The north store was cold enough that my breath stood in front of my face, and the first thing I saw was the filings.
They were on the sill. Copper, fine as sand, the kind that comes off a screw head when a man drives it too fast and does not stop to sweep, and they were banked against the little lip of the doorway where the wind had not been able to reach them.
I stood in the dark a moment with the key in my fist and did not put it into the lock. I had learned that much in three winters, from a woman who kept a room: look at a door before you touch it, because a door remembers everything that has been done to it and tells all of it at once.
The iron staple was new.
It is a plain thing, a staple. A loop of black iron driven into the frame, with the padlock hanging off it, and every crat
