Keep Your Window Open

Chapter 1: Good Price

The moving truck arrived before the neighborhood had properly awakened.

Its reversing alarm dragged me out of sleep—a slow, mechanical beeping that seemed much louder in the quiet morning. I rolled over, pulled the curtain aside, and looked down at the house next door.

It had been empty for almost a year.

The lawn had grown wild around the edges, and dust had gathered behind the upstairs windows. At night, the house always appeared darker than the others on our street, as though the shadows preferred it.

Now two people were carrying boxes through the front door.

The man was tall and broad-shouldered. He carried two boxes at once, although the way he leaned backward suggested he was already regretting it. A woman followed him with a lamp tucked beneath one arm and a smaller box balanced against her hip.

They looked tired but happy. A married couple, I guessed.

My mother had been talking about their arrival for days. She knew everything that happened on our street before anyone else did.

“They bought the place for a good price,” she had told me. “We should invite them over once they’ve settled in.”

I was about to let the curtain fall when something moved in the upstairs window directly across from mine.