Where manuscriptsbecome beautifulbooks.

Under the ninth stair there was a tin box, and in the tin box there was a key, and wrapped around the key was a page torn from a book she had never seen.

The handwriting was her grandmother's, small and slanted, the letters leaning forward as if they were in a hurry to arrive.

Nora read the first line three times before she let herself believe it. Then she sat back on her heels and listened to the house settle around her, every beam and board, as though it had been holding its breath for years and could finally let it go.

Outside, the first snow began to fall.

In the silence she heard the front door open, though she had locked it herself an hour ago and put the key on its hook.

Cold air moved along the hall and up the stairs to where she knelt. It smelled of the river, of wet stone and old rope, the way the house had smelled in the winters when she was small.

She did not call out. Her grandmother had taught her that much: in this house, you let the visitor speak first.

"Nora?" said a voice she had not heard in eleven years.

She closed the tin box very gently, the way you close a book you mean to come back to, and stood up on the ninth stair.

At the bottom of the staircase, with snow melting on the shoulders of his coat, stood the one person who knew what the key was for.