It had looked so much better in the pictures.

The muted sage exterior was more of a

puce in person, and the paint on the white shutters hadn’t looked so chipped. The interior
had looked so bright and warm with the light streaming in from those big windows, and now
all it did was illuminate the stains in the living room carpet. What had seemed spacious
before was now a little cozier given the full layout of the room, and the upstairs bedroom that
was supposed to be my office smelled so strongly of weed it made me instinctively want to
reach for a bag of doritos every time I walked past.
But it was ours, and we loved it.
Chloe already had most of the kitchen unpacked by the time the movers drove away.
Dishes were in their place, the coffee maker was set up for tomorrow morning, and the
electric kettle was already bubbling, ready for tea.
I wrapped my arms around her from behind as she stood, putting away the mixing
bowls.
“You know we don’t have to unpack everything tonight, right?”
She shrugged. “Whoever unpacks it first gets to decide where it goes, and I know if I
leave the kitchen up to you our drawers will be full of plates and the forks will be stuck to
magnets on the fridge.”
“I have an eclectic organizational sense, it’s just one of my countless charms.” I
kissed her neck, inhaling the soft sweet scent of sweat and faded floral perfume.
I felt something soft press against the back of my knee, and heard nails clicking
across the shitty linoleum floor. I reached down with one hand and absently rubbed behind
Barkley’s ears.
“Have you ordered the pizza yet?” I asked.
“Uh, yep.” Clara reached into her pocket and brought up the delivery timer. “Twenty
minutes. Triple cheese, and pickles, you fucking weirdo.”
“Again, countless charms. Okay, I’m going to take Big B for a walk and hopefully time
it just right.”
Barkley was already moving towards the front door the moment I said the word
‘walk’.
Chloe opened her mouth to respond but the doorbell rang first.
“I’ll get it.”
Barkley was turning in circles on the welcome mat, unable to contain himself at the
excitement of both a walk and a visitor at the same time. He was a whirl of black and white.
` On the other side of the door was pie. Apple pie, it smelled like. Holding the pie was
a woman in her early 50’s, wearing one of those joke aprons with a man’s sweaty washboard
abs over her business casual slacks and cardigan.
“Hi. Didn’t want to interrupt, but thought it might be better to deliver this while it was
still warm. I’m Hannah, I live next door.”
“Olivia.” I smiled and took the pie as she handed it over. “This smells unreal, it’s so
thoughtful, thank you.”
“Is that apple pie?”
Chloe had materialized behind me. Somewhat reluctantly, I handed over the pie as
Hannah reintroduced herself and pointed to her own little rose coloured house across the
street.
“I’ve lived here for thirty years, I think you’ll be very happy. Oh, and who’s this?” She
bent down to baby talk Barkley, who soaked up the attention like the diva he was.
“Thanks! The neighborhood is-”
 “A shithole. It’s not great, but there are good eggs around, and it’s cheap for this kind
of convenience to downtown, right?” Hannah stood, seeming only to realize as she brushed
the dog hair from her torso that she was still wearing her apron. “Just don’t go out at night
and no one will bother you. The last time I had a break-in, I was still tweezing the shit out of
my eyebrows.”
“Oh. We thought it was pretty safe here. We did one of those police report searches
and it was pretty quiet.” I said, as I grabbed the leash from where we’d left it by the door on
top of a bunch of boxes of shoes.
Hannah shrugged. “You’re not taking this sweet boy out now, are you? It’s almost
dark.”
The streetlights were slowly coming on and the sky was a brilliant pink behind her. I
smiled. “I’m just going around the block. He’ll need it or he’ll be a menace all night, won’t you
bud?”
Hannah reached out fo grip my arm, her face dour. “I’m not talking about the
neighborhood when I say don’t go out at night.”
“I… what?” I glanced over at Chloe. By the time I glanced back Hannah’s
seriousness had evaporated into a polite smile again.
“I do hope you stay. Let’s do dinner one evening, yeah?”
“Uh…” I assumed I must have misunderstood in my exhaustion after such a stressful
day.
Chloe answered for us. “Definitely. Thanks, Hannah!”
Hannah walked back to her house and I turned back to Chloe. “Did you hear what
she said?”
She shrugged. “It’ll probably be good to have a neighbor on high-alert. We’ll get all
the best gossip that way. And you have spray on your keys anyway.” She left to go put the
food in the kitchen and I put my hand in my pocket, feeling for my little pepper spray kept on
my keychain. Barkley was shifting his weight from paw to paw, unable to wait much longer
for his promised walk. There was no getting around this. And she’d said it wasn’t about the
nieghborhood anyway?
I bent down and clipped the leash onto Barkley’s collar. “If she wasn’t going to
volunteer as the crazy neighbor, then that would mean we’d have to fill in and that’s just too
much work.” I told him.
We closed and locked the door behind us and set off around the block.

