You take a moment to psych yourself up.

You walk up onto the porch.

You take another moment because you burned through all your psyched upness just getting to the door.

You knock.

Don'tbeweirddon'tbeweirdon'tbe--

"Oh, hi Plaire! Kate texted and said you'd be coming. Would you like to come in for a minute? I know the walk here from the bus stop is a pain. I have tea?"

"S-sure. Uhhh... decaf, if you have it."

Kate's mom leads you inside.

The TV is playing a show about whether or not Biblical angels were actually aliens.

"Oh," Ms. Halford adds from her kitchen, "and Kate said to remind you about the laundry room...? I figured you'd know what she meant."

"Oh, yeah," you reply, forcing a smile even though she can't see you. The laundry room. Before you left the house, you, Kate, and Cici decided to have one more look around for it, and

uh

Oh.

God dammit.

Slowly, you take out your notepad.

Please, Memory Holed Past Plaire, please have remembered to actually write something down. I know you're dumb, but please, just this once, do not have fucked this up for us. Sincerely, Current Plaire.

You open the notepad.

Thumb through the pages.

You don't notice anything new or out of place

until you hit the most recent entry.

THE JUJU IS BAD

INFINITE STAIRS?

DARKNESS EATS EVERYTHING

HOUSE LOUD

HOUSE DOES NOT

WANT US UPSTAIRS

. . .

The handwriting is yours.

Sloppy, maybe written in a hurry, but absolutely yours.

Fucking

UPstairs?!

W h a t.

Maybe it's one of those little foldout staircases that pop out of the ceiling.

You're trying to visualize the structure of your house and you might have room for a little attic. It's not that crazy.

In retrospect, you don't remember looking at the ceiling all that hard when you originally searched for secret passages.

It's fine. It's fine, normal even, aside from everything else about it.

Ms. Halford returns, handing you a glass of tea. It is, unlike last time, an iced tea. Heather Halford out here living life on the wild side

"Are you okay?," she asks. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

You barely manage to keep your face from making the face it wants to make.