Chapter 15 — One Year Later

EpilogueThe Archive — Roger's Notes, Unmarked FileRoger Halstead, archive supervisor at the Ashford County Records Office, had worked in the building for twenty-two years.He had, in that time, handled a great many unusual requests. Genealogical research, property disputes, the occasionally morbid curiosity of true-crime enthusiasts. He had read Aldous Marsh's journals twice himself, in 2008, after a particularly dull Tuesday, and had developed what he considered a reasonable hypothesis: Marsh had been mentally ill, the house had a carbon monoxide problem that had since been resolved, and the "experiences" reported by successive families were the predictable outcome of frightened people in an old house with a frightening reputation.He had held this hypothesis comfortably for fourteen years.Then, in December of last year, a woman named Nora Calloway had come in and requested the Marsh journals and sat at the reading table for four hours with cotton gloves and an expression of focused determination that he had found, even at the time, unusual.She had not looked frightened. She had not looked curious, the way the true-crime people looked. She had looked like someone preparing for a practical task. Like someone doing research not for interest but for application.She had come back the following day to return the journals and said, simply, "Thank you." And then, at the door: "You should seal the vent in the reading room."He had looked at her. "I beg your pardon?""The reading room. There's a vent in the baseboard behind the reference shelves. It runs adjacent to the old records vault. You should seal it." A pause. "Or don't. It's a suggestion."She had left.Roger had looked at the vent, which he'd never had occasion to notice before.He had gone back to his desk.He had gone home.He had come back in the morning and sealed the vent. With the particular efficiency of a man who has spent twenty-two years around old records and has no desire to start hearing things at 2 AM.He has not, in the year since, heard anything unusual.He has also moved the Marsh journals from their standard archival location to the back of the vault, where they are theoretically accessible but practically inconvenient.He has not re-read them.He is seventy percent sure his hypothesis was correct.He sleeps well.Mostly.— THE END —