The house on Larkspur Lane had been empty for eleven years. But every night, at nine o’clock, a light still came on in one window.

Maya grew up hearing about this house. Her mother talked about it like it was nothing special. “That’s the Ellery house,” she would say. “The light comes on every night. Nobody knows why.” She said it the same way she talked about the old mailbox down the street. Just a strange little fact about their town.

Now Maya was twenty-six. She had come back to her hometown, though she wasn’t fully sure why. But every time she drove past that house, she slowed down.

The house stood at the end of the road, where the street turned to gravel and then to grass. The porch had fallen in on one side. Most of the windows were boarded up. Only one window was not — the window on the second floor, at the front of the house. That was the window with the light. It had been lit every night for eleven years.

No one ever found out why. The power company said the house had no electricity at all. Kids had broken in over the years, looking for a lamp or a timer or anything that could explain the light. They found dust and old furniture instead. And one room, behind that lit window, that was always locked.

One evening in October, Maya parked her car at the end of the gravel road. She told herself she just wanted to look. But she found herself walking up to the porch anyway.

She told herself she was just curious. That wasn’t the whole truth.