Behind the Closet
I kept my eyes on the ceiling until the scraping stopped.
Ivy slept against my side, her hand curled beneath her cheek. I listened for footsteps above us, but the house settled into silence. The journal lay open on my knees, its little drawing suddenly harder to look at than the mark beneath my sleeve.
I wasn't going upstairs while my daughter slept alone.
I closed the book and stayed where I was. Every time Ivy shifted, I checked her necklace. Once, headlights crossed the curtains, and I caught myself holding my breath until the car passed. Morning came slowly, turning the living room windows gray before the birds began calling outside.
Ivy woke stiff and tearful. She asked for Grandma before she remembered.
I held her while she cried, then made toast neither of us wanted. There were crumbs on the counter from yesterday, a shopping list stuck beneath a magnet, Rose's reading glasses beside the telephone. I couldn't decide whether to leave everything untouched or put it away before Ivy noticed.
Denise returned just after eight with breakfast pastries and a change of clothes. When she offered to take Ivy to her house for a few hours, my first answer was no.
She didn't argue. She only set the bag on the table.
"I can stay here, then."
Relief made my eyes sting. "Thank you."
I waited until Ivy was settled in the kitchen with her, coloring while Denise made another pot of coffee. Then I carried the journal upstairs.
Rose's bedroom looked smaller in daylight. The bed had been stripped, and the curtains stood open where the nurse had drawn them back. Nothing lay on the floor. The closet door was closed.
I stopped outside it and touched my pendant.
"Mom?"
The word slipped out softly.
I wished I hadn't said it.
There was no answer, only Denise's voice drifting up the stairs. I opened the closet and found the familiar row of dresses, cardigans, and winter coats. Rose's slippers sat neatly beneath them.
A narrow chest of drawers occupied the back wall.
I knelt and pulled the bottom drawer toward me. Scarves filled it, folded around lavender sachets. The runners caught halfway, forcing me to lift the drawer before it came free.
Behind it, the wall had a small metal catch.
I pressed it.
Nothing happened.
I checked the drawing again, then pushed the catch sideways. Something clicked beyond the chest, and the wall beside it loosened along a seam I had mistaken for a crack in the plaster.
I caught the edge with my fingertips.
The panel opened inward.
Cold air brushed my face, carrying the smell of wax and dried herbs. I had grown up in this house. I had hidden Christmas presents in this closet, borrowed Rose's coats, helped her sort clothes for donation. All those times, another room had stood inches beyond my hands.
I switched on my flashlight.
A worktable occupied the far wall. Above it hung shelves crowded with jars, bundles of plants, and boxes labeled in Rose's handwriting. A brass candleholder stood beside a shallow bowl of salt. On the floor, chalk lines formed a circle around a cushion worn flat from use.
I stayed at the threshold.
There were crystals everywhere.
Some I recognized from shopping trips with Rose. Others were larger pieces she had never shown me, arranged beside notebooks or suspended on cords over the table. I remembered her telling me she had stopped buying supplies because she already had enough.
Apparently, this was what enough looked like.
I found a switch just inside the doorway. A small lamp illuminated the table, showing wax hardened along its edge and dark burns scattered across the wood.
One burn was shaped like the mark on my wrist.
I drew my sleeve down.
The nearest notebook contained measurements, diagrams, and corrections squeezed into the margins. Rose had repeated the same arrangement across several pages, changing one crystal at a time. Dates beside each version told me she had worked on it for weeks.
I recognized the care she took with her lettering, the ruler-straight lines. This wasn't something she had tried once in desperation.
My mother had spent her nights here.
Beside the cushion sat a chipped mug with dried tea at the bottom. A cardigan hung over the chair, its cuff caught beneath one of the notebooks. I freed it gently and folded it across my lap. These small signs of her presence made the room harder to bear than the empty bed outside it.
I pictured her rising after I left, easing the drawer out while her hands shook from exhaustion. All the times she told me she was going to bed early, perhaps she had come into this room instead.
On the wall above the desk hung a photograph of Ivy and me.
It was from Ivy's ninth birthday. Rose had taken it just as my daughter pressed frosting against my cheek. We were laughing, both of us looking toward her.
I sat in the wooden chair beneath it.
For a while, I couldn't read anything.
Then Denise called from downstairs, asking whether I wanted coffee. I answered that I would be down soon and wiped my face with my sleeve.
Several envelopes lay beside the notebooks, all addressed to Rose. The name Alejandra appeared at the bottom of the first letter I unfolded. I read only its opening before setting it carefully aside.
Tell me exactly what changed after the last attempt.
The remaining letters were tied together. Beneath them sat a flat parcel wrapped in dark cloth, with a note pinned to the fold.
My name again.
I pulled the pin free.
I found this too late. Take it to Alejandra. Her address is in the journal. Do not attempt what is written inside.
Under the cloth lay a book with a cracked leather cover. Its edges were swollen and uneven, older than anything else on the desk.
I lifted it carefully.
A loose page remained beneath it.
There was a drawing of the mark, and below that, in unfamiliar handwriting, a single sentence.
The voice answered before I finished saying Mother's name.