RENOVATION

A blanket of spring snow surrounded the hulk of flaking wood, frosting broken windows, sagging the ancient roof. Wetness seeped into the seams of Laurel’s new boots and soaked her socks, numbed her toes. Ashley had disappeared around the side of the broad building. The whole place seemed to lean, though not in one uniform direction. It splayed, as if something inside was pushing its way out.

Ashley appeared around the far corner. Her smile was visible even at a distance. She had their mom’s smile, the one people called infectious. Laurel was immune.

Ashley’s smile was trained toward the sagging façade. Her voice echoed off the rock faces of the surrounding mountains. “Don’t you want to take a closer look? The carriage house over there is where the shop will be.” She reached Laurel’s side, breath shooting streams of fog in the cold mountain air.

Laurel ran her eyes over the row of boarded-up windows. “I guess I just don’t see how you’re going to turn that”—she nodded at the derelict outbuilding—“into what you described. Even with all of Mom’s money.”

Ashley’s white teeth disappeared behind a thin line of dark lipstick. “Don’t start, Laurel. We agreed; it’s a fresh start.”

“The only thing fresh up here is the snow. Where are we going to sleep?”

“There are over 50 rooms in there. You can pick your favorite.”

“Ash, that building does not look safe to sleep in.”

“It’s fine. I had it inspected. It’s rundown, but it’s sound. Just needs a little spit-shine.”

Laurel watched a tattered curtain wave in one of the third-floor windows. Broken glass caught the light glaring off the undisturbed snow. She did not feel comforted. The structure might have been sound beneath all that rot, but something about the place—the matte shadow of the windows, the cracks between boards that seemed to heave as if breathing—its hollowness felt like her hollowness. She had too much in common with this ruin. She knew what she would find inside, and she didn’t want or need to see it.

“Ashley, it needs a gas can and a match.”

“Fine. Sleep in the truck. I’m going to go pick the room with the best antiques. The furnishings are all still there, you know. From 1906. And we didn’t have to pay a dime for any of it—just the cost of the land.”

Ash started back toward the house, snow sticking to the wool lining of her boots. Warm boots. Not like Laurel’s. Laurel followed her.

“They’re for the shop. You can’t keep them there, Ash. I need to get them out before you start tearing the place apart.”

“Then get your ass inside and stop whining.”

Ash bent to the space beneath the porch steps as Laurel climbed them. “Foundation’s good,” she said. “Set right on top of the rock.” She ran her hands over a sloping pillar. “It’s built on quartz, you know. Can’t you feel the incredible energy here?” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Quartz holds on to its past,” Ash said. “This place is rich with history.”

Laurel shook her head and wondered what those broken windows meant for the antiques inside. Holding on to history isn’t always a good thing. Not when the past is broken. Not when everything rots.

***

The bright sunlight that leapt off the snow banks barely penetrated the currents of dust inside the old building. Laurel’s boots crunched over shadowed debris on the floor. The air smelled of damp wallpaper, old plaster, and rancid wood varnish.

Ashley pressed the wire handle of an LED lantern into Laurel’s hand. A button on the top created a rim of cold light around them. Dust motes circled them like curious moths.

Laurel held the lantern higher, and the light stretched farther across the wide entryway.

Ashley pulled a hammer from her bag and went to the front wall. She began prying nails from grayed planks, pulling the wood away from shattered windows. The crack of brittle boards echoed dully off ancient plaster walls.

As the light crept in, shapes emerged in the shadows.

Laurel walked to the dusty mound of an old secretary desk. She lifted the hinged handle and lowered the heavy writing surface. It was a dark-grained wood coated in crumbling leather that peeled away from tarnished brass tacks. She ran her fingertips gently across the rich grain, tracing the hand-carved grooves. The back wall of the desk was a honeycomb of cubbies and chambers, each stuffed with brittle, yellowed papers. The desk held the scent of old paper trapped for a century, and Laurel breathed it deep, a concentrated hit of endorphins.

Laurel set the lantern down and reached into the first enclosure, pulling out a handful of crumbling correspondence. She settled in the tilting wooden chair and shuffled through the papers. Ledger after ledger lined in red; bills for repairs, lumber, and unfinished labor. Red everywhere.

Ashley’s chin pressed down on her shoulder. “Shall I leave you two alone?” She giggled.

“Actually, that would be great,” Laurel said.

Ashley smacked her arm. “Bitch.”

“Why don’t you go see if you can find us a room that doesn’t smell like dead things?”

“You can find your own room. We’re not kids anymore; we don’t have to share.”

Ashley stepped onto the sweeping staircase. Laurel set down the papers, grabbed the lantern, and followed Ashley’s light around the curve of the stairs. There weren’t likely to be many habitable rooms. She’d have to claim a space or be left sleeping in a pile of damp rot.

The second-floor hall stretched long in either direction. The floor warped like a twisted ribbon, and the ceiling sagged and bulged with whatever secret damages lay on the floor above. Ashley’s light glowed from a room to the right. Laurel went left. Barely half the rooms had doors, and most of those hung from a single crooked hinge. Dusty furniture sagged under the weight of years. Ashley had been right about the antiques—there was a goldmine here—a lifetime of restoration. A lifetime of work.

Laurel felt a pull in her chest. Hope? Probably asthma. She couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Both hurt.

