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Annie had made up her mind for real, this time. She and Charlie were going home.

For all she knew, given what had happened today, he’d be ready to pack up and get the hell out of here, too. But she wasn’t

going to spring her decision on him until the following day, not until she was ready to put all their stuff into the car and

hit the road.

Annie had spent the rest of the day, after Finnegan’s body had been removed and the police had departed, dealing with the

fallout. She first made calls to people Finnegan worked with in the publishing office, but it was getting late in the day

and many had left. But she had several email addresses, and sent out a joint communiqué, explaining that Finnegan had come

up to see her and that there had been a terrible accident.

She was, in effect, putting the ball in their court. They would know whom to reach out to about making the necessary arrangements.

Someone else could take the lead here. Annie felt guilty, not volunteering to be that person. Finnegan was a good friend.

He’d discovered her, launched her, and she owed so much of her success to him. But he had always been a very private person,

telling her very little about himself, and, while Annie felt that was probably not a sufficient excuse not to get involved,

she simply was not up to it.

It didn’t take long before she received responses to her group email. Texts, emails, and a call from the publisher herself, Finnegan’s supe rior. “We’ve got this,” she said. “You do what you have to do. We’ll handle it.”

Finnegan had a brother outside of Boston, she told Annie, and she had already been in touch with him. If he had any further

questions, he was to get in touch with the local authorities, not Annie. The keys to his Boxster could be left with them;

the brother would figure out what to do with it, how to get it back to the city or Boston or wherever.

“Thank you,” Annie said.

And, while Annie was glad to be relieved of those responsibilities, she was still feeling traumatized, and worried Charlie

was as well. After all, he’d found Finnegan. Later that evening, she sat down with him in the living room, the TV on in the

background but the sound off.

“How you doing?” she asked, sidling up next to him on the couch and slipping her arm around him.

“I’m okay,” he said.

“I’m really sorry about what you went through.”

“I’ve never seen a dead person before,” he said. “Except on TV. I’ve seen lots of dead people on TV.”

“But it’s not the same.”

“One’s pretend,” Charlie said. “And one’s real.”

“Yeah. You have any questions? You want to talk about it?”

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You must be wondering how it happened.”

“Not really,” Charlie said.

That gave Annie pause. “Nobody can figure out how it happened.”

“He must’ve tripped,” he said, like it was simple.

“Well, yeah, he did, but how he tripped is kind of hard to figure out.”

“Sometimes people just trip.”

“That’s true. I just want to be sure you’re okay. I’m worried you might have bad dreams or something.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“Why don’t you bunk in with me tonight.”

“I’m not a baby.”

Annie wasn’t sure whether to feel hurt or relieved. But if her son was strong enough to deal with this, well, that was a good

thing, wasn’t it? And considering what he’d already been through in the past year, maybe he was tougher than she gave him

credit for.

“If you change your mind, that’s okay.”

He glanced at the muted TV. “Can we watch a movie?”

“I guess. Was there one in particular you wanted to see?”

“Doesn’t matter.” As she went to pick up the remote, he said, “What are we going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are we going home?”

She put the remote back down on the coffee table.

“I... I don’t know. What do you want to do? Do you want to go home? Because if you’d like that, that would be okay.”

Make it seem like his idea , she thought, even though I’m ready to leave right this second.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow?”

“Sure. We could do that. Sleep on it.”

Charlie nodded. “And can I take home the bike?”

“Uh, let me think about that.”

“And the trains?”

Annie thought about the lie she had been formulating earlier. About how to get rid of those fucking toy trains.

“I don’t think we can do that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“I had a call. The people who used to live here. They didn’t call me, but they called the lady, the one we got the place from? And then she got in touch with me. When those people moved out, they forgot to take that box of trains with them. So we’re going to have to pack them up so they can be shipped to wherever they live now.”

Charlie stared at her.

“What?” she said.

“They really said that?” he asked.

Annie wondered whether she had a tell. A facial tic, something Charlie could read in her expression that would give her away,

that he would spot and know she was lying.