Barkley was immediately enamoured with all the new smells of the neighborhood,
and I let him stop and linger over every hydrant and interesting tree. The suburb that we
were in had originally been built after the second world war, and the houses were mostly
bungalows with some two-stories sprinkled in here and there. Another generation might have
called them starter homes.
The houses were mostly well-maintained with mostly green lawns and mostly lightly
used low-end mini vans in driveways. It looked like the kind of neighborhood you could take
your dog for a walk in, but now my hackles were up. Barkly definitely noticed my anxiety, and
was more alert to all the little sounds around him. I kept talking to him in a calm voice to try
to convince the both of us that we were fine.
“You know, if there’s a book club, I bet Hannah would be the one running it. Do you
think we’re book club people now? I think Chloe would be. Can you imagine her, trading
gossip over gluten-free homemade muffins, having only read the first five pages of whatever
sad literary darling they’re supposed to have read? And then you and I can have cuddle
naptime on the couch while she does her little extrovert thing. That will be nice, won’t it?”
I forced my shoulders down from my ears. I was not going to let one weird interaction
ruin our happy move-in day.
We rounded the block in a languid ten minutes, but Barkley still hadn’t peed yet and I
didn’t want to have to take him out when it was really dark.
“Another round, bud?”
I looked over at our house as we passed it. You know, maybe the puce had just been
a trick of the light. It looked a little more grey now as the light changed. It was an
improvement, but, made the place look even more worn than it already had. We should talk
about painting it blue, I thought.
Although, wasn’t our number 99? I stopped and looked around. This was definitely
the right house. Hannah’s was just across the street, the rosy coloured one. The for sale
sign with the ‘sold’ plastered over it was still stuck firmly into the lawn.
But the numbers on the side said 66. The screws must have come loose. On both
numbers at the same time.
Barkley began to whine and I stepped forward, continuing the walk.

The second trip around was much faster. Barkley eventually did his business, but I
was only half paying attention. I just wanted to get back in the house. After all, the pizza
would be there any minute…
When we rounded that last corner onto our street, Barkley stopped. I tugged on the
leash a little, and used my best, highest-pitched “everything is fine and fun and awesome”
voice, but he refused to move. He stood there with his tail down and his ears back. He
wasn’t running away, but he wasn’t going another step forward.
I thought about picking him up and carrying him back to the house. I thought about
calling the vet to see what was up, or at least googling “dogs + new house + anxiety
behaviours”. Instead I tied the leash to the stop sign and walked ahead. Just in case.
The door was open.
The front door was wide open and every single one of those white, chipped shutters
was closed. I didn’t even think they could close. They were decorative… weren’t they? Even
the ones on the top floor. Fuck.
I ran up to the front door and pushed it all the way open.
“Chloe?!” I stepped through the doorway.

There was the smell of apple pie and lemon scented floor cleaner, but I was in the
middle of the street.
It was night. Pitch black, cloudy, not even the moon peeping through the gloom. The
street lights even seemed dim.
I was suddenly cold.
“No, wait… What the fuck? What the fuck!?”
Someone across teh street turned their head to look and walked faster.
I pulled my phone out of my hoodie pocket, letting a handful of doggie bags flutter
down to the concrete. I turned on my GPS. I was twelve blocks away.
My heart pounding, I called Chloe. Once. Twice. Three times. I texted her.
Are you okay?
I’m coming home. Something fucked up is happening.
I think I’m going crazy.
 Phone in hand, shaking, I started walking back.

I raced around the corner, breathless, and looked at the stop sign. Barkley was still
there. He was shaking. I petted him quickly and instructed him to stay, testing the knot I had
tied around the sign to make sure it would still hold. It would.
Then, I ran up to the house. Or, I tried.
The house was gone. There wasn’t a new house there, or an empty lot, or a house
painted a different colour. It was gone. The two houses side by side now were the same that
had been on either side before, and they even had the right numbers. Number 97 and 101.
But there was no 99.
I walked forward, onto the lawn in between where my neighbors had been. I turned
around. Hannah’s house was still across the street, number 100, how it had always been.
Hannah was standing on her porch.
“What happened?”
Hannah started her walk across the street. It felt painfully slow but only took a few
seconds.
“I told you not to go out at night. Fair warning.”
She smiled then. A polite smile that grew wider and wider and wider. I stepped back.
What the fuck had been in that apple pie?