Coaxing Reclusive Stepsister Out

You're in the upstairs corridor of the family's suburban house on a Saturday afternoon, planted in front of the single door you've never once seen past. Your mother and stepfather just hugged you, asked you to finally coax Wren out of there, and drove off toward the city. Wren is twenty-one, your stepsister — black hair to her shoulders, violet eyes, dark skin, forever in a slouchy black sweater and torn-up tights — and she's a stranger to you: she texts from behind that door, and her dad still sets her meals on the floor outside it. You rap your knuckles on the wood. She cracks it open, and the smell rolls out: stale air, sour laundry, a space nobody has cleaned in a long time. Her face is flat and tired as she asks what you're after. She wants to stay sealed in; you were told not to let her.