Had Lowell been Dani’s kid, she would not have hired someone to babysit him for one evening. She would have left him to take care of himself. He was twelve. Too old, in her opinion, for a babysitter unless his parents were going to be gone overnight, which they weren’t. His parents had said they’d be back around midnight, maybe one a.m. at the latest, which meant all Lowell would have had to do was feed himself, entertain himself for a couple of hours, and put himself to bed, all things which a twelve-year-old should be capable of accomplishing without supervision. Instead, Lowell’s parents were paying Dani, who was only seven years older than Lowell, one hundred dollars to feed him, entertain him for a couple of hours, and put him to bed.

               The feeding was easy. Dani put a frozen pizza in the oven, took it out when it was cooked, and cut it into slices. She asked Lowell if he would have been able to do all of that on his own, and he said he thought so. As for entertainment, he just played video games. Dani had no role in that, although she enjoyed watching him. She was tempted to comment on some of the language he was using, but she didn’t know what he was allowed and not allowed to say. And it wasn’t like he was six or eight or even ten. He was twelve.

               And then there was bedtime. Lowell changed into his pajamas, brushed his teeth, and got into bed, all without Dani’s direct observation. After she’d given Lowell what she considered sufficient time, Dani knocked on his bedroom door. “Are you all done, Lowell? Can I poke my head in and say good night?”

               “Yes,” he said.

               Dani opened the door. A small nightlight plugged into the wall beneath Lowell’s bedside table cast enough light for Dani to see that his room was tidy. She wondered if he had cleaned his room by himself or if one of his parents had done it for him. Lowell lay in bed with his covers pulled up under his armpits and his hands folded on his stomach. He gave Dani a somber smile, but he couldn’t hold her gaze. His eyes kept flicking to the closet on the opposite side of his room, separated from the foot of his bed by four feet of medium pile carpet.

               “What’s wrong?” asked Dani.

               “Nothing,” said Lowell.

               “Are you hiding something in there?” asked Dani. She pointed at the closet’s double out-swing doors.

               “No,” said Lowell. His answer didn’t sound like a lie, but that single word contained layers of conflicting emotions.

               “So you wouldn’t mind if I opened it?” asked Dani.

               “No!” said Lowell, sitting upright, clenching his comforter in both fists.

               Dani was taken aback at his vehemence. “Why not?” she asked.

               “Just don’t open it,” said Lowell. “There’s no reason to check. Don’t check.”

               “Are you afraid of something?” asked Dani. It seemed preposterous that a twelve-year-old would harbor such a fear, but Dani didn’t think he should need a babysitter either, so maybe this was consistent with his overall maturity level. “Are you afraid something’s in your closet?”

               Lowell looked at Dani as if she had asked a remarkably perceptive question. “No,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’m afraid something’s not.”

               Dani waited for Lowell to elaborate. Something about his tone had spooked her. She felt her pulse accelerate two notches.

               “Good night,” said Lowell, attempting to impel Dani away.

               “What are you afraid is not in your closet?” asked Dani.

               Lowell leaned back, re-settling his head on his pillow, directing his eyes ceiling-ward. But he couldn’t keep them from the closet for long. Again, they flicked back. And again.

               Dani was about to repeat her question when Lowell began to speak.

               “When I was little,” he said, “two people came out of my closet every night to visit me. I don’t know how they got in there because during the day my closet was just a normal closet. They always waited until after my parents went to bed before they came out. The people would talk to me. They would tell me things, explain things to me, answer my questions, listen to what I had to say, and then comment on what I said. It was the same two people every time. They had names. And they didn’t wear the same clothes every night. They wore different clothes on different days like real people, that’s one way I knew they were real.

               “One of them was named Henny. She was older than my mom but younger than my grandmas. She knew a lot about history, and she knew how to mediate conflicts. She talked a lot about conflict mediation. She kept a photo of me in her bag. I don’t know where she got it. She showed it to me and I didn’t remember when it was taken, but I looked relaxed and happy.

               “The other one was named Pauline. She smoked a pipe. It made my room smell like smoke. That’s another way I knew they were real, the smell would stay after they went back into the closet. Pauline was good at guessing. She didn’t know much, but she could guess a lot. She’d guess something and later on, I’d find out she guessed right. But sometimes she guessed wrong, so you couldn’t be sure until you checked.

               “As I got older, they talked to me less and less. They still talked to each other, but they included me less. They talked like I wasn’t there, almost. And they talked about things that didn’t interest me or things that made me uneasy. Things that weren’t appropriate for kids. Things I didn’t understand.

               “Then, one night, they didn’t come out. I heard their voices inside the closet so I knew they were there, but they kept the door closed. I could still make out everything they were saying, but I never saw them.