The second-floor rooms were derelict, as were most on the third. The fourth-floor rooms with their sloped ceilings and small windows—servants’ quarters, clearly—had better withstood the elements.

Laurel found a bare interior room with a stooped ceiling and no window—nowhere for nature to have slipped its erosive fingers into the walls. An empty iron bedframe stood in the corner, a small table next to it. A hook-latch held a narrow closet door closed. On a shelf inside the closet lay a dark picture frame. Laurel picked it up and blew dust from the glass. It was an embroidery of a copse of aspen trees in autumn colors, each outlined in fine lines of yellow, orange, and brown, with black and silver tree bark. Laurel held the light closer, let it play over the impossibly fine lines. They shined in her light, reflecting back in delicate frayed curls.

Laurel gasped and tasted the dust of the place on her tongue. The picture was embroidered in human hair, from the bright yellow and orange leaves to the silvery tree bark. Beneath the trees, she could make out tiny figures, poised as if in dance, each a different color of hair, only a few strands thick. Silver grass formed a meadow at their feet.

She carried it from the closet and scanned the walls. There was a nail by the door. It was bent and rusty, but a gentle tug showed it to be sturdy. She slid the frame hook over it and stepped back to admire the piece. At a distance, it almost looked like a watercolor. She’d never seen one wrought so finely.

Laurel walked to the bedframe and slid her pack from her shoulder. She’d lay one of the fallen doors across the metal and sleep in her sleeping bag. There might not be any sweeping mountain views, or sunlight dazzling off snow, but this room was hers. She relaxed her shoulders and let out a long, deep breath.

The battery in her lantern died, as if she’d blown out the light. The walls of the room felt closer in the dark—pressed in on her, hiding her, keeping her safe. They’ll never find me here. Safe and small, like sink cupboards or under beds. No one is looking anymore, she remembered.

***

“The chambermaid’s room? Is this some sort of martyr complex?” Ashley leaned closer to the huge fireplace, rotating her skewer of veggies.

Laurel stabbed a second sausage onto the end of hers and leaned across Ashley to the flames. “No, it’s just a nice room. Not all moldy like the others. And there’s no gaping hole in the floor.”

“I can walk around a hole. Mine’s still the Presidential Suite.” Ashley slid a red pepper off her kebab with her teeth.

“Talk about a complex.” Laurel leaned back in a rickety chair and chewed her sausage.

“Seen any ghosts yet?” Ash asked.

“Ash, please. Don’t start with that stuff. Not now.”

“Let me know if you do. We can charge extra for those rooms.” She grinned.

“And what will we charge for the rooms with no floors?” Laurel chewed cold sausage. No matter how long she held it to the flames, it wouldn’t heat. The house and everything in it had committed to cold.

“You have no imagination, Laurel. You see the place the way it is now, and I see what it will be. Give me a few months, and this place will be swank. People will pay top dollar to stay here. And extra for ghosts.”

Laurel shook her head. Her teeth started to chatter.

“We’re going to need more firewood,” Ash said.

“This whole place is firewood.” Laurel tossed a scrap of debris into the hearth.

The flames surged.

“Laurel, go to bed. You sound like a cranky toddler.”

“I just think this place is a mistake, okay? Yes, it’s a neat building. The location is gorgeous. But I don’t think you’re going to get it fixed up in time for the summer tourists, and I definitely don’t think Mom left us enough money to make it into what you want.” She didn’t think all the money in the world could fill the pit of her sister’s wants. It had been a long time since she, herself, had dared to want anything. Wanting was too close to hoping. “And I should have more say in it.”

Ashley set down her dinner and folded her hands in her lap like an elementary teacher. “Mom left you no say for a reason, Laurel.”

“Damn it, Ash, she wrote that will two years ago. I’ve been sober ever since, and Tyler’s gone. Things are different now, and I deserve a chance to make some decisions about my future. Just because she left you everything doesn’t make you the new Mom!” Look after your sister. You’re in charge. Set an example. Mom had always left Laurel in charge. Just because she had failed miserably didn’t mean they had to trade roles.

“Let’s talk more about it tomorrow, okay? After sleep. You can take a look at the shop building. That space is all yours, remember? Whatever you want in there, we can make it happen.”

Laurel got up and walked toward the grand staircase. The light from the fire behind her cast her shadow dancing along every step. As she turned onto the landing, she thought she could hear the hiss of whispers from below—the way Mom and Ash would whisper whenever she left a room—secret judgements they thought she couldn’t hear, or maybe they knew she could and wanted it that way, wanted her to know they disapproved of her.

Or perhaps it was just the snap of the fire.

The door to her room had been left open, though she remembered closing it—having to push hard to force the swollen boards past each other. Could it have swung ajar as the building settled? She chewed her lip and spread her sleeping bag over the door she’d salvaged for a mattress. As she went to pull her door shut, she noticed the wall by the doorway was bare. Heat flared from her chest to her throat. Had Ash searched her room? She stomped to the closet to throw her pack inside.

There, on the shelf, sat the picture—right back in the exact same space in the dust.

Laurel took it out again and hung it back on the nail.

“She can’t have the antiques.” She ran her fingertips over the glass, tracing the hair stitches. “She may have everything else, but she can’t have those.”

I could nail a board across my door. That would keep her out. But I’d probably burn to death when this place goes up in the night.

Laurel slid fully clothed into her down sleeping bag.

