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The first thing I notice is the smell: cold and burning metal. The entryway is bright with high ceilings and big windows. A staircase curves around the outer walls, leading up to an open landing on the second floor. An enormous brass chandelier hangs from a chain, each spindly arm holding a single candle-shaped bulb. The wide floorboards are dull and worn, pitted with dark knots, but I can see how they’ll glow once polished.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, because it is. Beautiful and surprising. I’m not sure what I expected. Something more haunted, I guess.

Bill looks relieved. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” he says. “We usually come in from the back, but I wanted you to get the full effect. You can really see the potential.”

Sunlight floods through the big windows, each of which is made up of hundreds of tiny panes of glass. I wonder if Sarah Dale had to wash these too. Somewhere, deep in the building, a radiator bangs.

“Shall we go up?” He gestures to the stairs. Each step dips in the center, worn down by children’s feet running up and down over the years. They’d make you stand in the corner with your arms out for hours, until you felt like they’d break. Maybe children here didn’t run.

From the landing on the second story, the chandelier looks like a spider dipped in molten metal, suspended by a thread. Bill leads us into a dark, narrow hallway with low ceilings and an endless stretch of closed doors. I’ve studied the floor plan of Coram House, but still feel turned around. It’s such a different scale, being inside.

“This is where the sisters lived,” Bill says. He opens a door, seemingly at random. The room is small and bare except for a sink set directly into the wall. A tiny window lets in the light, but it’s set too high to see anything but sky. I stretch out my arms. My fingertips brush the wall on either side.

“It’s like a prison cell,” I say, but the word in my head is coffin.

“The sisters lived spare lives. There would have been space for a bed there”—he gestures to the end of the room—“but not much else.”

“Did they all live in rooms like this?”

Bill nods. “This hall leads to the boys’ dormitory and there’s another set of rooms like this on the other side of the building, outside the girls’ dormitory. They’re like mirror images.”

I try to imagine it, sleeping in this tiny, dark room. Reading the Bible nightly by the light of a lamp. Choosing that life. The air has a faint smell—antiseptic and menthol. Or maybe all this is just my imaginings of what a nun’s life would be like.

Bill runs his hand over the door’s molding, as if checking its solidity. He clears his throat. Something about this room is making him uncomfortable. I think of when I’d go visit my grandparents—how their bedroom was always off-limits. Then, one day when my grandmother was out, I peeked in. The curtains were closed. The room smelled of hand cream and soil from the lemon tree growing by the window. An intimate smell. I did nothing, just stood there, but my heart beat wildly, as if I was doing something illicit. I wonder if that’s how it feels for Bill to stand at the threshold of this room, even five decades later.

“Would you like to see the boys’ dormitory?” he asks, already backing down the hall.

“Sounds great.”

I snap a quick picture with my phone before following.

“The history of the building is quite interesting,” Bill says. “It was originally built in 1879 and designed by a reverend. They really built things differently then. Just wait until you see the trim on these windows.”

When we reach the end of the hallway, Bill pauses for dramatic effect and then flings open the double doors. The room is huge and the view is spectacular. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame a snowy hill dotted with gravestones, leading down to the lake. To the left, a peninsula extends into the water. A wooden shack sits on the rocky shore, a green canoe beside it, partially covered in snow.

“That building down there.” I point out the window. “Is that the boathouse?”

Bill squints at the view. “Sure is.”

“A little cold for a canoe, isn’t it?”

He laughs. “It’s mine actually. I had a duck blind out there. It’s been closed since Christmas but I haven’t gotten around to bringing the boat in.”

I point to the forested peninsula to our left, reviewing my mental map. “And that’s Rock Point?”

Bill nods. “It’s all diocese land.” He sounds mournful. “But the trails are open to the public. Great views—worth seeing if you get a chance.”

I look around, trying to see the room as it would have been. Rows of beds with creaky metal springs. White sheets and scratchy wool blankets. How many beds would have fit? Twenty—maybe more? Light floods in through the windows, trapping dust motes floating down like snow onto the creaky floorboards.

Bill goes on about the history of the building, the slate roof and cupola. The plans to add a rear terrace with lake views, but his voice is background noise. The boys’ dormitory. This is where Tommy would have slept. Fred Rooney too. So many children.

“Is this where you lived?” I ask, cutting him off.

