1. A Wednesday That Wouldn't Behave

1. A Wednesday That Wouldn't Behave On Wednesday morning, the rain fell upward. Mara Voss noticed it while standing at the kitchen window, holding a cup of tea that tasted faintly of pennies. Tiny droplets lifted from the garden soil and climbed into the grey sky, where they disappeared among clouds that looked like bruises on old skin. She watched for nearly a minute. Then she closed the curtains. There were certain things a person could afford to notice and certain things a person had to ignore if she wished to continue living an ordinary life. Mara had been ignoring things for forty-three years. She ignored the whispering inside electrical sockets. She ignored the extra staircase that sometimes appeared between the second and third floors of her apartment building. She ignored the fact that every photograph of her mother showed a different face. Most importantly, she ignored the little boy who occasionally stood at the foot of her bed. He was always wet. His hair clung to his forehead, and his clothes smelled of river mud. He never spoke. He simply watched Mara until she woke completely, at which point he vanished. She had mentioned him once to a doctor, who prescribed sleeping tablets. The tablets worked wonderfully. For almost three weeks, she saw nothing unusual. Then she began dreaming about drowning. At 8:17 that morning, someone knocked on her front door. Three times. Mara opened it to find a postman standing in the hallway. He wore a dark blue uniform, although the postal service had changed its uniforms several years earlier. His face was long and colourless, and he carried a brown envelope between two fingers. "Mrs. Voss?" "Yes." He looked over her shoulder. "Is the other woman home?" Mara frowned. "What other woman?" The postman blinked slowly. "The woman who lives with you." "I live alone." He appeared disappointed. "That's what she said you would say." He handed her the envelope. Before Mara could question him, he turned and walked toward the stairs. She watched him descend, but his footsteps made no sound. At the first landing, he stopped and looked back. "Don't open the door on Friday," he said. "What door?" He smiled with an expression of profound exhaustion. "The one that opens inward." Then he continued downstairs. Mara shut the door and locked it. The envelope contained a photograph. It showed a narrow house at the end of a road surrounded by dead trees. The windows were dark. A white door stood open beneath a crooked porch. In the upstairs window stood Mara herself. She appeared to be about eight years old. On the back of the photograph was a sentence written in her mother's handwriting. You have been gone longer than you think. Below it was a date. October 14, 1983. Mara sat on the floor. Her mother had died when Mara was twelve. She remembered the funeral, the dark dress, the wet cemetery grass. She remembered her father telling her that some people were not meant to remain in the world for very long. She also remembered the house in the photograph. It was the house where she had been born. The house her father had burned down before her thirteenth birthday. The house that, according to every record Mara had ever seen, had never existed. Her telephone rang. She answered. For several seconds, she heard only the sound of someone breathing underwater. Then a little boy spoke. "Are you coming home, Mara?" She gripped the receiver. "Who is this?" "You know." "No, I don't." A pause. "Then why are you still keeping my shoes?" The line went dead. Mara looked toward the cupboard beneath the stairs. Inside it, wrapped in newspaper and tied with string, were a pair of tiny brown shoes she had found among her mother's belongings after the funeral. She had never known who they belonged to. She had never had the courage to throw them away. Outside, the rain continued to climb into the sky. At 8:31, the clock in the kitchen struck thirteen. And from inside the cupboard came a small, delighted laugh. 2. The Road with No Beginning Mara left her apartment before noon. She told herself she was going to find the house, discover who had sent the photograph, and put an end to the nonsense. She did not tell herself she was afraid. Fear, in her experience, was a poor travelling companion. It made people take the wrong trains, trust the wrong strangers, and return to places they had spent their lives trying to forget. She drove north. The road was unfamiliar, although she had lived in the city her entire life. It passed through industrial estates, abandoned petrol stations, and fields filled with white flowers that turned their heads as her car went by. At a crossroads, she found a sign. BELLWETHER — 12 MILES. She had never heard of Bellwether. She drove past it. Ten minutes later, the same sign appeared. BELLWETHER — 12 MILES. Mara slowed down. She checked the fuel gauge, the clock, and the navigation system. The map showed a blank grey square where the road should have been. She turned around. The sign was waiting on the other side. BELLWETHER — 12 MILES. This time, someone had written a message beneath it in black paint. You are late. Mara accelerated. The road narrowed. Trees leaned over it until their branches formed a tunnel. Her radio switched on by itself. A children's choir sang a song she remembered from childhood. Sleep, little bird, beneath the ground. Count all the windows, count all the sounds. If someone calls you by your name, Close your eyes and stay the same. Mara switched off the radio. The singing continued. She pulled over and opened the door. Silence fell. Then a voice came from the back seat. "Did you hear