She swore she could still hear Ash whispering. Was that even possible? She must have called someone, or she was reading her tarot cards. Ash sounded happier with her gone. Everyone was always happier after she left. She bet Tyler missed her, though. Good.

She pulled the sleeping bag up to her chin, closed her eyes and drifted off to the sound of the wind slamming boards against the empty window frames.

***

She felt a sharp pain in her scalp. A tug on her hair and the digging tines of a comb against her skin. The sting of hairs plucked and yanked, the ice-cold steel of scissors, the warm spread of blood down her neck. She heard her mother’s voice. This is what happens, stupid. You ruined your hair. Now see how ugly you are? She heard Ash’s quiet sobs from behind the bathroom door, remembered the smell of burning hair, the curls dropping around her in piles to the floor, the strawberry-red blister on Ash’s mouth where she’d bit down on the curling iron—how it stood out against the terrified blanch of her face.

She ran her fingers through the hair trailing from the picture on the wall, pulling the stitches free, clearing the tangle of knots, untying all those memories. Long strands in every hue wrapped around her wrists in silky curls. Let’s play hair salon, Ash said. I’m going to make you beautiful. She braided the hair from the picture in a long plait that trailed from the frame as though from Rapunzel’s tower. White crossed over red, red over yellow, yellow over black . . . I’m going to make you beautiful.

***

Laurel opened her eyes to darkness, unsure in her windowless room if morning had come or not. There was a scratching at her door. A hiss of nails against wood.

“Coffee?”

Ashley, with truce coffee. It must be morning, then. And it better be good coffee.

“Yeah,” she called. She pulled her arms from her sleeping bag and struggled to sit up. Her back felt as stiff as the board beneath her. She stretched, and felt each vertebra slip and pop along her spine.

Ash stepped into the room and handed her a tall mug. Laurel breathed in the steam and couldn’t resist a smile. French press.

“That’s pretty,” Ash said, nodding at the picture by the door.

“Haven’t you seen it already?” Laurel’s dream floated back to her. She reached up and ran her fingers through her hair. She flinched when they caught on a snarl. A headache bloomed at her temple.

“No.” Ash shook her head and leaned in close to the picture glass.

“I think it’s the best of its kind I’ve ever seen.” Laurel took a long drink. “So you weren’t in here last night?”

“Best of what kind?”

“Look closer. That’s all human hair.”

Ash stepped back. “Oh, gross.”

“Relax, it’s behind glass. That’s probably locks cut from all the women in the family. Several generations, I bet. Moms cutting the first locks of their babies, or their children that died of fevers. Maybe the last from a deceased matriarch. They were mementos. Usually they’re wreathes or flower baskets. I’ve never seen trees done like that before.”

Ashley was leaning in close again. “Looks like a lot of different people in this one.”

“Well, there was a lot more to die from back then.”

Ash shuddered and held her mug close. “I guess they didn’t take each other for granted, at least. They probably all felt lucky to be alive, to have each other.”

“Shame so many had to die so the rest could feel appreciated.” You’re all I have left, Ash.

“Well, you’re going to die when you see what I found down the hall.”

Laurel kicked her feet till she was free of the sleeping bag. “What?”

“Only a library.”

“Shut up.”

“Never.” That infectious smile. Laurel could feel her heart mounting an immune response.

“Are there books?”

“They’ve seen better days. But some are okay. It’s the shelves I think you’re going to love. I’ve already rigged a pulley system to get them down the elevator shaft. They’re all yours. For the store.”

Laurel squeezed her mug, trying to soak in some measure of warmth. “I’m sorry I lost my temper last night. I am excited about the store. And a fresh start. It’s just hard to have to rely on you.” I promised to look after you. Now look at us.

“Yeah, well. You took care of me a time or two.”

Should have been four, five. A hundred.

Laurel smiled over the edge of her mug. “I’m not sure hiding you from Mom in my toy chest really counts.”

“It counts more than you think.” Ash scraped her foot through the dust on the floor.

There was a loud crash from down the hall. Ash’s face paled. She leapt into the hallway.

Laurel grabbed her stiff new boots and pulled them on, feeling the hard leather squeeze at the spots still sore from yesterday.

“I must not have tied something right. I’m still working out how best to get all these down.” Ash led Laurel through the long corridors to the hall outside the elevator shaft.

“In one piece, preferably,” Laurel said.

“I’ll see what I can do. Go down to the lobby and help. You can guide the cases and unhook them when they’re down.”

Downstairs, Laurel stared at the open mouth of the elevator shaft. She reached in and pulled a tall, swinging oak bookshelf out onto the floor. It had vines carved along the top and sides in ornate scrolls. Even through the dust, Laurel could tell that the grain was beautiful. It had crashed into the side of the elevator shaft, one side scraped and split. More work. I’ll never be out of work again in this place.

“How many of them are there?” she called up the shaft.

“A lot.”

Laurel grinned. “And what have you done with the books?”

“Left them for you—in huge piles you can swim through if you like.”

Laurel’s smile grew.

“You’re starting to get it, aren’t you?” Ash asked.

“I don’t give a shit about your crappy hotel. But I’m going to have an awesome antique store.”

Ash laughed. “Okay, next!”

Laurel adjusted the boards Ash had laid across the shaft, creating a platform level with the floor. “Lower away!”

A loud crack sounded as something landed at Laurel’s feet in a cloud of dust. Wood splintered. Ashley screamed.

