Haldane Station

She had never been there before -- and yet she knew it.

The house loomed before her, green shuttered gabled, the shingles weathered by long forgotten storms, with multipaned windows and a huge wooden front porch.

“Promise you won’t go in,” her father had said, and Rachel had answered, “How can I if I don’t have the key?”
She looked at the house and stood very still. She had promised she wouldn’t go inside. She hadn’t known then that she would follow a familiar, frightening path to it. She hadn’t know then that she wouldn’t need a key at all. She hadn’t known then that she would find the front door standing open wide -- as if, inside, someone was waiting.