that?" Mara spun around. A boy sat behind her, wearing a soaked grey coat. His feet did not touch the floor. Mud dripped from his sleeves, though the upholstery remained dry. He looked about seven. His face was familiar in the terrible way that forgotten things sometimes are. "Get out," Mara whispered. The boy tilted his head. "You always say that." "Who are you?" He examined his hands. "I think I was Daniel." "Think?" "Sometimes I am." Mara reached for the door handle. The boy looked at her. "Do you remember the bath?" She stopped. A white bathroom. A yellow rubber duck. Water running over the edge of a porcelain tub. A child laughing. A door slamming somewhere downstairs. Then her mind closed around the memory like a fist. "No," she said. The boy nodded. "That's what you said last time." He leaned forward. His breath smelled of river stones. "Whatever you do, don't let Mother see the photograph." Mara turned toward the passenger seat. The photograph lay there, face down. When she looked back, the boy had vanished. A small wet handprint remained on the window. Beyond the glass, the trees ended abruptly. A village stood in a valley below. Bellwether. Its houses leaned at odd angles, as though the entire settlement had been built on the side of a sleeping animal. There were no cars, no people, and no birds. A church occupied the centre of the village. Its clock showed 8:17. Mara checked her dashboard. 8:17. She had been driving for nearly two hours. Yet the clock had not moved. At the entrance to the village stood a woman holding an umbrella. The umbrella was open. It was not raining. The woman raised her face. Mara recognised her immediately. It was her mother. Exactly as she had looked on the day of the funeral. Except that her mother had been dead for thirty-one years. 3. The Mother at the Gate Mara stopped the car. Her mother stood beside the village sign, wearing a brown coat and a pair of black shoes. Her hair was pinned neatly behind her ears. She held the umbrella over her head and looked toward the road with the patient irritation of someone waiting for a late bus. Mara remained inside the car. The woman tapped the window. Mara locked the doors. Her mother sighed. "Oh, don't be ridiculous, darling." The sound of her voice struck Mara harder than any apparition could have done. It was warm, familiar, and slightly impatient. It carried the faintest trace of cigarette smoke, the smell Mara associated with bedtime stories and winter afternoons. She lowered the window by an inch. "Mum?" Her mother smiled. "There you are." Mara began to cry. For thirty-one years, she had carried a hundred questions about the woman who had died too young. Why had she spent the last weeks of her life locking doors? Why had she hidden the little shoes? Why had she insisted that Mara never speak about the boy who lived beneath the house? And why, on the night she died, had she whispered, If I come back, don't believe me? Mara could not remember where she had heard that last sentence. Her mother opened the car door. "Come along. We haven't much time." Mara did not move. "You're dead." Her mother looked offended. "People say such cruel things when they are frightened." "You died." "Did I?" Mara stared at her. The woman considered this, then gave a small shrug. "Perhaps. But that was a long time ago." She took Mara's hand. Her fingers were warm. That was the worst part. Mara had expected ice, decay, or the peculiar emptiness of a body without a soul. Instead, her mother's hand felt exactly as it had when she was a child crossing a busy road. "Where are we going?" Mara asked. "Home." "I don't have a home here." Her mother smiled sadly. "Nobody ever thinks they do." They walked into the village. The houses had no numbers. Some had doors on their roofs. Others had windows that looked into rooms too small to contain them. Behind one curtain, a man sat reading a newspaper upside down. In another window, a woman brushed the hair of an empty chair. Nobody looked at Mara. At the church, her mother stopped. "Do you remember your brother?" Mara's throat tightened. "I never had a brother." "Of course you did." "No." Her mother looked at her for a long moment. Then she opened her handbag and took out a photograph. It showed two children standing beside a bathtub. A little girl in a yellow dress. A little boy in a grey coat. Mara recognised herself immediately. The boy's face had been scratched out. "I don't remember him," she whispered. "That was the arrangement." "What arrangement?" Her mother folded the photograph and put it away. "Your father was always very good at making arrangements." The church bell rang once. Mara flinched. Her mother looked toward the tower. "We must hurry." "Why?" "Because tonight is Thursday." Mara glanced at her watch. It was Wednesday. Her mother smiled. "Not here." She led Mara toward a narrow street at the edge of the village. At the end stood a small house with a white door. The same house from the photograph. The upstairs window was dark. The front door was open. And on the porch, sitting very still with his hands folded in his lap, was the little boy from the car. He looked up at Mara. "Hello, Sister," he said. Then he began to cry. 4. The House with Too Many Rooms The house smelled of soap, wet wool, and something sweet that had begun to rot. Mara stood in the hallway while her mother went into the kitchen and began making tea. The wallpaper was yellow, patterned with tiny blue birds. The staircase creaked beneath no one's weight. A grandfather clock stood beside the coat rack, its hands moving backward. Mara remembered it all. She remembered running through the hallway