“Ash?” Her head spun. Panic clouded her thoughts. She raced up the stairs to the fourth-floor hallway, kicking up a cloud of debris behind her. Ashley writhed on the floor, her foot pinned under one of the massive shelves.

Laurel shouldered the shelf off Ash’s foot, knelt beside her shrieking sister, and pulled the knot from the laces, yanked the laces from the eyelets, carefully slid the boot off Ash’s foot. Ashley twisted in pain, leaving marks like snow angels in the dust. Dust devils.

Ashley’s two smallest toes were already turning black.

Laurel had only seen a broken bone once before: her forearm. She rubbed at the scar that wound down her arm. Somehow, this was worse. This was Ashley.

Laurel pulled off her scarf to wrap around the twisted toes. Blood had begun to bubble up from where the toenails had torn from their beds.

“Not your dirty rag! Go get the first aid kit from my room.”

Laurel willed her feet to move. She darted down the stairs to the suite and grabbed Ash’s bag. As she left the room, the door slammed behind her. She jumped and yelped, but kept running. Just wind. The breeze tugged at her hair, the snap of it stung her scalp. Yellow over red over red over red . . .

She ran back to Ashley. “We’re going to need to set the break before we wrap it,” she said.

Ash nodded. Laurel could see her throat working to hold back panic. She’d always shown her fear there, in the front of her neck, tendons tight against the skin. She lay pale on the floor.

Laurel gripped the cooling ends of Ash’s toes. They were slick with blood. She pinched hard, pulled the toes straight. Bone scraped against splintered bone until the break aligned and settled in place. The jagged plates of Ash’s toenails came away in Laurel’s hands.

Ash’s scream shook dust from the plaster around them. The floor groaned under the arching of her back as if she might thrash the whole place apart.

Laurel squeezed her sister close and felt the tremble in her shoulders, tasted the dirt in her hair. Just like when we were kids. She combed the dirt from her hair with her fingers. I’m going to make you beautiful. There was never anything they could do to make Ash’s hair curl. It hung straight as wet yellow satin, always. I bet it would glide through the eye of a needle. Lie smooth against the embroidery backing. Ash had always wanted to play with Laurel’s hair—to tame its wildness. Mine would snarl before you could pull a single stitch. It would tangle in the rest and pull out all the work. Ruin everything. She had hated acting the doll. She remembered when Ash had set the iron too hot and burnt the locks of her hair clean away. Remembered the smell as she pressed the iron to Ash’s mouth. How her eyes widened. How her burnt lips split when her mouth stretched to scream.

The echo of Ash’s screams sent a chill down Laurel’s spine. She gave Ash a teary kiss and left blood smeared across her cheek. She gripped her close until her hands hurt, her knuckles white like the snowy peaks outside. “Sorry,” she said, and released her sister.

“You’re right,” Ash said.

“About what?”

“I can’t do this. It’s too much.”

Laurel fought down the impulse to agree, to say that her injury was the natural consequence of her cockiness. That she should have listened to her big sister. That’s what you get. Mom had said it often enough. That’s what you get for being stupid. For not listening. For not minding your own business. For a moment, it was like she was there again, whispering it in her ear.

Laurel wrapped the toes in soft gauze, then a protective layer of thick tape.

“How about a nap? You can use my room. It’s dark and quiet.” Laurel helped Ash up from the floor. “I’ll get some snow, so we can ice that foot.”

“Yeah, I think that would be good.”

“You can have one of my pills.”

“You brought pills? What pills?” Ash looked ready to fight, broken toes or not.

“For my headaches. They should help your pain.”

“Oh. Yeah, I want some.”

With Ash tucked into her sleeping bag, a bitter pill dissolving in each of their throats, Laurel crept from the room. She tiptoed down the long hallway, avoiding piles of dust and debris that had all taken on a uniform shade of grey-brown. She turned a corner, and the black hole of the elevator shaft yawned to her right. Ash’s faulty pulley swung overhead, a scrap of broken bookshelf still tied to the line.

At her feet, a dark pool of blood crept across the floor, running along the gaps between boards. Laurel frowned. She knelt at the edge of the puddle. She hadn’t seen this much blood here before. It thickened in the dust till it became a dark paste and slowed under its own weight. She pressed her fingertip into the mess, and it came away wet and reeking of whisky, not blood. Laurel lowered her face to the puddle and sniffed—spirits and grit. She resisted lowering her tongue. Imagined the dust stuck between her teeth if she lapped up the liquor. She pulled away and stood, steadying herself against the wall as her head spun. She looked at her finger again. Blood. Definitely—red and sticky as she wiped it on the knee of her jeans. Maybe I should nap, too. But the call of the library was too strong.

One of the elegant bookshelves leaned on a dolly against the wall on the other side of the opening. Laurel stepped over the blood. She felt the hair along her arms rise. The quality of the light in the hall changed as if a dark cloud passed in front of the sun. The dry chill of the mountain air stiffened her neck.

There were trenches carved through the debris along the floor, tracks through the dust. They led from the base of the bookcase down the hall to an open set of French doors. She stepped onto the cleared path. Bright scraps of threadbare carpet showed through the dust. This place must have been amazing once. It hasn’t held on to its past; it’s buried it.