Bill blinks in confusion, as if he’s forgotten where we are. “I see you’ve done your homework,” he says. “Though I’m not sure I’d call it living here—I didn’t stay long.”

He walks to a spot in the middle of the room and draws a rectangle with his hands, the ghost of a bed. “Jesus, the windows were drafty. I’m lucky I got here in May. If it had been December, I would have had icicles in my hair.” He chuckles, but it sounds forced. “But it’s hard to beat the view.”

His tone is wistful, but there’s something performative about it.

“You were only here a few months then?” I ask.

“My mother, she wasn’t a healthy woman. But she got herself clean and came back for me. Coram House was a lifeline for my family. I feel quite grateful, really, that it kept me here in the community and gave my mother a chance to reclaim her life.”

I nod along. The speech sounds rehearsed, but maybe his acquisition of the property wasn’t just about profit. Maybe he did love this place.

“Do you keep in touch with anyone you knew here?” I ask.

Bill shakes his head. “As I said, I didn’t really have time to settle in and make any lifelong friends.”

He doesn’t mention Fred Rooney. Bill shivers and zips up his jacket. He’s right—it is drafty.

“Would you like to see the refectory? The original tables are still there.”

I’d like to push him further, but I sense he’s ready to be done with this conversation. So I smile. “That would be great.”

On the far side of the room, we pass a wall of built-in cabinets. On impulse, I grab one of the brass knobs and pull it open. The dusty shelves inside are empty, but each one has a label holder—the type you might see on a filing cabinet. A few have slips of paper inside, now yellowed with age. 2. 18. I realize what they are.

“What was your number?” I ask.

Beside me, Bill stiffens. “I don’t remember.”

I can’t tell if he’s lying. I snap a picture.

“You know, I’ll need to approve those photos before you print them.”

Bill looks pointedly down at his watch. It’s a TAG Heuer, I notice. Expensive, but not as showy as a Rolex.

“And I do have a meeting in an hour.”

Message received. I put away my phone. No more off-roading on his carefully maintained trail through history. “Of course. Lead the way.”

Bill guides us down a steep set of back stairs. The kitchen has none of the Dickensian flavor of upstairs. The floor is peeling red linoleum and, instead of counters, the center of the room is dominated by a series of metal rolling tables. The industrial pots look big enough to fit a toddler. The refrigerator, a dirty shade of avocado, is surprisingly small for a kitchen that must have fed over a hundred people.

“There was usually a cook and an assistant on staff,” Bill says. He trips on a curled floor tile and looks down at it, angry, as if the floor did it on purpose.

“Did they live here as well?”

“Who? The cook? No, I don’t think so. They came in from town.”

“So how many adults did live here?” I ask. I know the answer—one or two priests and up to seven sisters—but I’m curious to see if he does. His knowledge seems oddly selective.

“Five or six, maybe?” he says, absently.

“And through there”—I point to a swinging door set in the far wall—“that’s where you ate?”

“The refectory.”

The door squeals in protest. The long room is filled with scarred wooden tables, benches stacked upside down on top so their legs stick in the air like overturned bugs. A huge fireplace dominates one wall, the brick stained black from years of smoke. On the other wall, tall windows with a view out onto the lake.

“We’re thinking of leaving this mostly as is,” he says. “Maybe turning it into a cafe or coworking space.”

I can see it. A coffee bar on one side. People sitting at the long antique tables, tapping away on their laptops below the pressed tin ceiling, now spruced up with a fresh coat of paint. Worse, I can see myself here. It’s somehow easier to conjure than tables full of children. The beauty of this empty place makes it hard to imagine terrible things happening here. As if sweeping water and mountain views somehow preclude human cruelty.

Bill glances down at his watch again. I decide to gamble. “Could I see the attic?”

“The attic?” He frowns. “There’s nothing up there.”

I shrug. Humor me .

“All right,” Bill says in the tone of someone bestowing a great favor. “But then I should be getting back.”

“Of course,” I say. “I really appreciate you taking the time.”

He leads me back into the kitchen and up a different set of stairs to another narrow hallway. At least I think it’s different. The doors and passages seem to curl back in on themselves like the whorl of a snail’s shell.

Then we’re in another large room, identical to the boys’ dormitory at the other end of the building. But out these windows, I see the new construction that extends toward the lake like a pointing finger. A gust of wind rattles the windows in their frame. It’s freezing despite the huge cast-iron radiator that runs along the wall. The dark green paint is peeling off to reveal flakes of silver beneath.