with a wooden horse. She remembered hiding beneath the kitchen table during thunderstorms. She remembered a narrow cupboard in which her father kept his tools and a room at the top of the stairs that had never been opened. But the memories belonged to a life she had been told she never lived. She walked into the sitting room. A television sat in the corner. It was switched off, but the screen showed a reflection of the room as it had appeared decades earlier. Her father sat in an armchair, reading a newspaper. Her mother stood by the fireplace. Mara sat on the carpet, drawing a house with a red crayon. Beside her was the little boy. He was holding a pair of scissors. Mara stepped closer. On the screen, the boy looked up. He mouthed something. Mara leaned toward the glass. Don't let her. The television went black. Behind her, her mother called, "Tea's ready." They sat at the kitchen table. Three cups had been set out. One was chipped around the rim. Another contained a floating leaf that resembled a small hand. The third was empty. Mara's mother placed a plate of biscuits between them. "Eat something." "I'm not hungry." "You never were, at first." "At first what?" Her mother stirred her tea. "At first, you always refused." Mara looked at the empty chair. "Where is he?" "Who?" "My brother." Her mother stopped stirring. The spoon continued moving in the cup. Round and round. Round and round. "He's upstairs," she said. "Why won't he come down?" "Because you haven't asked him properly." Mara stood. "I'm leaving." Her mother looked at her with the weary expression of someone who has heard a child announce the same thing every day for years. "Of course you are." Mara reached the hallway. The front door had disappeared. In its place stood a tall wooden cupboard. She opened it. Inside hung dozens of coats, all the same size. Beneath them sat rows of small brown shoes. Pairs of them. Hundreds of pairs. Some were new. Others were muddy, cracked, or blackened by fire. At the back of the cupboard, something scratched softly. Mara pulled aside the coats. A little door stood at floor level. Someone had written on it in pencil. IF YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN, KNOCK TWICE. Mara knocked twice. Something knocked back. Once. Then twice. Then three times. She backed away. Her mother stood behind her. "You shouldn't have done that." "What is in there?" Her mother closed the cupboard. "Nothing you need to worry about." Mara grabbed her arm. "Tell me what happened." For the first time, her mother's expression changed. Beneath the familiar face, something moved. It was not a change of expression but a change of arrangement. Her mother's eyes seemed too far apart. Her mouth became a little too wide. Her skin appeared stretched over a shape that had never been human. Then it was gone. Her mother gently removed Mara's hand. "Go upstairs," she said. "Why?" "Because your brother has been waiting." 5. The Room at the Top There were seventeen steps to the second floor. Mara counted them as she climbed. One, two, three. At the top, she found a corridor with four doors. She remembered three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a linen cupboard. The fourth door was new. It was painted red. A small brass plate was fixed to it. MARA VOSS — OCCUPANT. She turned the handle. The room beyond was her apartment. Her kitchen. Her sofa. Her books. Her coat hanging beside the front door. Even the unfinished cup of tea sat on the windowsill. Rain climbed the glass. Mara stepped inside. A telephone rang. She approached it slowly. The number on the screen was her own. She answered. "Hello?" A woman spoke. Her own voice. "Mara, listen to me. You have to get out of the house." Mara looked around. "Who is this?" "You know who I am." "What's happening?" A pause. Then the voice whispered, "Whatever your mother tells you, don't believe that you had a brother." Mara felt cold. "Why?" "Because you didn't." The voice began to distort. A sound like distant children laughing filled the line. Then the woman said, "You were the brother." The call ended. Mara stood perfectly still. She looked at the photograph in her hand. She could no longer remember when she had picked it up. The two children stood beside the bathtub. The little girl wore a yellow dress. The little boy wore a grey coat. Their faces were identical. Not similar. Identical. Mara touched her own cheek. The room around her began to change. The furniture grew smaller. The walls rose higher. The telephone became a toy. Her hands shrank, her fingers becoming short and round. She stumbled toward the mirror. A little boy stared back. Wet hair. Grey coat. A thin scar beneath the chin. He looked terrified. Mara opened her mouth. The boy opened his. But the voice that emerged belonged to a woman. "Who am I?" The mirror fogged. Someone wrote on the glass from the other side. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO REMAINED. Mara turned away. The red door slammed shut. For a moment, the room went completely dark. Then she heard a familiar sound. A child's footsteps running up the stairs. A woman laughing. A man calling from the kitchen. The ordinary noises of a family living in a house that had never burned. Mara sat on the floor and covered her ears. When she looked up, the room had returned to normal. She was forty-three years old again. The telephone sat quietly on the table. Beside it was a note written in her own handwriting. You must not let him remember. Below that was a date. October 14, 1983. The date her brother had supposedly died. Mara read it until the letters became meaningless. Then the red door opened. Her brother stood on the other side. He was holding a pair of scissors. "Shall we play?" he asked. 