“Yes,” she said.

He nodded slowly. “Oh well,” he said. “They were fun to play with while I had them.”

Annie smiled. “When we get home, we’ll look into replacing them. A brand-new train set. What do you think about that?”

“I guess.”

If he was excited, Annie thought, he was doing a good job of hiding it. But at least he didn’t fight her. She believed that

by tomorrow he’d be on board with leaving. If it weren’t for the fact that she hated driving at night—even if Sherpa would

be happy to guide her—she’d pack up the car and go right now.

She’d just put Charlie to bed when she heard a car pulling up to the house. When Annie went out onto the porch, Candace was

getting out of her car.

“It’s just so awful,” Candace said, standing at the foot of the porch steps, then stepping up onto the first one.

Annie did not feel inclined to invite her in and stood at the center of the top step, as though blocking the woman’s path.

“Yes,” Annie said.

“The police came to see me. It’s all my fault.”

Annie waited.

“Mr. Sproule was in touch, asked me to leave a key in the mailbox in case you weren’t here when he arrived.” Her chin quivered.

“I shouldn’t have done that. I had the best of intentions.”

The road to hell , Annie thought.

“He was so excited about coming to see you, to bring you some New York treats. If I had known, if I’d had any idea—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“And I came to tell you that I’m so sorry that Bert—he’s my handyman—hasn’t been by to install the chains, but he got swamped

with some other projects and has promised to come by tomorrow, and—”

“We’re leaving.”

“You’re what?”

“First thing tomorrow. We’re packing up and going home.”

Candace nodded slowly. “I can’t blame you for that. I wish things had turned out differently.”

There was something in the back of Annie’s mind, something she had been meaning to ask Candace about.

“The photographers,” Annie said. “The ones who were here last.”

“Yes?”

“Why did they leave?”

Candance looked uncomfortable. “Sometimes people want a change.”

“I’m betting there was more to it than that.”

“It doesn’t matter, anyway. You’ve decided to leave, so leave.”

“What were their names?”

“I really don’t—”

“Names. If you don’t tell me, I’m betting Daniel will know. But I’d really rather not bother him right now. His wife’s not

well. Is it Smitherton? That’s the name still on the mailbox.”

Candace sighed, as though admitting defeat. “Yes. Graham and Steph. Short for Stephanie.”

“Where’d they move to?”

“New Haven, I think. They were from there originally. Look, I’m really sorry how things turned out, but if you ever—”

“Good night,” Annie said, turned and went back into the house.

It didn’t take her five minutes of Google-searching on the laptop in her bedroom to find a Graham and Stephanie Smitherton

in New Haven who ran a photo studio. Their website offered a variety of services, from simple things like passports to more

ambitious projects like weddings. There was a phone number, but when Annie called it went straight to voicemail. It was late

in the day, and their business hours were nine to five.

There was an email address. Annie dashed off a quick message, identifying herself not as someone who lived in their former

residence, but as the children’s book author and illustrator. (She hoped they might recognize her name.) She said she had

an urgent request, and would they be good enough to call her when they received this email?

She hit send .

While she awaited a reply, she set about getting Charlie and herself ready to leave. She went downstairs, eyed the unfinished

jigsaw puzzle. Only the border and most of The New Yorker masthead were finished. She took the open box, held it under the edge of the table, and swept all the pieces—those that had

not yet been placed and those that had—into it, slid the lid back on top of it, and gave it a shake. She held the box a moment,

as though wondering in what bag she’d place it for the trip home, then opened the door to the cupboard below the sink and

shoved it into the garbage bin.

Annie took a look in the fridge and the pantry, assessing what, if anything, she might take home with her. She would need to make a lunch for the trip, something they could eat in the car. She didn’t want to stop on the way for anything but gas and bathroom breaks. She wanted to put this place as far behind her as quickly as she could.

Her eyes went to the bag of bagels Finnegan had brought, and teared up.

Problem solved.

Her cell phone, which she had left by the kitchen sink, rang.

“Hello?” she said.

“Ms. Blunt?” a woman asked.

