The house had been empty for six years when Marguerite found the key in her mother's jewelry box, wrapped in a square of linen so old it had gone the color of weak tea. She did not tell her husband. She drove north on a Tuesday, alone, the highway splitting open farmland that smelled of rain and something chemical beneath the rain.

The house had been empty for years when Clara discovered the key hidden among her late mother's possessions, carefully wrapped in aged fabric. She made the decision to visit alone, not sharing her plans with her husband. She drove north, passing through farmland that carried the sharp scent of recent rainfall mixed with an underlying industrial odor.