Beyond the French doors was the library. Well over a dozen of the carved cases lined the walls. In the center of the room, piled over and around a sagging velvet couch, was a mountain of old books. Laurel ran her fingers over the rough, woven covers. Most were beyond saving. Damp and dust had tarnished the embossed titles so that each book was anonymous—every one a mystery. She’d have to read them all just to figure out what they were. She felt the corners of her mouth pulling upward, imagined herself perched on a sunny mountain outcrop, working her way through a stack of these old books. Penciling a price inside the covers—stashing some away for herself.

She plucked one from the pile and opened it. The dry fabric spine crackled, the brittle pages fluttering like dead moth wings.

“ . . . everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes . . . ”

I feel you, Pip.

“Damn it, Laurel!” Ash’s voice bellowed down the hall.

Laurel jumped and rushed back out to the corridor. “Ash? What is it? What’s the matter?”

“You tell me to sleep, but I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to do that if you won’t shut up!”

Laurel froze. Those were Mom’s words. Was that her voice? “ . . . Mom?”

Ashley stormed around the corner, hobbling on her bad foot, and stopped in front of the elevator shaft. She glared at Laurel through the thin light of the hall.

“Ash, stop, you’re standing in—”

“Who were you yelling at?”

“What?” Laurel shook her head, partly from confusion and partly to try and clear the fog that throbbed at her temples.

“And why were you laughing? I want to know what’s so fucking funny about today.”

“Ash, I wasn’t laughing. I wasn’t talking at all.”

“I heard you!”

“I’ve been right here! Looking at the books, quietly, I swear.”

Ashley’s brow drew down. “You’re serious.”

“Yes! Now will you move? You’re standing in blood.”

Ash looked down. “Where?”

“All over! I think we should probably get you to a doctor.”

“I don’t see any.”

“What are you talking about? It’s everywhere.” Laurel walked over to Ashley.

The floor was dry and grey. The dust was disturbed only where their boots had kicked furrows through the debris. “It was here. There was a huge puddle.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course!” Laurel knelt, running her fingers through the dirt, digging as if a hundred years of dust could have settled over it while she read.

“You saw a pool of blood, and now it’s gone?”

“I was sure it was here, right by the elevator. Blood, or . . . or something. Is there another elevator shaft?” She looked at her knee, saw the smear still there on her jeans. “I touched it, and I wiped my finger here.” She pointed to the stain.

“That’s probably from when you wrapped my toes.”

Laurel pressed her fingertips to her temples and tried to squeeze the headache away for a moment so she could think. Her hands smelled like blood and books and whisky, her skin the texture of grit.

Ash shook her head. “I heard screaming. You didn’t say anything?”

“No!”

“Laurel, do you know what this means?”

“It means I’m calling the police. There must be someone else in the building. Squatters. Druggies. We do not want to run into them out here.”

Ash reached for Laurel. “Shhh, no, Laurel, there’s no one else here. Just us. And we are so going to charge extra for your room.”

“Ash, this is not the time for this—”

“What’s time here, anyway? Laurel, we’re frozen in time here! Just like the ghosts. I knew they’d be here. It’s the quartz in the foundation—it acts like a battery, storing energy.”

“I think my pills may be too strong for you.”

“I think we’ve got some ghosts.” Ash grinned. “I was hoping for ghosts.”

Laurel stared at her. “Ash, no.”

“What’s easier to believe, Laurel—that this old building is haunted, or that we’re both simultaneously losing our minds?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?”

“I’m going to smudge with some sage.” Ash headed for the stairs, limping. Laurel followed.

“That might help the smell. But will you at least let me get the books out before you burn the place down?”

A bang sounded behind them. They looked back around the corner and saw that the French doors had slammed shut. Small panes of glass lay shattered where they had fallen from their frames.

“I think that’s a ‘no,’ Laurel.” Ash’s eyes twinkled.

“Ash, it’s ridiculous. The whole thing is—this place, these plans, your ghosts.”

Ashley turned back as they reached the Presidential Suite. “You either need to stay by me, or get out of the building while I do this.”

Laurel followed her into the room, stepping around the ragged hole in the floorboards. The floor was broken clear through to the ballroom below.

“Why don’t you go out to the carriage house?” Ash handed her a long key. “Start envisioning your future there. And maybe you’d rather stay there if things get weird here.”

Laurel looked at the tarnished key and at the tied bundle of herbs in Ash’s hand. “If? We are so past that.”

“Take your attitude and get out. I need to stay positive for this, and you’re pissing me off.” Ash’s eyes were bright and manic. Determined. Lit with the sort of fire Laurel was never able to look at for too long.

Laurel stomped down the stairs, her untied bootlaces snagging on stray nails that seemed to reach out and pluck at her, tacking her to the floor. As she reached the lobby, sweet smoke began to tickle her nose. Wind rattled the shutters.

She hoped it was wind.

***

The frozen stab of outside air cleared her head of the oppressive fog. Her head ached, but now from light and clarity and cold. Not from dust and squinting through angled shadows, from straining to hear nasty whispers.

The carriage house sagged across the sloping field, dipping down the side of the hill as if it might slide through the snow all the way to the lake at the bottom of the valley. Laurel chipped away at the ice in the lock with the end of the key. Even after she’d managed to grind the frozen tumblers of the mechanism, the door stuck fast—boards bloated with damp and ice swelling to fill every gap of the opening. This isn’t a way in anymore. There isn’t a way in to places like this. No way in that you don’t have to break.