6. The Game of Names Mara followed him into a room that had not existed before. It was long and narrow, with no windows. The floor was covered in white tiles, each bearing a name written in black ink. Mara recognised some of them. Her mother's name. Her father's name. Her own. There were hundreds of others. Some were crossed out. Some had been written upside down. Others had been scratched so deeply into the tiles that the letters had cracked. At the centre of the room stood a small wooden table. On it lay a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a glass bowl filled with water. Her brother sat down. "Let's play the game," he said. "What game?" "The one where we decide who gets to stay." Mara did not move. He picked up the pencil. "You go first." "How?" "Write your name." She looked at the paper. It was blank. "Why?" "Because if you write it, you'll know which one you are." Mara shook her head. "I don't understand." Her brother smiled. "You never do." He dipped his fingers into the bowl. The water turned black. For an instant, Mara saw a room reflected on its surface. A bathtub. A yellow rubber duck. Two children. One was crying. The other was holding the crying child's head beneath the water. Mara recoiled. Her brother withdrew his hand. "Do you remember now?" She could not speak. He leaned across the table. "Which one of us drowned?" Mara stared at him. "You did." "Did I?" "Yes." He tilted his head. "Then why are you afraid of water?" The walls began to whisper. Mara heard her mother's voice among them. You mustn't remember. She heard her father's. It wasn't your fault. She heard her own. I didn't mean to. Her brother pushed the pencil toward her. "Write your name." Mara picked it up. Her hand trembled. She wrote M. The pencil snapped. Her brother sighed. "Wrong." He took the paper and turned it over. On the other side, a name had already been written. DANIEL VOSS. Mara stared at it. The name seemed to open a space inside her. She remembered a birthday cake with eight candles. A red bicycle. A woman kneeling to tie a boy's shoelaces. A father carrying a small body from a bathroom. She remembered a little girl standing in the doorway. The girl was crying. She remembered the girl saying, "I didn't mean to." Then the memory changed. The bathroom door was locked. The water was running. Someone was pounding on the door from the inside. Mara dropped the pencil. Her brother stood. "You're getting warmer." "Who are you?" He smiled. "I'm the person you made me." "No." "You wanted a brother so badly that you invented one." Mara backed away. "You were real." "Of course." He touched his chest. "I was real when you needed me. I was real when you were lonely. I was real when Mother couldn't bear to look at you." His face softened. "And I was real when you needed someone else to blame." Mara shook her head. The boy walked toward the door. "Come on," he said. "It's nearly Friday." "What's on Friday?" He looked over his shoulder. "The day we stop pretending." Then he disappeared. The bowl of black water began to bubble. From somewhere beneath the floor came the sound of a telephone ringing. 7. Thursday Night Mara found her mother in the kitchen, washing the same plate over and over. The water was red. Not blood-red, but the soft pink of something that had been washed too many times. "Where is Daniel?" Mara asked. Her mother did not turn. "Upstairs." "Who is he?" The plate slipped from her mother's hands. It struck the sink without breaking. "Your brother." "Was he real?" Her mother shut off the tap. For a long time, she stood with her back to Mara. Then she said, "There are things a mother cannot forgive herself for." Mara moved closer. "What did I do?" Her mother looked at her. Her eyes were full of a terrible, exhausted love. "You were very young." "What did I do?" "You were frightened." "Of what?" Her mother reached out and touched Mara's hair. "Of being alone." Mara pulled away. "Tell me." Her mother looked toward the ceiling. "Your father worked nights. I was ill. The house was cold. You began speaking to someone we couldn't see." "Daniel?" "That was the name you gave him." Mara felt the kitchen tilt. "Was he a ghost?" "I don't know." "Was he imaginary?" "I don't know." "Then what do you know?" Her mother took a deep breath. "I know that one night, I found you in the bathroom. The water was overflowing. You were sitting on the floor, holding a little boy's hand." Mara closed her eyes. "I called your name. You looked up at me and said, 'He won't wake up.'" Her mother began to cry. "I pulled you away. I called an ambulance. I tried to save him." "What happened?" "By the time your father arrived, there was only one child in the bathroom." Mara gripped the edge of the table. "Me." Her mother nodded. "Yes." "Then Daniel was—" "I don't know." Mara stared at her. "How can you not know?" Her mother gave a strange, broken laugh. "Because sometimes I remember two children. Sometimes I remember one. Sometimes I remember carrying a little boy to his bed, and sometimes I remember that I never had a son." She wiped her face. "I spent thirty years trying to decide which memory was the true one." "And?" "And I began to suspect that the truth wasn't interested in being found." A clock chimed somewhere in the house. Once. Twice. Three times. Mara looked at the kitchen clock. Its hands pointed to 8:17. Her mother stood. "Go to bed, darling." "No." "Please." "I'm not leaving until I understand." Her mother looked toward the hallway. For a moment, Mara thought she saw another figure standing there. A tall man in a dark suit. His face was hidden behind a newspaper. "Your father is home," her mother whispered. Mara turned. The hallway was empty. When she looked back, her mother was gone. Only the plate remained in the sink. It was dry. On its surface, written in water that had not yet evaporated, was a sentence. You were never the child. 