Thomas has a flashlight. He lets go of my arm to illuminate the circular drive, but it’s gone, nothing but more weeds and brambles. He searches for the center fountain next, but it’s either collapsed or lost under more vegetative growth.

The wilderness likes to take back its own. In this case, it really should.

“What do you remember?” Thomas asks me quietly. We push forward, following the narrow path that’s all that’s left of the drive.

“When I first got out of the car . . .”

It’s April, the sun is setting, I’m already feeling the chill. I’m hungry, I’m tired, I’m scared. But I don’t let these things show. Game face, fighting to be brave. Until I step out of the vehicle. Look up and see . . .

“It was beautiful,” I whisper. “Like something out of a fairy tale. Especially for a city girl like me. I only knew cramped apartments, tenement housing. Then to come here, see this.”

“It was already falling into disrepair,” Thomas says. His voice is apologetic. He hefts the shovel in his left hand. “After my father’s death, there wasn’t enough money for upkeep. Even after my mother’s . . . business idea . . . the house was never the same. I used to wonder. Maybe homes have souls. It’s not enough to paint and repair. You have to refresh them. Love, laughter, life. I don’t know. But after my father died, what my mom did to this house, in this house . . . I don’t think it was ever the same.”

We move deeper through the vegetation.

Once, there was a beautiful wraparound front porch. White-painted rails, gingerbread trim. If I close my eyes, I can still see it in my mind. But when I open them again, follow the beam of Thomas’s flashlight, I’m startled to see nothing is as large as I remember. The porch is gone, of course. The house as well. All that remains is the foundation, a pile of enormous granite blocks such as the type favored back in the day . . .

Thomas was skilled only with fire. To destroy this foundation would’ve taken dynamite.

“When my mother first brought you home,” he says now, “she claimed you were a new foster child. That was her big scheme after my father’s death. We had a large house, so many empty rooms. She’d decided to take in foster kids. For the money, of course. She was never one to pretend to care.”

“A car came to our building,” I tell him now. “My mom told me to get in. Do whatever the woman said. It wasn’t the first time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t expect to be taken away. Yet, when I first saw this place . . . It was so much nicer than anyplace I’d ever been. Better food, too.”

“In the beginning, I believed her,” Thomas said. “It made sense. State pays for foster kids and I knew we needed cash. It was all my mother talked about. My good-for-nothing father who’d promised her this and promised her that but had proved to be nothing but a loser who’d then gone and dropped dead . . .”

Thomas looks at me; his face is hard to read in the dark, but when he speaks next, his tone is flat, frank. “I hated her. Surely you must know that. She did this, all of this, purely out of greed. Because she was owed a life of luxury. When my father failed her, well, this was the next logical step. She took in ‘foster kids,’ all of whom were young, pretty girls. Then she started throwing lavish parties. Getting to know the neighbors, she told me. I was so young myself, it took me years to realize the party guests were only older, wealthy men. And none of them went home after dinner.”

We are close enough now to climb onto the first enormous granite block. I don’t want to peer down into the pit of what used to be the home’s cellar, but I can’t help myself. I swear I can smell smoke again, but any charred remains of wood are long gone. I see only thick green vegetation, vines and weeds that have overgrown the bones of this once grand house.

Heat, I think. If I close my eyes, I will feel it again on my cheeks.

I will hear her screams.

I backpedal sharply, slipping off the granite slab. Thomas reaches for me, but is too late. I go down hard, banging my shin against the hard rectangular slab. Blood. Pain.

Smoke. Fire.

Screams.

I can’t help myself. I reach up my hand. I beg, I implore.

“Save her. For the love of God. Please!”

Thomas doesn’t move. His face is set in a grim line as he stands there, flashlight in one hand, shovel in the other. He knows. What I’m asking. What I’m finally remembering.

But whereas I am crying, his eyes remain dry.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but I’m not sure what he means. For what happened then, or for what must happen now.

“The first two girls who arrived,” he tells me, stepping off the granite slab, “were older. Fifteen, sixteen. I was maybe five? I didn’t think much of it. Mother said they had no families. We would host them. So we did.

“Looking back now, I think it started with them. Maybe they already were prostitutes. Or simply girls who came from . . . situations.” He glances at me. “My father might not have been the breadwinner my mother desired, but he still came from a long line of people who knew people. My mother mined those connections. Small, intimate dinners at first, inviting the neighbors, family acquaintances. Mother kept things simple. Cocktail hours, small cookouts to show off the house, introduce her new ‘daughters.’

“Maybe she was trying to reposition herself, us, in the community, but I think from the very beginning she had a plan. She knew what older, bored, wealthy men really wanted. So she started with a couples event, then later, the husbands might ‘drop by,’ to see if my mother needed any help, maybe stay for a few hours. I didn’t understand the full implications, but I still noted the new patterns. More and more male visitors. Two ‘foster daughters’ who spent most of their time giving male guests tours of the house, including long stays in their bedrooms. I don’t even remember their names anymore, but those first two girls, that’s when it all started.”

I have pictures in my head. A middle-aged woman in elegant linen trousers escorting me out of her car. Leading me through a tired but obviously once grand home. Taking me up a long flight of stairs in the south-facing turret.

This will be your room. The tower bedroom. You can make yourself comfortable. I’ll bring you clothes.

She closed the door. Was it locked? I’m not even sure anymore. Maybe, in the beginning. But it hardly mattered. Living out here, stuck in a mansion perched on a mountainside, thirty, forty miles from civilization. Where would I have gone? Where could any of us have run?

Madame Sade had not relied on armed guards or overt controls. She had a cold smile and indomitable will that served her just as well.

I look up now. I can’t see it, but I feel like I should know where it is, the three-story, wood-shingled turret, rising against the night sky.

“I loved that room,” I whisper.

“I spotted you in the window,” Thomas says. “You were ten years old, the first young girl she brought—”

“Bought,” I say bitterly.

He doesn’t correct me. “Close to my age. I’d been out in the yard, mowing, because everyone, even me, had to earn their keep. I looked up. Saw your face pressed against the glass. Your expression was so serious. Then you held up your hand, as if reaching out to me . . .

“And I . . . I don’t know how to explain it. I was only twelve myself, but I took one look at you and I was struck. I wanted to talk to you, become your friend. I wanted to know you, even though it wasn’t allowed. The rules had already been established. Foster kids were separate. Mother managed you. Guests visited you. I, on the other hand, was never to mingle.”

“You waved at me.” For a moment, I’m ten again. Lonely and overwhelmed by this fancy house and well-dressed woman who already terrifies me. I’m in the prettiest bedroom I’ve ever seen, in an honest-to-goodness princess tower, but I already know nothing in life is free. This room will cost me. This house will cost me.