She pulled a hammer from her case. The windows were already broken, but the boards had been nailed in place from the inside. If she hit them hard enough, they should break loose.

A shelf of heavy snow slipped from the roof and poured onto the ground at her feet, burying the toes of her thin boots in piles of frozen wet. She stepped back. The door popped open.

The snow was weighing it down, that’s all. It’s physics. Everything has an explanation.

She waded into the new snowdrift, plowing a path through to the door.

The wide plank floor buckled like the surface of a lake frozen mid-wave. The floor had clearly been submerged at some point—twisted as it dried, then was soaked, and dried again. Just like her. It was useless now. Dangerous. Would have to be replaced. This is beyond fixing.

She stepped carefully across the splintered boards, avoiding nails, aiming for the visible support beams underneath. One misstep and she’d fall through to the basement—if that darkness underfoot was in fact a basement at all. She might drop straight through to the foundation, to that quartz battery that gave this place whatever power it was that lit Ash’s eyes like lanterns.

Laurel could barely see. She wedged the hammer over the head of a nail and leaned, pulled. It squealed as she drew it out and moved on to the next and the next, for she didn’t know how long, until the wall of windows was opened and light drove in.

She had been hoping for actual carriages, but the vast room was empty save for a few shattered crates and a tilted piano in the corner. Even at this distance, and despite its missing leg, Laurel could see the shadow of its opulence. The echo of its elegance. It was a beautiful piece, and far enough from the windows that she almost dared to hope . . . until she remembered the way the floor heaved, and that the piano, too, must have once been submerged. But she had to see.

She stepped from beam to beam across the room, hammer held like a counter-balance. All those sobriety tests would have been easier if they’d put an antique Steinway piano at the end of the road.

Up close, she could see where the legs had weathered away to kindling. The housing, though, was intact. Damaged, but it could be refinished. New strings, new dampers . . . The Bavarian spruce and ivory keys could be cleaned, but never replaced. She ran her fingers over the keys, but they didn’t respond. Time and inattention had silenced it. But she could make it sing again. It would be her first project, after the floor.

Glass shattered against the door of the carriage house. Screaming followed it.

“You lying bitch! I’ve done nothing but try to help you, but you don’t give a shit! You’re just like Mom—you’re going to die like her, yellow and alone!”

More glass hit the door. It shook against its hinges. The reek of alcohol reached Laurel’s nose, a scent like balm and acid all at once. A puddle grew at the gap at the base of the door.

“Ash?” Laurel made her way across the floor as quickly as she could, the floorboards rattling just like loose piano keys, and she swore she heard the music of them, the tinkle of song in her steps, creeping up behind her as she hurried toward the sound of screaming. Once, she would have run, or hidden—climbed inside that piano housing and waited till the smell of alcohol faded. She opened the door a crack.

Ashley stood in the snow. Her hands and face were covered in soot. A crate of old liquor bottles sat at her feet. Tears carved ashen trails from her eyes. She hurled another bottle at the building.

“Ash, what the hell?”

“You’re right—none of this is going to work. Because of you. You ruin everything.” Ashley’s lip trembled, the white scar on her mouth bright against the red cold of her face. I’m going to make you beautiful.

“Slow down, Ash—I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

Ash kicked the crate with her good foot. “I found your stash.”

“That isn’t mine!”

“I trusted you!”

“Keep trusting me, Ash, and please shut up and listen.”

Ash stood silent. Her chin shook.

“I swear to you that isn’t mine. I don’t know how it got here, or where you found it, and I haven’t touched a drop since I left Tyler.” At least, not since that next morning.

Ash looked back into the crate.

The liquor fumes made Laurel’s head spin, or maybe it was the adrenaline. She felt like a shark swimming through chum, not allowed to take a bite. Ice and glass crunched under her boots as she walked to her little sister.

Ash still looked ten years old, face fresh but creased with the worry she’d always carried for their mother, and then for her. Laurel hated to be the cause of those worry lines. That face had kept her sober.

“Ash, do you believe me?”

Ashley ran her fingers through her hair, leaving dark cinder streaks in the blonde strands. “I’m not sure. I guess—you’re a little hard to trust, Laurel.”

Laurel felt the lump in her throat tighten. “I know. And I don’t know how I can prove it to you. But I swear those aren’t mine.”

Ash nodded.

“Where did you find them?”

“In the service tunnels. They were all over down there. Like there had been some kind of party.”

“Tunnels? Creepy.”

“It was totally creepy.” Ash cracked a smile. “We could charge for tours.”

Laurel reached into the crate and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels; an inch of liquid still sloshed inside. “Oh, Ash. I had way better taste than this.” She hurled the bottle at the building. It shattered. The glass joined the ice, and amber liquid slid over the cracked white paint of the wall.

“Mom loved it,” Ash said. She picked up another bottle and threw it.

Bright mountain sunlight refracted through the broken glass, casting small rainbows over the snow.

***

Their cheeks and fingers were red with cold as they made their way back to the Presidential Suite.

“Can I have another pill, Laurel? My foot hurts.”

Laurel’s smile crumpled at the memory of those jutting bones, of her pale face, of the vanishing pool of blood. “Yeah. Of course. I still think you should see a doctor.”

“It’s only my toes. They don’t do anything for toes.”

“They could give you something stronger for pain.”

“I won’t have any of that shit in this house.”

Laurel tried to swallow the lump rising in her throat.