8. The Man Who Wasn't There The man appeared at 11:42 p.m. He sat at the kitchen table with his newspaper folded neatly in front of him. His suit was dark, his shoes polished, and his hands were folded as though he had been waiting for a train that was already late. Mara recognised him from the television. Her father. He had died in a car accident when she was nineteen. Or perhaps he had died before she was born. Or perhaps he had never existed. She could no longer trust any of her memories. "Hello, Father," she said. The man lowered the newspaper. His face was blank. Not featureless. Blank, like a page before the first word is written. "Which one?" he asked. Mara sat opposite him. "What?" "Which father are you looking for?" She stared. He opened the newspaper. Every page contained the same photograph: a small house, a white door, a window with a little boy standing behind it. "Did you build this house?" Mara asked. The man turned a page. "Which house?" "The one we're in." He smiled faintly. "I didn't build anything." "Then who did?" "Perhaps you did." Mara stood. "I want to leave." The man nodded. "Everyone does." "How?" "By going where they came from." "Where did I come from?" He folded the newspaper. "That depends on who you ask." Mara felt anger rising. "Stop talking in riddles!" The man looked at her with something like pity. "Do you remember your first memory?" She shook her head. "Most people don't," he continued. "They begin with something simple. A red ball. A mother's voice. Sunlight on a windowsill. They build a life around it and call the life a fact." He leaned forward. "But what if the first memory is wrong? What if the person remembering it is not the person who experienced it? What if the child you remember being is only a story you were told so often that you began to believe it?" Mara said nothing. The man placed the newspaper on the table. "You have been trying to find the truth for a very long time." "Yes." "Why?" "Because I want to know who I am." He nodded. "And if you discover that you are no one?" Mara looked away. He continued. "What if you are the memory of a child who never existed? What if your mother is a voice inside a wall? What if this house is nothing more than the last thought of a dying mind?" Mara's throat tightened. "What if none of it is real?" The man stood. "Then it won't matter whether you leave." He walked toward the hallway. At the door, he stopped. "One more thing." Mara looked up. "Don't trust the girl." "What girl?" He turned his blank face toward her. "The one who thinks she is you." Then he stepped through the wall. Mara sat alone at the table. The newspaper remained. She opened it. On the final page was a small announcement. MISSING PERSON: MARA VOSS, AGE 12. LAST SEEN OCTOBER 14, 1983. Beneath it was a photograph of a little girl in a yellow dress. The girl had Mara's face. But she was smiling at someone outside the frame. Someone who appeared to be holding her hand. 9. The Door That Opened Inward At midnight, every door in the house opened at once. The cupboard beneath the stairs swung wide. The bathroom door flew inward. The red bedroom door creaked on its hinges. Even the little door at the back of the cupboard opened, revealing a staircase descending into a darkness that smelled of wet earth. Mara stood in the hallway. She could hear breathing from every room. Not one person breathing. Hundreds. The house was full of people who had never been born, people who had died before their names were chosen, people whose memories belonged to someone else. A woman whispered from the kitchen. A child laughed from the bathroom. Someone behind the red door said, "You promised." Mara took the photograph from her pocket. The house in the picture had changed. The upstairs window was now open. A little girl stood there. Not Mara at eight. Not Mara at twelve. A girl with silver hair, old eyes, and a mouth that seemed to be smiling at something far beyond the world. She held up a sign. FRIDAY. Mara looked at the grandfather clock. Its hands were moving forward now. 8:17. 8:18. 8:19. The house groaned. From upstairs came the sound of running water. Mara climbed the stairs. The bathroom door stood open. Inside, a bathtub was filled to the brim. Water poured over its edges, spreading across the floor. A yellow rubber duck floated near the drain. A child stood beside the bath. The child wore a grey coat. Mara's hands began to shake. "Daniel?" The child turned. Its face was hidden behind a paper mask. Two eyeholes had been cut into the paper. Behind them, Mara saw two dark, glistening eyes. "Which name do you want me to use?" it asked. Mara stepped closer. "Your own." The child tilted its head. "I don't have one." "Everyone has a name." "Who told you that?" Mara reached for the mask. The child caught her wrist. Its fingers were cold and strong. "Don't look," it whispered. "Why?" "Because you'll have to choose." "Choose what?" The child released her. "Which one of us gets to remember." Mara looked into the bathtub. The water reflected the ceiling, the light, the child. And another figure. A woman standing behind Mara. The woman wore a hospital gown. Her hair was wet. Her face was Mara's. The reflection raised a finger to its lips. Then it smiled. Mara turned. There was nobody behind her. The