by Sarah Chin

The shed behind my childhood home was locked with three rusted padlocks and a braided cord of red twine. My father said it was full of tools. My mother said not to ask.

Once, when I was seven, I saw a woman walk out of it. Not a stranger, exactly—she had my face, only older, thinner. She smiled conspiratorially at me, like we were in on something together. Then she lit a cigarette and walked into the woods.

I told my mother. She sat me down on the couch, very calm, and asked, “Did she say anything to you?” I said no. She nodded. “That’s good.”

We moved when I was ten so that we could be closer to grandma while she died. The shed stayed. I forgot about the woman entirely until I saw her in the crowd at my high school graduation.

Right before something changes—she’s there in some form. As another woman in the lamaze class my husband insisted we attend. As a nurse checking my dying mother’s weak pulse. As the city hall clerk inspecting my divorce papers. As a flash in my mind the night I swerved off the road.

Years later, I went back. The house was for sale, and I had been rudderless going on four years. The locks on the shed were gone, the twine turned to dust. I decided to buy the house then and there. I put a new padlock on the shed as soon as the check cleared.

Sarah Chin is a writer with a day job in politics. Her work has been featured in Epiphany, HAD, SmokeLong Quarterly, Points in Case, and more. She lives in Chicago, Illinois and can be found at sarahchin.net.