They stripped off their coats and laid them across a broad wooden desk. Laurel ran her fingers over the carved drawer faces. “This is a nice piece. Good shape. Just needs a fresh finish.”

“So you’re still on board?”

“Yeah. I mean, as long as you’re not afraid I’m going to ruin everything.”

“I’m sorry, Laurel. I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did. And you’re right to be afraid. I do ruin everything. Or I have, so far. But I’m going to try harder.” Laurel pulled at the iron ring on the drawer face. The wood stuck, then groaned as it gave. The smell of old varnish cut through the smell of dust and sage.

“Ash, what’s this doing here?” A flush of blood warmed her cheeks. She pulled her journal from the drawer. “Did you take this from my room? Are you reading my journal?”

“No! I didn’t even know you still kept a diary.”

“Well, how did it get here, then? You’re spying on me?”

“No! No, I’m not, Laurel.”

Laurel’s fingernails ached as they dug into the worn cover of the book. “What the fuck do I have to do to make you trust me, Ash?”

Ash’s face hardened. “Try harder. Like you said. But I swear I did not take your diary.”

Laurel focused on breathing. She tasted the sage smoke. “Mom used to take my diaries all the time.”

“I remember.”

Laurel ruffled the pages with her thumb. “I used to lie in them. Because I knew she was reading. I knew what to write to make her proud of me, or to make her hurt. Whichever I felt she needed at the time. Or whatever I needed.”

Ash’s brow furrowed.

“I only just started writing the truth again.”

Ash looked at Laurel. “It’s Mom.”

“What?”

“Our ghost, Laurel—it’s Mom.”

“It’s not Mom.”

“It is—it’s just like her.”

“Ash, I’m not sure it’s a ghost.” Laurel searched her sister’s face for signs of fever. Had her toes become infected already?

“The Jack Daniels. The diary. The voice that sounded just like you.”

“If it’s Mom, why’s she trying to talk to us?” The whispers screamed in these rotten halls had been the closest thing Laurel had heard to her mother’s voice in five years. Since she ran away with Tyler. Tell that motherfucker he can pay for your funeral, then, I never want to see you again.

“Maybe she’s trying to apologize.”

“She’s got a funny way of showing it.”

“See? Just like her.”

***

Ashley settled into a leather chair by the fire. Laurel had discovered the piece in a fancy office in the basement near the tunnels. She had wrestled it up to the lobby, cleaned it off. They’d done their best to make a comfortable space. Fixed the room up so that it looked more like a dingy parlor than a condemned rat trap.

Laurel busied herself hooking up a generator to an old-fashioned boxy TV that was crowned with an elaborate antenna. “We’ll at least get some football and the news.”

“Good,” said Ashley. She reached into a box at her feet.

“Is that the stuff to repair the fireplace?” Laurel asked.

Ashley slid the lid off the box. “No. I want to have a séance—to try and make contact.”

Laurel squeezed her eyes shut and took a slow breath. The smell of gasoline reminded her of Tyler—of sleeping in his car, of hiding in the trunk when he made deals, reading the gas can label over and over while she waited, wondering what the gas would taste like. “That is a super weird idea.”

“C’mon, Laurel. Maybe we can get some closure. Make amends,” Ash said.

“We don’t even know if it’s Mom. We don’t even know if it’s a ghost.”

“So if there’s no ghost, what harm can it do?”

“I can’t believe you still have that,” Laurel said as Ash set the ragged old Ouija board on the table.

“I can’t believe you still keep a diary.”

“It’s a journal.”

Wind rattled the shutters. Of course. The fire, despite its mountain of scrap wood, guttered and bent the light across them in strange shadows. They tuned the TV to soft static to try and cast more light into the room. The flicker set Laurel’s teeth on edge. Ashley had scattered candles around them, but they wouldn’t stay lit in the drafts that cut like saw blades through the building.

Ash laid her fingers on the planchette. “Come on, Laurel,” she said.

Laurel sighed, scooted up to the low table, and placed a few fingers on the old plastic game piece.

“Now.” Ash closed her eyes. Her voice was deep and barely above a whisper. “I need you to focus. Breathe, and think about Mom.”

Laurel thought about her mother all the time. Too often. She didn’t need any special reason. She thought about the nights filled with shouting and thrown toys, when Ash would creep into her room and they would sit in her closet and color on the back wall until the storm of their mother had blown over.

She thought about early mornings spent cleaning up reeking puddles of sick before Ash could see them. About her desperation to escape, and how Tyler was right there, with an open door and a closed fist. About her own journey down the neck of a bottle, and how she finally understood her mother on a new level—the one at rock bottom.

And how, by then, it had all been too late. And her secret guilty relief that she could stop seeking resolution. She didn’t need closure. The door was closed in her face years ago.

The planchette jumped.

They gasped.

“Mom, is that you?” Ash’s voice shook.

Glass shattered somewhere in the dark of the lobby.

“Do you have something you’d like to tell us? Is there something you need to say?”

The planchette continued to rattle across the board, spelling out gibberish. It squeaked over the board, then carved grooves in it where the felt feet of the planchette had long since worn away.

“Can you be drunk when you’re dead?” Laurel asked. “Maybe her speech is slurred.”

Ash shot her a pained look.

A loud crack—a shattering splinter sounded from the ballroom behind them. Laurel raced to the ballroom and slid open the pocket door.

“Jesus,” Laurel said, and stumbled back. Another crash sounded from the dark room.

