It stands where the road gives up and the forest takes over. The house is small, no more than two rooms and a cold pantry, but it holds the valley like a held breath.
The windows are blind now, covered from the inside with newspaper that has turned the colour of old bone. In front of the door, a single birch grows through the remains of a wooden bench, patient and unhurried.
I have never gone inside. I do not think I am meant to. Some places are better left as thresholds, spaces between what was and what is becoming. The house does not need visitors. It needs witnesses.
Every time I pass it, I leave with a line I did not have before.