I came down the stairs to find Davrin Hurchur rounding the corner from the other direction. He was dressed prim and tidily and looked remarkably comfortable in spite of the unseasonable heat. He grimaced upon seeing me, but quickly composed himself and gave a polite salutation.

While Mr. and Mrs. Hurchur technically owned the old house, their age and increasing senility left them in no state to manage its affairs – and so it had fallen upon their second son, Davrin, to act as landlord. Which was probably part of the reason why he lived on the other side of town, as far away from the old house as he could justify.

Only after he had spoken did I realize that following close behind him was a girl half my age with a plain cotton dress and hair to her shoulders. I felt suddenly bad for her, trapped in the narrow hallway with two monsters such as myself and Hurcher – me with my eye still swollen mostly shut from the day before and him with his cauliflower ear and bent nose. But unlike Davrin, she seemed unfazed at the sight of my grotesque, albeit temporary, deformity.

She gave a polite courtesy, and in that instant I realized where I had previously seen her: sitting on the lawn outside Ms. Mayshire’s garden two weeks past. And here she was again, about to be shown the rooms directly below mine. In my head at the time, it seemed rather a curious coincidence.

While the air on the second floor was by no means cool, it felt like walking into a spring breeze when compared to the stuffy and claustrophobic environment my rooms had transformed into. The sensation had left me somewhat giddy, which is perhaps why I suddenly felt myself compelled to jovially produce a bow in the girl’s direction. I had planned to follow up my action with a clever word or two, only to discover (as I stood there with my mouth half open) that I had nothing to say.

And so my confidence collapsed and I scurried sheepishly on my way.