“What is it?”

Laurel’s face paled. “There’s furniture falling through the hole in the ceiling.”

“That’s the hole in the suite. In my room,” Ash said.

Laurel refocused on the shards in the dark center of the floor. The handsome grain of wood. The desk from Ash’s room. I could have saved that. I could have brought it back to life.

“Mom, are you mad about something?” Ash called out behind her. “Don’t you want Laurel to have the furniture here? So she can start over?”

A soft cascade of flapping thuds came from the elevator shaft. The books—hundreds of them—tumbled down, pouring from the dark mouth and spilling across the lobby floor.

Laurel backed toward the rattling front door. “Maybe you should stop asking questions,” she said.

The generator died. The TV screen went grey and faded to black.

“Mom, stop it!” Ash screamed.

The toxic scent of liquor filled the room. It rained down on them, dripping all over the floor. It ran in rivulets down the walls, curling the scraps of wallpaper and soaking the plaster. It burned in Laurel’s eyes. Danced on her tongue.

With a loud slam, one of the carved bookcases crashed out of the elevator shaft and shattered into splinters.

Laurel’s face grew hot. Her vision went white, and her fists shook—nails carving crescent cuts into her palms. “That’s fucking enough!”

The crashing stopped. The wind stilled. A soft slithering sound filled the room. Laurel felt something brush her cheek. She flinched away. The light from the fire played off shining curls of hair growing from the fractured plaster. Brown and black and red and yellow, bright silver—all growing from the walls and ceiling. The tendrils coiled on the floor.

Ash sat, weeping quietly into her hands, just like before. Like always.

Laurel’s rage only grew. “Proud of yourself? Still the big, scary alpha bitch? Think this place is yours because we bought it with your leftovers? Well, fuck you. You can’t have it. You’ve shit all over the past—there’s no way you’re getting any piece of our future. You’re gone. You’re done. We’re done with you.”

The planchette shot off the table and raked Laurel across the face. Blood trailed from her cheeks and forehead where the plastic had cut. Laurel dabbed at the wounds. She wiped the blood from her fingers onto a clump of yellow hair that swayed toward her as if drawn by static.

Ashley reached for a tied bundle of sage.

“Still throwing toys? Think we’ll go hide in the closet again?” Laurel slapped at the long scar on her forearm. She remembered the way time had seemed to slow as she watched the arc of the metal doll stroller through the air, as it came down on her—remembered the look on her mother’s face through those metal bars as they crashed into her. Not fear or regret—satisfaction. The lies whispered to the doctor who set the bone, who stitched her up.

The seam of her scar split, layers of flesh and fat peeling away from bright bone. Brown liquid poured from the cut and ran sticky down her fingers. It smelled of spice and sweet rum.

Ash’s bundle of sage smoked. It hissed and flared where the liquor dripped, fueling the embers. The forest of curls brushed the flames and filled the room with the reek of burnt hair. Laurel felt the tug on her scalp, the scrape of the comb, the burn of the iron. I’m going to make you beautiful. Her own hair tangled with the locks falling from the plaster cracks. Stitched in with them, embroidering a forest all around them.

Laurel pulled Ash to her side and linked an arm though hers.

“Go away,” Laurel said. “This place is ours. It doesn’t belong to you. We don’t belong to you. We never did. We were never yours.” She pushed against the force that seemed to squeeze her and heard the house groan. Felt the spaces between the boards heave. Laurel felt her lungs stripped of air as the house itself drew a breath, walls bloating; then it exhaled in a rush, a scream, and all the dust and hair and ruin lifted, spinning in its wake. The walls sagged inward.

She could breathe again. She coughed on the grit in the air. Ash coughed beside her. The pressure eased.

The dripping slowed. It stopped. The fire crept further up its kindling and filled the room with light. Clumps of hair fell from the ceiling, detached, into piles of silk in the dust.

Ash panted, blowing her sage smoke out across the lobby. “Is she gone?”

The secretary desk slammed open.

Ash screamed.

Papers shot from their cubbies and scattered across the room like a flock of startled birds. They settled in the debris, sticking to the pools of booze. Red ink bled from the pages, spreading into the liquid.

Ashley bent to pick up a sheet. “What are they?”

“Legal papers, mostly,” said Laurel. “Records of how this place has ruined everyone who’s ever tried to run it.”

A twisted wood frame fell from a web of hair, landing with a soft splash in the soaked locks.

Ash pulled it from the damp clumps of hair at their feet. “She ruined your antique.”

“It was a memento.” A memento mori. Laurel took the warped frame. The fabric fell away in strips. The hair stitches had all pulled free into a tangled mess. “Maybe it’s not so healthy to hold on to the dead like that.” She tossed the wrecked picture aside.

Ashley let a cascade of papers fall from her hands. “This place is going to ruin us. It is, isn’t it?”

Laurel kissed the top of her head. “I’m sure Mom would like you to think so. I’m sure she’d want us to cut and run. Burn it all. Give up and hide. We’ll sink every penny into this place and go absolutely broke, probably. But it’s not going to ruin us. It takes a lot more than that to ruin us.”

Ashley shook her head. “What are we going to do?”

Laurel kicked at the piles of hair on the floor. They tangled across her boots, caught in her laces.

“Clean up. Do our thing. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll start over. Over and over again.” Yellow over silver over black over red over red over red.