They were staying in a small, clean apartment on the north side, a caseworker’s card on the fridge, a chain of paper birds strung across the window.

Birdie opened the door herself.

She looked up at me — and the thing I had seen at the gate, that terrible stillness, was not in her face anymore.

She was just a kid in a doorway, a little shy, holding a marker.

“Mr.

Ackerley,” she said.