The Housekeeper for the Unfinished Winter

How it begins

Snow lay on the inside of the keyhole.

Leila brushed it away with her sleeve.

Behind the locked door, wind moved through a room that had no open windows.

Mrs. Venn stood at the end of the corridor.

"We don't clean that one."

"I'm not cleaning it."

"Then we're agreed."

Leila looked at the thermometer she had placed against the doorframe.

Minus seven.

In the corridor, her breath remained invisible.

Outside the house, the hillside was wet with early spring rain.

"I was told there was a damp problem."

"There is. In the pantry."

Mrs. Venn turned toward the stairs.

Leila waited until she had gone before photographing the reading.

She had come for six weeks of paid work and access to a private weather diary. Her research grant had ended in January. A room, meals, and an elderly woman's old observations had seemed a sensible arrangement.

The previous housekeeper had left suddenly.

That was how the agency described it.

On the service landing, Leila found a narrow desk with a drawer that would not close.

Inside lay household lists.

Coal. Linen. Window catches. A recurring note about the east room written in increasingly firm pencil.

DO NOT POLISH THE HANDLE.

Below it, on a separate page, was a sketch of the locked room.

A bed. A chair. One window.

An arrow pointed outward.

Leila read the accompanying sentence.

If she says the weather must be kept, ask who is still waiting in it.

From upstairs came a soft knock.

Then another.

Not from the door.

From the wall where the sketch placed the window.

Leila opened the agency contact on her phone and saved photographs of the notes.

Only after the upload completed did she return to the corridor.

The snow had begun to collect around the bottom of the door.

Someone inside was trying the handle.