The 16th House

1. Memories

Mia walked briskly through the streets of Marseille, avoiding the jinxed cracks that riddled the asphalt sidewalk. Without knowing how she'd gotten started, she was sliding the beads of her old bracelet between her fingers, one by one, in a calculated rhythm.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Breathe. Don't make any mistakes. Stick to the rhythm.

The bright June sun beat down on her matte skin, banishing any trace of a shadow in sight and adding a heaviness to the air. Still, Mia kept her old, worn sweatshirt on, ignoring the sweat trickling down her skin.

She was a long way from downtown, beyond the subway lines and the city's most remote bus stops. High-rise buildings obscured the glistening sea, and not even a breath of wind came to cool the old concrete that blanketed the neighborhood.

It was the first time she'd been back to the apartment.

Caught up in the daily grind of college classes, imprisoned in a poorly insulated four-room apartment with a couple of roommates who seemed to do everything in their power to ignore her, Mia had rarely had the time to visit her grandmother, even though she had longed for it more than anything.

Now, it was too late.

A handful of indistinct figures approached her with mocking smiles and malevolent stares. She picked up the pace and tugged her hood over her thick curls. Her knuckles whitened where she gripped the shoulder strap of her satchel.

One, two, three, four, five.

Don't talk to them. Don't make waves.

She strode through a flock of pigeons, which flew into the air and cooed at her. The gray flurry of their feathers barely camouflaged the black silhouettes that had infiltrated their ranks.

Crows.

She saw them in increasing numbers, perched atop buildings, pecking at crumbs between the cobblestones, or flitting overhead in the narrow streets.

A bad omen.

The slippery metal of the digicode keys scorched her fingertips, but eventually, she punched in the right combination. The door unlatched with a click, creaking jauntily as Mia wove through the tenement's lobby. The rusty old hinges sounded like they recognized her, calling out, "Mia's back! Mia's back! Mia is back! Mia..."

She slammed the door behind her, stifling the screech with a loud thud. It was chilly inside, almost cold. The sun peeped timidly through the yellowed windows. A stale, musty smell hung in the air, heightened by the caustic residue of a low-end cleaning product. Nothing had changed, not even the air itself.

Mia came to a halt in the middle of the hall, her throat constricting. For a fleeting moment, she lost track of time and was transported back to when she was ten; her knees scraped, the soles of her shoes worn smooth by dozens of dashes across the cement floor. The echoes of her laughter continued to linger in the foyer. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body as if she were cold.

She had to keep moving.

One, two, three, four, five.

She took a deep breath and began to climb the stairs, holding onto the handrail and carefully remembering to step over the fourth step, as she had done all her childhood. Four was a bad number. To be avoided.

Soon, she found herself on the dark, silent landing, standing motionless before her grandmother's worn doormat. The keys jingled between her fingers as she tossed them from one hand to the other, unable to bring herself to slide them into the lock. Part of her wanted to knock on the door as she always had—three distinct knocks, a rhythm, a code that had been established since her earliest childhood. Perhaps the ritual would be respected, and someone would open the door.