Late Check-Out: Lights OutTwo hours until check-out

You are in the kitchen with the fire that has been burning since 1665, and every light in the house is still on behind you. On your phone, a new message: put them out the way they came. Mine last.

Hour Four: the lights

A stone manor seen from its gravel drive on a dark autumn night: the windows of both main floors lit, the attic dormers already dark, a lamp over the arched front door and a pumpkin on the step. Nobody in sight.

The lights she means are on a card the rental company printed for the guests and propped against the history board. Somebody left the dates off, as if everybody knew them:

WHAT BURNS AT
SALLOWMERE
the wireless set
the house lights
the kitchen fire
the red lamp

Her message, the last but one:

Put them out the way they came, backwards.

You can feel the whole house listening.

Put out the four lights in the order she asked.

Put out so far: nothing yet

To the fire.