child in the grey coat began to laugh. The bathtub emptied in a single gulp. The floor became dry. The yellow duck remained floating in the air. Mara backed away. At the bathroom door, she heard her mother's voice. "Darling, it's time." She turned. Her mother stood at the top of the stairs, holding a candle. Behind her, the hallway stretched farther than the house could possibly contain. At the distant end was a white door. The door stood open. Beyond it, Mara could see her apartment building. Her real apartment. Her real life. A cup of tea sat on the kitchen windowsill. Rain climbed the glass. Her mother held out the candle. "Go on." Mara looked at her. "Is that the way out?" Her mother nodded. "Yes." "Will I remember this?" "No." "Will I see you again?" Her mother seemed to consider the question. Then she smiled. "You never stopped." Mara took the candle. The flame burned black. She walked toward the white door. Behind her, the house began to whisper her name. Mara. Daniel. Mara. Daniel. The voices overlapped until she could no longer distinguish one from another. She reached the threshold. On the other side, her apartment waited in the quiet morning light. The door opened inward. She stepped through. And the world turned upside down. 10. The Woman in the Other Apartment Mara woke on Thursday morning. The rain fell normally. Her tea tasted of tea. The clocks showed the correct time. She sat in bed for several minutes, listening to the ordinary noises of the city: cars, distant construction, a dog barking somewhere below. She remembered the photograph. She remembered the house. She remembered her mother. But when she tried to remember the little boy, her thoughts slipped away from him as water slips between fingers. She went to the kitchen. The cupboard beneath the stairs was empty. The little shoes were gone. There was no brown envelope, no photograph, no sign of the postman. For the first time in months, Mara felt entirely alone. It was an unpleasant sensation. She made fresh tea and sat beside the window. Outside, a man walked a dog along the pavement. The dog stopped, looked up at Mara's window, and began to whine. Then the man looked up too. He raised his hand in greeting. Mara did not recognise him. Yet she found herself raising her hand in return. At 8:17, the telephone rang. She answered. A woman said, "Is this Mara Voss?" "Yes." "I'm calling about your appointment." "What appointment?" A pause. "The appointment you made yesterday." Mara looked at the calendar. Thursday. She had no memory of making an appointment. "Where?" "At the house." Mara closed her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about." The woman sighed. "That's what you said last time." The line went dead. Mara stood very still. Then someone knocked on the front door. Three times. She opened it. A young woman stood in the hallway, wearing a grey coat. She carried a cardboard box and had Mara's face. Not a resemblance. Not a coincidence. The same eyes, the same mouth, the same tiny scar beneath the chin. But the young woman looked at Mara as though she were the stranger. "Hello," she said. Mara could not speak. The woman glanced at the box. "I'm sorry to bother you. I'm looking for someone." "Who?" "A little boy." Mara gripped the doorframe. "What is his name?" The woman frowned. "I don't know." "Then how do you know he's a boy?" She considered this. "Because I remember being one." Mara felt the world shift beneath her feet. The woman opened the box. Inside lay a pair of tiny brown shoes. They were wet. A smell of river mud drifted into the hallway. The woman looked up. "I was told you might know where he went." Mara shook her head. "I don't." The woman nodded as though she had expected that answer. "Of course." She turned to leave. Then she stopped. "One last question." Mara waited. "Do you ever dream about a house where the doors open inward?" Mara felt tears rise in her eyes. "Yes." The woman smiled. "Good." She walked away. Mara watched her descend the stairs. At the first landing, the woman turned back. "Don't open the door tomorrow." Then she disappeared. Mara shut the door. She checked the lock. She checked the hallway. She checked the cupboard beneath the stairs. Nothing was there. For the rest of the day, she tried to behave normally. She worked from home, answered emails, washed dishes, and called her doctor about the dreams. By evening, she had almost convinced herself that the previous day had been a breakdown brought on by exhaustion. Then she found the photograph. It lay on her pillow. The house stood at the end of the road. The upstairs window was dark. On the back, her mother's handwriting said: You have been gone longer than you think. Below it, someone had added a new sentence. We have been waiting for the other one. 11. Friday, Which Was Not Friday Mara did not sleep. At dawn, she packed a suitcase and left her apartment. She drove south, away from the village, away from the road that had no beginning, away from every place that might contain a memory she had not yet earned the right to remember. For six hours, nothing strange happened. The sky remained blue. The road stayed straight. The radio played advertisements for furniture and insurance. Mara stopped at a roadside café and ordered an egg sandwich. The waitress called her darling. A man at the next table complained about the price of petrol. The ordinary world was so convincing that she nearly began to laugh. Then she noticed the date on the newspaper beside her plate. October 14, 1983. The headline announced the opening of a new shopping centre. The waitress appeared beside her. "Would you like anything