The ground floor held only a small room furnished with a simple desk; this was where the keeper on night watch would sit and work. Helen swept her flashlight around the room to check it. Beside the desk there was also a single bed, its blanket and pillow folded very neatly, looking somewhat worn but with nothing about them that suggested the place had been abandoned. On a small shelf nearby, two cups sat turned upside down. The beam made one more sweep and finally came to rest on the wooden doorframe, where a row of knife-carved notches was stacked one above another, the marks uneven and the gaps between them all different. The lowest notch reached only about the knee of a grown adult, while the highest barely made it to the chest. Beside each notch a tiny letter had been carved, though it had been worn faint by the passage of time.
They moved closer and bent down to look carefully, only to realize it was the letter J.
