The Turn of the Key

by Ruth Ware

Instantly something felt off-kilter. But what was it? The door in front of me was traditional enough, paneled wood painted a rich glossy black, but something seemed wrong, missing, even. It took me a second to notice what it was. There was no keyhole.

“Don’t come here,” she whispered, still refusing to look at me. “It’s not safe.” “It’s

He never let me explain properly—to show how it all built up, all the little things, all the sleepless nights and the loneliness and the isolation, and the craziness of the house and the cameras and everything else.

I was filled with a mix of strange emotions—stress, tiredness, trepidation at the thought of the days stretched out ahead of me, and something else, even more unsettling.

I did as she said, ignoring the bloody Home is where the Happy is!,

“Achlys—(pronounced ACK-liss)—Greek goddess of death, misery, and poison,” it read.

it was the way it stretched, endlessly, the way the needing never stopped, and there was never a moment when you could hand them over to your colleague and run away for a quick fag break to just be yourself.

The ones who sleep and sleep and sleep and never get out of bed, not even for meals, until they’re nothing but bones and grayish skin and despair.

I had not realized until I read Sandra’s words how much I had been counting on her arrival back this Friday, ticking off the days in my head like a prison sentence.