else?" Mara pointed at the newspaper. "What year is it?" The waitress glanced down. "Friday." "That's not a year." The waitress looked genuinely confused. "No?" Mara left without paying. Outside, her car was gone. In its place stood a small red bicycle. A child's bicycle, with a crooked bell and one pedal missing. Mara knew the bicycle. She had never owned it. She had owned it for years. She could not remember which was true. A man stood at the roadside holding a sign. BELLWETHER — 12 MILES. Mara walked away. The man followed. "You're going the wrong way," he said. "Leave me alone." "But you've already been there." "I don't care." He lowered the sign. "Of course you do." Mara began to run. The road stretched ahead, empty and bright. Fields rolled away on either side. The sky seemed too large, and the horizon too close. She ran until her lungs hurt. When she finally stopped, she was standing outside the white house. The front door stood open. Her mother waited on the porch. The little boy sat beside her. Neither looked surprised to see Mara. Her mother held out a hand. "You're late." Mara stared at her. "What day is it?" Her mother smiled. "Which time?" Mara began to cry. The boy stood and approached her. He looked exactly like the child from the photographs, except his hair was dry and his coat was clean. "Do you remember me now?" he asked. Mara shook her head. He seemed disappointed. "That's all right." He took her hand. "You always forget the first time." "What happens if I remember?" The boy looked toward the house. "Then someone else gets to forget." Mara looked at her mother. "Is he my brother?" Her mother said nothing. "Is he me?" Still nothing. "Am I dead?" Her mother closed her eyes. The boy squeezed Mara's hand. "Come inside." Mara looked at the open door. Beyond it, the hallway was full of people. Some were crying. Some were laughing. Some stood perfectly still, staring at her with expressions of recognition. At the back of the crowd, a young woman held a cardboard box. Inside the box lay a pair of tiny brown shoes. The woman looked up. She had Mara's face. She raised one finger to her lips. Then the house inhaled. The people in the hallway vanished. The mother disappeared. The boy's hand became cold. Mara stood alone on the porch. The white door began to close. She reached for it. Then she remembered the warning. Don't open the door on Friday. She looked at the sky. The sun was setting in the east. A flock of birds flew backward over the roof. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rang thirteen times. Mara withdrew her hand. The door shut. For a moment, everything was silent. Then someone knocked from the other side. Three times. Mara stood on the porch until night fell. She waited for the door to open. It did not. At some point, she noticed that she was holding a photograph. She turned it over. On the back was a sentence she had never seen before. Tomorrow, you will be the mother. 12. A Strange Thing to Leave Behind Years later—or perhaps the following morning—a removal company arrived at an apartment building in a city that had no name. They had been hired to clear the belongings of a woman who had apparently vanished. The apartment was tidy. There were dishes in the kitchen, books on the shelves, clothes in the wardrobe, and a half-finished cup of tea on the windowsill. The curtains were open. Outside, the rain fell upward. One of the workers found a cardboard box beneath the stairs. Inside were hundreds of pairs of tiny brown shoes. He called his supervisor. The supervisor told him to leave them alone. The worker opened the box anyway. At the bottom lay a photograph. It showed a white house at the end of a road surrounded by dead trees. In the upstairs window stood a woman with silver hair. She was smiling. On the back, someone had written: You have been gone longer than you think. The worker turned the photograph over again. A second message had appeared beneath the first. PLEASE RETURN THE CHILD BEFORE FRIDAY. He frowned. "What child?" A voice answered from inside the cupboard. "Which one?" The worker dropped the photograph. He looked toward the cupboard. The door was open. Inside, a little boy sat on the floor with his knees drawn to his chest. His hair was wet. His coat was grey. The boy looked up. "Do you know where my sister went?" The worker swallowed. "No." The boy nodded. "That's what she said." He stood and walked past the man into the hallway. The worker turned to follow him. But the hallway had become very long. At the far end, a woman stood beside a white door. She held a candle. The flame burned black. The woman looked directly at the worker. For a moment, he thought she was smiling. Then she turned and disappeared through the door. The worker blinked. The hallway was ordinary again. The cupboard was empty. He picked up the photograph and slipped it into his pocket. He would throw it away later. He would forget about it. He would go home, eat dinner, and sleep. That was what he intended to do. But as he left the building, he noticed a small girl standing across the road. She wore a yellow dress. She was holding a pair of brown shoes. The worker stopped. The girl raised her head. "Excuse me," she said. "Have you seen my brother?" The worker stared at her. "What's his name?" The girl considered the question. Then she smiled. "I don't remember." A bus passed between them. When it had gone, the girl was no longer there. The worker continued walking. At the next crossing, he stopped beside a shop window and glanced at his reflection. His reflection was not looking at him. It was looking at the photograph in his pocket. Then it lifted