“Yes. Is this Stephanie Smitherton?”

“Call me Steph.”

“And please, call me Annie.”

“I can’t tell you how excited I was to hear from you. I’m a real fan, and we don’t even have kids. I love your work, and I

can’t even imagine why you’re calling me. What can I do for you?”

Annie hated to burst the woman’s bubble. “I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely up-front in my email. I have something unrelated to

my work to ask you about.”

Steph said, “Oh?”

“My son and I have been staying in the house you used to live in. The place near Fenelon.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Steph?”

“I’m here.” Her voice, friendly a moment earlier, was now cold. “What is it you want?”

“I wanted to know why you left this place.”

“I don’t know what business that is of yours.”

“Something’s not right here. I’m reluctant to discuss it with anyone, but as a former resident, maybe you wouldn’t think what

I have to say sounds so crazy.”

“I don’t think I want to know.”

“But if I were to tell you strange things have been happening to my son and me, would you be surprised?”

After a few seconds, Steph said, “No.” There was a pause, and then she said, “You went to the garden shed.”

“My son did.”

“You won’t be able to get rid of them,” Steph said. “We tried. We put it out for trash pickup one day, but the next time we

went into the shed, it was still there. We took it into Fenelon and threw it into a Dumpster behind a pizza place, and that

didn’t work, either. The box always returned.”

Annie felt a chill.

“What sort of... phenomena... did you experience?” Annie asked.

“I really don’t want to talk about this. We’ve tried to put it behind us. But we couldn’t run our business there. It wasn’t possible.”

“Why?”

“None of the photos we took were usable.”

“Why was that?”

More silence. Then, “This is just an example, but one you can see. A couple came in with their six-month-old son, hired us

to do a family portrait. We had a setup in the studio, a nice backdrop, perfect for that kind of thing. But we couldn’t get

a good picture. None of the shots taken there could be used. See for yourself.”

“How?”

“In the basement. There’s a big kind of worktable there, with drawers.”

“Right.”

“There’s a couple of pictures left in one of them. I threw all the others away, but I saved those. Like proof, you know? But when we moved, I just left them there. You might have to stare at them for a few seconds to understand what I’m talking about. Please don’t contact me again. I’ve nothing else to say about this. I’m sorry.”

“What should I be looking—”

“Goodbye.”

Steph ended the call.

Annie put down the phone, stupefied. She took barely a moment to collect her thoughts and headed for the basement.

She went to the worktable, started sliding open the drawers. Two of them were filled with old screws and clamps, one was empty,

but the last one had a couple of what Annie thought of as eight-by-ten glossies. She whipped them out.

Two pictures of a black couple, late twenties, sitting close together, dressed sharply, their baby boy sitting across both

their laps, looking anywhere but at the camera. The tot was dressed up in a tiny suit, a small bow tie at his neck. The parents

look frustrated, no doubt because the baby was distressed, his face in a grimace. The fact that Steph had this shot printed

suggested the others were even worse.

Behind them was a blue velvet draping that ran over the seats they were perched on, and on down to the floor.

“I don’t get it,” Annie said to herself.

It was far from an ideal family portrait, given how uncooperative the little boy was, but other than that, what was the problem?

What was it Steph expected Annie to see? There was nothing ominous about—

Oh fuck.

Steph had been right. You had to look at the picture for a moment. It was like those so-called 3D “magic eye” posters from

the nineties, where if you stared at them long enough you saw a hidden image.

It was like when her inspirational pane of glass would appear. Only the edge visible at first, but then the glass began to turn. And Annie saw something take shape in the folds of the backdrop fabric.

For a second, and then it was gone. She would blink a couple of times, and it would reappear. Then vanish. She’d squint, and

it was back again.

A face, but not human. More like a rat, or maybe a wolf. Or a combination of the two.

Annie knew this face.

She shoved the pictures back into the drawer and slammed it shut.

Dawn , she thought as she went upstairs to her bedroom. At dawn, we are getting the fuck out of here.

The next morning, when she got up, Charlie was gone.