After school, as they pull up the drive, Mom’s phone rings. Tyrell gets out of the car and steps into the shed. The old key ring is still on the nail just inside the door. He takes a closer look: there are four big, antique keys and two smaller keys on it. One small key has a hollow barrel, maybe for a padlock.
“Tyrell?” Mom calls from the car.
It’s a big ring, and he can’t quite fit it into his pocket.
“They said Dad can come home today!” Mom says excitedly from the car. “I’m leaving now to get him.” She beams. “Do you want to come along?”
“No, I’ll wait here,” Tyrell says. “With the baked goods. To protect them.” He gives the ring a hard shove, and it slides into the pocket.
“Protect them?” Mom questions, “From what?”
“From someone else eating them,” he says.
“Okay,” Mom says with a real smile. “Stay put.” She gives him a wink and drives off.
When Dad walks through the cottage’s small front door he looks like a zombie, with dark circles under his eyes, gray skin, and stiff, unnatural movements.
Tyrell holds the door and reaches out to help, but Dad shakes him off. “I can do it,” Dad says. Tyrell’s stomach sinks. It’s as if Dad doesn’t trust me. Does he think I failed him, that day in the water? Tyrell’s eyes fill with hot tears. If only I could have reached Dad, gotten him out of the water and back onto the kayak, then he wouldn’t have gotten hypothermia, wouldn’t have had to go the hospital. But instead I came out okay, and Dad might have permanent damage.
I have to do something—anything—to show Dad that I’m not useless.
“I have a surprise for you,” Mom says from the kitchen. She uncovers the frosted carrot cake and then waves a hand over the cupcakes and pies on the table behind her.
“Man, it feels good to be home.” Dad sits at the small table.
As they eat, his dad talks haltingly about the strange dreams he had in the hospital. “There was a fire—but on the kayak. Must have been a side effect from the medicine,” he says. He smiles weakly at Tyrell, but it isn’t like it used to be. It’s like he’s disappointed.
Tyrell avoids Dad’s gaze and gulps down his milk. His dreams have been weird too, but he isn’t taking any medicine.
His mom makes the awful chamomile tea, and they sit in the kitchen, listening to the wind howl through the old stone walls of the cottage. “Once I get my energy back we’ll finish that attic,” his dad says, brushing crumbs from his shirt. He nods at Tyrell.
“Tyrell, maybe you should sleep down here on the couch tonight,” his mom says.
“Um.” Tyrell glances at the couch. “I don’t think I need to, Mom.” If I stay downstairs, I won’t be able to see the signal.
“We just can’t have you getting cold,” his mom warns. “It’s going to get down to freezing.”
“But it’s not cold up there,” Tyrell insists.
His dad sits up. “If we leave the door open at the bottom of the stairs, the heat should get upstairs,” he says.
“Great!” Tyrell hops up before his mom can intervene. “Glad you’re home, Dad. I gotta get some homework done before bed.” He heads up the narrow stairs.
Downstairs the TV plays and then the dishes clink in the sink as his mom washes them. If Dad doesn’t get better—all better—I’ll never be able to look him in the eye again.
Just after eleven o’clock the light snaps off at the bottom of the steps. Tyrell lies on his bed, propped up so he can see the factory, and waits. At exactly midnight the yellow light throbs: three short, three long, and three short. Someone has to be up there. A short in the wiring would just make a random flash.
Silently, Tyrell gets into his snow pants and jacket. I have the keys, so I can get up there and find out who’s inside. It won’t take long. And if I don’t go now, the person could freeze to death, and then Dad won’t be the only one hurt because I didn’t do anything. He puts a small flashlight into his coat pocket, where it clinks against the key ring.
Slowly he opens the creaking shed door and rolls his bike back. As he glides down the lane, a glow comes from behind the parted curtains on the main floor of the Schneider mansion. Someone is in there, watching.
He pedals through the weeds, his heart racing. Is it Miss Schneider?
The blustery wind chafes his cheeks and howls through the warped and cracked boards of the narrow footbridge. A snowstorm is coming. He tucks his head as he rumbles over the creek.
Tiny snowflakes hit his face like pinpricks as he parks his bike and walks up to the front doors. He tugs the key ring from his pocket and tries each key.
None of the keys fit. He drops the lock, and it clangs against the iron handle. The signal glows above.
He steps back. “Hey!” he calls. “Who’s up there? It’s gonna freeze tonight—let me help you!”
The light flashes again. He has to get to them before it’s too late.
“Hey!” Tyrell shouts as he runs to the back of the building. Before he knows it, he is climbing the big gray pipe. He kicks the rest of the glass out of the second-floor window frame and balances for a second before lunging into the dark building.
He takes out the flashlight and turns it on. The room is large and empty except for some litter and old beer bottles. Probably from those trespassers from the 1970s, he thinks. In the corner, an old wooden chair sits next to a dusty metal file cabinet. The entire room is lined with shelves, empty except for cobwebs.
In another corner a metal staircase hangs precariously from the ceiling. The bottom half of the steps is missing, as if the staircase was ripped apart. There’s no way to get up there.
“Hello? Do you need help?” he yells up the broken staircase. No answer. He has to get up to the third floor, to where the 1928 fire was.