one hand and knocked against the glass. Once. Twice. Three times. The worker hurried away. That evening, he found the photograph on his kitchen table. He did not remember bringing it home. The house in the picture had changed. There was no longer a woman in the upstairs window. Instead, a small boy stood on the porch. Behind him, a door opened inward. The worker turned the photograph over. A new sentence had appeared. Thank you for keeping him. He put the photograph in the bin. He emptied the bin into the rubbish chute. He watched the rubbish truck carry it away the following morning. Then he went to work. At 2:13 p.m., the telephone on his desk rang. He answered. A woman's voice said, "Is the other one there?" He looked around the office. "No." A pause. "Are you certain?" "Yes." The woman sighed. "That's unfortunate." The line went dead. He returned to his work. At 5:00 p.m., he went home. At 8:17 p.m., he made tea. At 11:42 p.m., he heard a child laughing inside his wardrobe. He opened it. There were no children inside. Only a white door, standing upright among his coats. He stared at it for a long time. Then he noticed the writing on the wood. IF YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN, KNOCK TWICE. He raised his hand. He knocked once. From the other side came a knock. Then silence. He knocked again. This time, the door opened. Beyond it lay a narrow road under a grey sky. At the far end stood a house. Its windows were dark. Its front door was open. A woman stood on the porch, holding a candle. She looked like his mother. Or his daughter. Or a stranger he had once passed in a railway station. He could not decide. The woman raised the candle. The flame burned black. "Come along," she said. He looked over his shoulder at his apartment. The tea was cooling. The television was on. The clock showed 8:17. He thought about calling someone. He thought about closing the door. He thought about the little boy who had asked for his sister. Then, from somewhere deep within the house, he heard a voice. His own voice. It was very small. It was very frightened. And it was asking a question he had been trying not to hear for as long as he could remember. "Which one of us is supposed to go home?" The woman on the porch tilted her head. Behind her, someone moved in the upstairs window. The man stepped toward the door. Then stopped. The woman smiled. Or perhaps she was crying. He could not tell. "Well?" she asked. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. The road beyond the door began to move, slowly folding itself into the sky like a piece of paper being put away. The house grew smaller. The woman grew taller. The candle went out. For a moment, he saw something in the darkness behind her. A second doorway. A third. A fourth. All standing open. All leading somewhere different. All leading to the same place. Then the wardrobe door closed. The man stood alone in his bedroom. He checked the clock. 8:17. He checked it again. 8:17. He went to the kitchen and poured away his tea. In the morning, he would tell himself that he had been tired. He would go to work. He would pay his bills. He would forget the door. He would forget the woman. He would forget the question. And perhaps he would. Perhaps, somewhere, a child would finally be allowed to sleep. Perhaps a mother would wake in a house that had never existed and discover that every room was empty. Perhaps Mara Voss was driving along a road beneath an ordinary sky, heading toward a town she had never visited. Perhaps she was standing in a bathroom, listening to water run. Perhaps she had never been born. Perhaps she had been born yesterday. Perhaps she was still on the porch, waiting for the door to open. Nobody could say. Not even the house. Especially not the house. Because at dawn, when the first light entered the windows, the house had disappeared. In its place stood a field of white flowers. The flowers turned their heads toward the sun. Beneath the soil, something knocked. Once. Twice. Three times. And a voice, so faint that it might have been the wind, whispered: "Not yet." A little later, the rain began to fall upward again. Nobody noticed. Nobody remembered noticing. And somewhere, behind a door that opened inward, a woman with a child's face sat at a kitchen table, carefully peeling the skin from an apple that had no centre. Across from her sat a boy whose shadow belonged to someone else. Between them stood three cups of tea. Two were warm. One was empty. The woman looked at the empty cup. "Are we expecting someone?" she asked. The boy considered this. Then he said, "I think we're waiting for the person who asked." "Asked what?" He looked toward the window. Outside, the sky was full of doors. Some were open. Some were closed. One was slowly turning its handle. The boy smiled. "I can't remember." The woman nodded. "Neither can I." They sat quietly together. After a while, the woman began to hum. It was an old song about a little bird sleeping beneath the ground. The boy joined in. Somewhere, very far away, a telephone began to ring. Neither of them moved. The ringing continued. And continued. And continued. Until, quite suddenly, it became the sound of someone laughing. Or crying. Or knocking. THE END. Or perhaps not. Somewhere, a door is still opening. Somewhere, someone is still arriving. And somewhere, a little boy is standing in the rain, waiting for a woman who may or may not be his sister. He has forgotten her name. He has forgotten his own. But he remembers one thing. He remembers that he must never let her inside. Unfortunately, the door has already opened. ChatGPT is AI and can make mistakes.