She was beginning to feel nervous about how the house would interpret everything she did. Even something as simple as flipping a light switch or opening a door made her anxious, so Cora took everything slowly, hoping not to cause any sort of friction. And the more she paid attention to her own movements, to the way she went about operating in the house, the more she began to realize she had a sort of power over it. Or at least the ability to calm it, to keep it . . . happy, if she had to put a word to it. If she hesitated, if she lingered, if she used physical nearness, she noticed the very atmosphere, the ambience was mellow, a sort of buzzing contentment with every now and then something like a little jolt of electricity or flicker of lights, as if she'd done something to excite it. And that was all good. She didn't want any more of the confusion she'd felt after waking in her closet, and she didn't want anyone to get hurt. Because by now, she sensed that Brian had been right—there was something perhaps ominous about the place.

Still, Cora didn't hate the house by any means, and she didn't quite fear it, either. Her existence within it was developing into an organic mixture of apprehensive respect and, in a weird way, a fearful affection. How exactly it lived (if what it was doing could even be called living) was beyond her comprehension, but her mother had been right when she'd joked with Cora on Thanksgiving morning—the house did like her. And Cora did like the house. Well, she liked it enough, anyway, to want to keep it safe from anyone whose intentions toward it were less than friendly and, conversely, she wanted to keep safe anyone toward whom the house's intentions were less than friendly.

The house was almost like a pet, really, one Cora understood though others did not, one she'd grown attached to and would defend even if it from time to time misbehaved.

Over the past few weeks, Cora had rushed to finish her online schoolwork she'd been neglecting. Though she felt better than she had some months ago, the school had deemed it best she complete the online program she'd begun and return to school after the winter holidays, which were fast approaching. She hadn't gone anywhere at all, and she'd even restricted what she did within the walls of the house. She'd tried to stay off her phone, away from anything social. Brian had become too distracting with his messages and calls; he'd even braved coming to the door once, but she'd pretended she hadn't heard him.

It wasn't that she didn't return his feelings, what he'd said to her Thanksgiving night. Maybe she did; maybe she didn't. She couldn't quite tell what she felt except that she just didn't have the capacity to think of him when she was so consumed with keeping the house happy. It was a full-time job. The house didn't sleep, and it was literally always around her. On top of that, her mother was growing more paranoid by the day. The few times Cora did see the woman, when she was home between jobs, she was always awake and alert, never sleeping, never eating, never even watching television. It was as if her mother were waiting for something, and whatever that "something" was, it had possessed her.

Between the house and her mother, Cora no longer had time to think about herself. She showered, she ate, she slept, she did schoolwork--and that was all. She'd even stopped communicating with Grandma Luce. Her acknowledgement of the outside world had entirely ceased.

So when someone knocked, rang the bell one cold Thursday morning, the girl just plain ignored it. But whoever was there was persistent, unwilling to walk away, and the more the ringer continued, the more Cora began to fear the house might somehow react to the annoyance, and so she sighed and went to answer, hoping it wasn't Brian.

And it wasn't.

Cora had to think about where she'd seen this person before, and it took her a moment, as if surfacing from a dream, to recognize Ben's stepmother, looking as frazzled as if she'd crawled out of a dryer.

"I told you I'd be back," was the first thing the woman said. She wasn't dressed half-warmly enough, no coat or anything, no hat or gloves, just a sweatshirt and jeans and boots.

"Yeah," Cora found her voice, "but you said in twenty-four hours."

"I was . . . delayed." Neither said anything after that for a solid thirty seconds, until the woman added, "Well? Has my stepson contacted you?"

Cora's eyes pinched a little. "You didn't find him?"

Rather than respond, the woman, who had something of a startled animal about her, looked about and then asked to come inside.

Positioning herself firmly between the inner and outer doors, Cora shook her head. "No. Absolutely not." For your own good, she wanted to add.

"Please? I don't want to talk here in the open . . . I--just, please?"

Sighing, Cora agreed inwardly that they couldn't stay on the porch. The house wouldn't like it. In fact, she could already feel the tension in the air behind her. "Come around back. We can talk in the yard."

The woman was visibly flustered, but she conceded, and while Cora locked the front door and went through the house to the back, the woman went around, and soon they were on the patio, Cora having grabbed a coat and a pair of fuzzy slippers along the way. The sun was out, but the temperature was in the twenties, maybe lower, and though the snow of a few weeks ago had melted in a brief warm spell, the ground was now coated in a hard, sparkling frost.

"I'm an old friend of your mother's," was the first thing the woman said to her when Cora drew near.

Her words were jarring. Cora's mouth hung open unattractively before she found words. "Wait--I thought you said you were Ben's stepmother--"

"I am. I also know your mother from a long time ago."

Cora sensed that something more was going on, but she couldn't quite grasp what it was. "Then why don't you come back when she's here?"

"No, I want to talk to you."

Shaking her head, the girl was at a loss. "I--I'm confused. I've known Ben for a few years. How come I never met you? If you know my mom--"

"She doesn't remember me. Or maybe I should say she wouldn't want to remember me. I can't exactly explain it to you, all right? But I can tell you that Ben is absolutely my stepson; I divorced his father several years ago. And I am genuinely worried about where he is. I never would've gotten him involved in this if I'd known he'd get hurt or lost or whatever's exactly happened to him."

It was too much at once. Cora couldn't take it in. She took a few steps back. "Hold on! I don't understand, all right? And it's true what I told you, anyway. Whoever you are, Ben isn't here. He showed up to visit me, and then he left, and that was the last I saw him."

"But his car--"

"I don't have any idea how it got back here, but we had it towed. We figured you'd found him when you didn't come back."

The woman shoved her fingers up through her hair. "Oh my God," she groaned, turning and stepping in circles as if unsure what to do with her body. "He told me to let it go, let it play out. I'm not even supposed to be here, and if he finds out . . . but oh, God, I . . . I don't know--"

"Okay, look . . . I'm really sorry that Ben's missing," Cora tried, beginning to feel entirely unsettled by the way this conversation was going and actually sorry that something might've happened to Ben. "I cared about him, a lot, but--"

"Well he never cared about you!" the woman snapped, spinning on Cora with a face twisted in anguish. Her voice trembled. "It was all lies! Stupid girl. I had my doubts about all of it. I warned Ben not to get too close to you," she insisted, pointing an accusatory finger at Cora. "I knew this would end badly, that he was just using my son--I see it so clearly, now--but I knew it then, too! Ben thought it was all some game, thought it would make him happy, tried to impress--and I encouraged it . . . but, oh my God! And he doesn't want me here asking about him but what can I do?" She was almost sobbing, her voice pleading. "What can I do?" She leapt at Cora suddenly, grabbed onto her coat collar, and got right up in her face, growled, "Where is my son, you bitch? What did you do to him?"

So suddenly it happened before Cora even understood it, there was a brief low whistle, and the woman was on the ground, the side of her head bleeding through crimped hair onto the crisp iced grass. A large rectangular stone sat on the ground next to her.

Cora dropped to her hands and knees, tried to wake the woman, shook her, lightly slapped her cheeks, but she wasn't moving. At least her eyes are closed . . . she told herself. If she were dead, they'd probably be open, right? Wouldn't they? "Hold on, lady," Cora said aloud, rising and starting toward the house to go in and retrieve her phone. "I'm going to get you help! Just don't be dead!"

As the girl rushed inside to search for her phone, she didn't even notice the hollowed space in the wall beneath the window, shaped like the rectangular stone that lay on the ground next to Ben's stepmother.