The Locked Room at the Top of the Stairs

But the ledger got longer.

And at the top of the house, up a narrow flight of stairs, there was a door that was always locked, and Victoria wore the only key to it on a chain around her neck, and she touched it sometimes without seeming to know she was doing it, the way you touch a wound to check it’s still there.

Chapter 6 — The Attic Door

It was a sound that took me up there, finally.

A soft, irregular noise from the top of the house in the deep middle of the night, weeks into the marriage — a sound like something being moved, or turned, or set down with care.

Julian was asleep beside me, or was pretending to be; I had stopped being able to tell the difference, and had stopped letting myself think about what it meant that I couldn’t.