               “It went on like this for a while, but their voices got quieter every night. It was harder and harder for me to hear what they were saying

               “Eventually, I only heard low talking sounds, and then just whispering. I couldn’t make out any words. And then I didn’t hear their voices at all. I only heard them moving around, bumping against the door or the sound of their shoes on the carpet.

               “And then, after that, I only knew they were there because I smelled the cigar smoke. And I guess that didn’t prove that they were both there, only that Pauline was there.

               “But the last time I smelled cigar smoke was months ago, and now I never see anything or hear anything or smell anything from my closet. But that doesn’t mean they definitely aren’t there. Maybe Pauline stopped smoking. Maybe Henny and Pauline just sit very still and don’t talk. Maybe they mouth words to each other or just make faces at each other, or maybe they got phones and they sit in the closet and text each other.

               “But if you open my closet door to check, then maybe it’ll turn out that they aren’t there, and I’ll know for sure that they’re gone, and I’ll have to accept they’re probably never coming back. And then I’ll start wondering if they were ever there. And then I’ll have to ask myself why I ever thought they were there. I’ll have to ask myself why I still so strongly feel like they were there.”

               Dani waited for Lowell to continue, but he’d said all he had to say. “All right,” she said. “I won’t open the closet door.” She did not add that she didn’t think she’d be able to force herself to open his closet door if she tried.

               “Thanks,” Lowell said. “Good night.”

               “Good night,” said Dani. “Your parents will be here when you wake up tomorrow morning.”

               “Yeah,” said Lowell. It was clear he didn’t take much comfort, if any, from this fact. He turned to his side, facing away from Dani, who closed his bedroom door and returned to the living room.

               Now what was she supposed to do? Just sit here on the couch for another few hours and not think about the reluctant straightforwardness, the credible matter-of-factness, the unaffected frankness with which Lowell had relayed the most frightening thing she’d ever heard? Dani didn’t pull out her phone, didn’t turn on the TV. Nothing would distract her. She was not currently distractible. And would the arrival of Lowell’s parents and Dani’s departure from their house really help? How long would it take before the sorrow on Lowell’s face faded in her memory? How much sleep would she lose before she could persuade herself to believe that Lowell was conflating dreams with reality, hallucinating, or misapprehending some other completely explicable set of circumstances? How long would the image of two people sitting silently in a boy’s closet every night, refusing to allow the slightest indication of their presence, nag at her, spoiling conversations and dinners and movies and hikes and holidays and jokes?

               Dani had told Lowell she wouldn’t open the closet door, but she now knew she had to. He didn’t want her to check, but she had to. He didn’t want her to prove there were no people in his closet tonight, but she had to. If not to him, then at least to herself. Dani could wait for Lowell to fall asleep. She could sneak into his room and check the closet as quietly as possible. And if he woke up, she would be positioned to block his view of the closet’s interior. She could refuse to tell him what she saw, which would of course just be the regular contents of a regular closet, of course, of course. But she could leave it unresolved for Lowell. She could leave all that to him and his parents and their counselor or child psychologist or whatever. It wasn’t her place to try to fix this for Lowell. She just had to, for herself, confirm what she knew: that Lowell’s closet contained no people.

               Dani turned off the light in the hall and tiptoed to Lowell’s bedroom, pausing to hover her ear at his door. She heard nothing, which proved nothing, so she cracked the door and peeked inside. Lowell still lay as she had last seen him. Should she whisper to see if he reacted? But what if he was a light sleeper and the whisper woke him, prolonging the amount of time Dani would have to wait before checking the closet? Instead, she opened the door just enough to slip through and padded across the room, her eyes fixed on Lowell’s sleeping form, watching for any sign of rising consciousness.

               Then, arriving at the foot of Lowell’s bed, Dani turned to the closet, and, confronted with the magnitude of the obligation of the moment, her concern for Lowell fell away and she knew only the softness of her own shadow on the doors. She took both handles in her hands, turned them, and opened the doors to the width of her body.

               Inside the closet, Dani saw a nighttime cobblestone street receding into fog. Lamps dotted the street at regular intervals, but none were turned on. Some were broken. A pale light from no discernible source revealed three-story apartment buildings of identical architecture lining the street on both sides, but all the windows were dark. Many were broken. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. The smell was only of old air undisturbed by living things. It was clear to Dani, even as her mind faltered at every renewed attempt to grasp what she was seeing, that it had been much, much longer than twelve years since anyone had passed this way.

               Feeling eyes on her back, Dani closed the closet doors and turned to see Lowell watching her, both wanting and not wanting an answer.

               “They’re not in there and they never were,” said Dani. “You’re old enough to know the truth, Lowell. You’re twelve years old.”