The realtor called the staircase a "feature." It dropped past our new cellar, past a wine room nobody asked for, all the way down to a cold concrete floor. In Hollow Marsh, every house had one, each deeper than the last, like the town was competing. Our first night, Mrs. Edevane from next door knocked. "Whatever you do," she said, "don't go past the frost line."

My little brother Theo didn't wait for warnings. By the time I turned around, he was already three steps down, giggling, counting each one out loud. "Seven, eight, nine," he sang. His voice echoed up wrong, like the stairs were much longer than they looked.

Theo wouldn't come back up. He sat on the cold step, head tilted, listening. "They're telling me a secret," he said, smiling at the wall. When I pulled him, his skin was freezing, and he kept whispering numbers I'd never taught him. Counting down instead of up.

I plugged Theo's ears with my hands and hummed his favorite song until the whispering lost its grip. Slowly his eyes cleared and his skin warmed up. "Don't listen to the counting," I told him. We climbed up together. We never used that staircase again, and we taught ourselves to sleep through the tapping.