40

When you close your own front door behind you, Arctus greets you excitedly before zooming off somewhere else. You think she's happy with everything you bought for her. You can't quite match her energy, however, after what feels like such a long day. You decide just to have an early night.

A little later, just as you're upstairs getting ready for bed, you leave the bathroom and pass by the attic door. As you do, you notice that it's still the tiniest bit out of place from when you tried to push it open yesterday. You pause, glancing over the ordinary door and wondering again what Grandma could have wanted to keep out of sight so badly.

As you weigh up the possibility of a secret laboratory versus a bunch of old embarrassing photos, it occurs to you that this is the longest amount of time you've spent away from Grandma since you moved to the forest. Not only that, but you don't even know where she is—what she's doing—if she's okay. Looking back at the attic door, you realize those are just a few of many things you don't know about her. Even though it's just been the two of you for so long, you never heard anything about her life in town until you came here. It's almost like she wanted to leave it all behind, locked up and not to be thought of. Not that you'd expect to know everything, but…

Shaking yourself out of your trance, you keep going down the hall (forcing yourself to not even glance at Grandma's room as you pass it) until you've closed your own bedroom door behind you. Arctus is waiting for you on your bed, curled up helpfully on your pillow, and she provides a welcome distraction from your uncertain thoughts. You scratch her head idly as you open your laptop, thinking it's about time you figure out this email thing—though when you catch sight of Grandma's name under her profile picture, you get another surge of conflicted emotions. Sighing, you look Arctus in the eyes and ask her: