Amber didn't like the house. The frontage faced north and two large conifers cast a sterile shadow. The beams were faded, the chimneys pointed to the sky like accusing fingers, and the roofing oppressed the aged dormer windows that sat in their rimless sockets gazing out a shadowed world through leaded frames. Yet she'd never really had a particular reason to dislike it, until that is she saw the woman with the baby at the window and heard its feeble, sickly cry.