Chapter 19 · Chapter 19

The key I had not taken down had been taken down by another hand, and turned, and the lock answered with a sound like a small bone setting.

I sat on the edge of the bed with my hands folded and let the house go quiet around that sound. Below in the hall there was the drag of a chair, Maryama saying something short to Aisha, the street door tried once and let alone. Then the stair. Then the inner door met its frame and the key went in from the outside and turned.

That was all it was. A key, a lock, a hand I could not see. And everything I had been before it, I was not, after it.

The footsteps went back down and away. Someone set the hall lamp on the chest at the head of the stair, where its light could climb the wall and no further, and the house settled to the noise a house makes when everyone in it has decided to be somewhere else.

Saad had not moved.