Chapter 229
Room Eighty
Room Eighty was at the end of the renovated corridor.
It had no number on the outside. Claire knew it by the warmth beneath the handle.
Inside stood a long table covered with blank pages. At the far end, a window looked out over the lake. The water was ordinary now, gray beneath a pale morning sky.
Everett’s envelope waited in the center of the table.
Claire opened it.
The first page contained only a date: the night before Cabin Twelve disappeared.
The second page contained a list of names. Some were familiar. Some belonged to people who had never appeared in the archive’s records.
The final page held a sentence.
The first witness was not a victim. She was the person who built the door.
Behind Claire, the unnumbered room began to fill with footsteps.
She turned toward the window.
On the lake, Cabin Twelve was waiting.