around himself?

Or did he stay here alone so Mama could find us easily, if she came back?

“Fuck you, Lady,” I whisper to myself, kicking at a pine cone.

It’s a miserable trek up Stökéwood’s long gravel drive, along the chestnut grove. The trees’ branches reach out like creepy little scorched fingers. And then there’s the house, its windows shining black like a hundred tiny oil slicks even though I know each and every one is dirt-encrusted. A freakish trick of the light.

As I climb, I watch it grow, winking at me with what Nons called its indescribable inert maliciousness.

She’s not wrong.