“This was the girls’ dormitory,” Bill says. He points to a door in the corner with a brass latch. “The attic access is through there.”

So that’s why they were always locking the girls in the attic. How convenient.

Bill tries to open the latch on the door, but it’s stuck.

“Mr. Campbell, you said you didn’t keep in touch with anyone during your time here. But out in the office—what about Fred Rooney?”

“Fred?” Bill turns to me. Then he shrugs. “We’ve worked together for so many years, I didn’t think of it. But yes, you’re right, we did overlap here if that’s what you mean.”

“But you weren’t friends?” I press.

He shakes his head. “Fred’s three years older than me. That’s a world of difference when you’re thirteen and sixteen.”

“What about a boy named Tommy?” I try to sound casual.

Bill goes still. Something in the quality of his attention has changed. “He was the one who ran away?”

Given Bill’s deposition and how pointedly he undermined Sarah Dale’s story, I have a hard time believing I need to jog his memory. I wonder if he’s testing me, to see how much I know.

“That was the official story, but a woman named Sarah Dale suggested that he may have died here under suspicious circumstances.”

He waves a hand in dismissal. “She was an old drunk looking for attention and probably extra cash from the settlement.”

“She had a drinking problem?”

“In the eighties, at least. She was half drunk the whole time she was here—bottle in her purse, the whole thing. Stedsan felt bad for her and, God knows, it would have been hell for the case if it had come out she was lying.”

My insides sink. “So you never heard any rumors when you were a child? That he’d drowned?”

Bill shakes his head. “Pure fabrication, if you ask me.” He glances at the door, open now. “Listen, if you want to go up we should—”

“Yes, that would be great.”

The door swings open to reveal a set of stairs so steep the runners are only a few inches deep. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stay here,” he says. “Not sure my old knees can take that ladder.”

I grip either side and start up. At the top, a trapdoor is pinned open to the wall with a metal hook. My head surfaces into an enormous open room.

“Don’t go too far,” Bill calls up. “I’m not sure about the floor at the far end.”

I imagine punching through a rotten board, falling through empty space. Still, I shuffle a few feet farther, sending up swirls of dust. Outside I can hear the wind, but in here it’s barely more than a cold breath on my neck. It smells of dust and resin.

Light filters through windows at either end, but it’s still dark. Not that there’s much to see. A stack of wooden boards fuzzed with dust. A pile of old rags. What had I been expecting? Those ghostly statues of the saints or the wardrobe that loomed in Sarah Dale’s dreams, all here almost fifty years later? Maybe I need to see it, to touch the wooden boards, and remind myself that it’s no dark version of Narnia. There’s nothing special about the evil in this place. It’s just people doing terrible things—same as everywhere.

I cough. All the dust is making my chest feel tight. A soft click echoes in the empty space. It takes me a moment to recognize the sound of a door latching. I walk back to the stairs. The trapdoor is still open, but the bottom of the stairs is dark. “Mr. Campbell?” I call.

No answer.

I climb back down, slowly, in the dark. At the bottom, I feel for the handle, but it’s just smooth wood. There was this old wardrobe. She made you get inside and then locked the door. I knock, feeling a little ridiculous at how my heart is pounding.

“Hello,” I call.

Again, nothing. I knock harder. “Bill!” My voice sounds panicked.

The door flies open, and I stumble out, blinking in the light like a mole.

“Sorry,” Bill says. “I just stepped out for a minute—a phone call. The wind must have slammed it shut.”

“I’m just glad you didn’t go too far,” I say, trying for lightness.

“Ready to go? Sorry to rush you, but I really should get back.”

“Yes,” I say, brushing the dust off my jacket. My heart is still beating too quickly. “Of course.”

Bill leads the way at a fast clip, like he can’t wait to get out of here. Or maybe just get rid of me. But I don’t entirely trust my legs to hold me. I can still feel the smooth wood of the door with no handle. The darkness that tasted of dust. The wind, Bill had said. I think of my grandparents’ drafty old house. Every time you left a window open, the wind would suck the door across the hall shut with a slam as loud as a firework going off. The sound in the attic hadn’t been a door slamming. It had been a soft click. Like someone on quiet feet who didn’t want to be heard gently pressing the door shut.