I cannot describe the feeling I had when finally I closed the door on that house in the West Bow. It was a mixture of relief that I had escaped and fear that I was stepping into the unknown, a kind of dread that I was leaving some part of me behind. I cannot explain why I should have felt like that.
“You’re leaving then, Doctor.” The woman remained a good 10 paces from my door.
“I am,” I said.
“Did the house chase you away?”
I pondered my answer. “It may have done so,” I said.
The woman stepped closer. I did not recognise her, an elderly, wizened thing with hands like claws. “It does that,” she spoke in a harsh whisper, like somebody who had not used her voice for a long time. “And sometimes you take it with you.”
“It’s a house,” I said to the crazy old witch. “How can I take it with
