Letters in the Flue

The wallpaper in the nursery was a pattern of small birds. When she looked closely, every bird had its head turned toward the window, as if something outside had called them.

Downstairs, the grandfather clock struck thirteen, paused, and then, almost apologetically, struck one.

She did not sleep in the east bedroom again. The east bedroom did not seem to mind. It simply waited.

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In the morning, the dust on the hall table showed a single handprint, small, like a child’s, pressed flat as if to hold something down.

She told herself it was the pipes. Old houses knocked. Old houses sighed. Old houses did not, as a rule, whisper her name in her mother’s voice.

The house was quiet in the way a held breath is quiet.