1. Arrival

Five hundred and thirty-five miles is a hell of a long way to drive in one day, and it was into evening before I pulled off the Marquette County Road and onto a long, uneven, driveway that curved sharply left at its topmost end.

This part of the Upper Peninsular of Michigan is in the Eastern time zone. It was a whole hour later than the time specified by my watch.

The house is hidden from the road by a mix of tall conifers and deciduous woodland. It looked empty and not a little forlorn, as though waiting in anticipation of its new owners, perhaps quietly wondering what they would be like.

The garage door clattered upwards at the request of my remote opener. The last time I had been here without Trish there were people, the previous occupants still in process of moving out. The garage had been cluttered with their belongings. Voices and bustle filled the air. Now, it was empty apart from a couple of workbenches fixed to the wall, a pair of steps leaning nonchalantly against a cupboard, and an old door straddled across two heavily notched, wooden, saw horses.

It seemed much bigger than I remembered, my Pontiac Bonneville seemingly lost in the vast expanse of floor area.

I hesitated to enter the house. It dated from 1936, and had an unfinished basement with an old root cellar, and attic rooms.

Trish’s words echoed, unbidden, in my head. “If that kitchen door’s open you’re to get the hell outa there and find a hotel for the night.”

We’d made two brief visits to the house the previous month, shortly after the sellers had vacated. The garage is connected to the house by a breezeway with lockable doors at either end, providing access to a vestibule area. From there one has the choice of mounting a short flight of steps to the kitchen door, or descending another flight into the basement. On the first visit, we arrived to find the kitchen door open. It was hardly significant. The security of the property wasn’t comprised in any way. We assumed the sellers had left it open on their departure.

I’m quite a stickler for security matters, so I’m fairly certain I made sure to close the kitchen door when we left that afternoon. Next morning, on returning to the property, it was open again.

Trish was quite freaked out. I have to admit it made the hairs on my neck prickle just a bit. Nothing was touched. Apart from the door, the house was exactly as we’d left it the previous day.

After a while, we put it down to one of those senior moments – where you’d thought you’d done something, but hadn’t. We both made absolutely certain the kitchen door was properly closed before we finally left for the drive back to Illinois.

Consequently, in the gathering twilight, it was with a slight hint of misgiving that I grabbed a bag from the trunk of the car and headed up the breezeway towards the kitchen……..