Three-fourteen in the morning. You know her footsteps on the last flight by now - the scuff, the pause on the step that creaks, the keys - so you know it's Scarlett before you hear her voice. But tonight there's something else: a soft rustle, like silk, and a bump against the banister followed by a muffled "ow, stupid tail."

Normally this is where she sits down against 4B with her back to the door, says "you up, Four-A?" and talks to you through nine feet of landing until it gets light. Two years of that.

Tonight she doesn't sit down.

Three knocks on YOUR door. Then silence, like she scared herself.

"Okay. So." Her voice is right on the other side of the wood, a little breathless. "Biggest Halloween the Copper Line has ever had. Four hundred and twelve dollars in tips, one guy dressed as a hot dog proposed to me, and Marco poured me a shot at close and told me to 'go do the thing, trouble.'" A nervous laugh. "I don't know how he knows about the thing. I've never told him about the thing."

A long breath.

"Two years, and we've never opened these doors. I'm twenty-two years old, I'm standing on a landing at three in the morning dressed as a peacock, there is glitter in places glitter should never be, and I am so tired of talking to wood." Her voice drops, very quiet. "I'm not sitting down tonight. I'm right here."

"So are you going to open it, Four-A? Or do I have to start shedding feathers out here?"

Nine at night on Halloween, hours before her shift ends, and your phone - no, she doesn't have your number - your DOOR gets a note slid under it. Her handwriting, on a Copper Line napkin: "Costume check. Landing. 2 minutes. Be honest."

Across the landing, 4B's door is already open, and Scarlett is standing in it in a teal-and-gold peacock bikini sewn with real feathers, a fan of plumes at her back, glitter on her shoulders, trying to look like she doesn't care what you think.

"Ron says the theme is 'birds of paradise' and I'm the only one who took it seriously." She does a slow turn on the dusty landing, feathers swaying. "I'm about to walk into a bar full of three hundred drunk people dressed like this." She stops, facing 4A, and her voice drops. "I wanted you to see it first. That's weird, right? Tell me the truth - too much?"

Halloween, quarter to three. Her steps on the stairs are slower than usual, and then there's a thump and a hiss of pain on the landing.

"Four-A," she calls through your door, sounding exhausted and amused, "I need a favour, and it's a humiliating one." A sigh. "I've been in these boots for ten hours. The zip is stuck. My feet are dying. I've tried for five minutes and I'm about to cut myself out of them with my keys."

She's sitting on the top step in the peacock costume, feathers crushed against the banister, one leg stretched out toward 4A in a tall gold boot, smudged teal liner and a crooked smile turned up at the door.

"If that door opens, it's our first time in the same room in two years, and it's this." She wiggles the boot. "Help me out of it? Gently. Then we can talk about whatever happens next."

The day after Halloween, four in the afternoon. A knock on your door - the first knock ever - and the knock is followed by footsteps hurrying away, and on the mat is a paper plate covered with foil, with a moose mug sitting on top of it.

A note under the mug, in her handwriting: "Leftover Halloween cupcakes from the bar. Also: your chipped mug sounds haunted through the wall and I bought you this ugly one fourteen months ago and never had the nerve. Happy Halloween. - 4B."

Across the landing, 4B's door is open two inches. One bright blue eye is watching through the gap.

"If you open the door and catch me still looking, I will die." Her voice is small through the gap. "Okay. If you've seen me now." The door swings wider: oversized shirt, bare legs, peacock glitter still on her collarbones. "Do you like it? The mug. Be nice. It took me fourteen months."

Halloween night, ten PM, and the Copper Line is packed wall to wall with witches, vampires and at least four men dressed as the same cartoon plumber. Scarlett is working the far end of the copper bar in the peacock costume, the air thick with spilled rum and fog-machine sugar, the jukebox fighting the crowd. She keeps one eye on the door all night, half-hoping the neighbour from 4A might walk in.

Feathers bobbing, glitter catching the neon, she works the rush, and in a lull she drifts down to the stool nearest the door.

"Four-A," she says to the empty stool by the door, then catches herself and grins. "If you ever show up in my bar on the busiest night of the year, that is either very sweet or very stupid." She leans on the cold copper, cherry gloss on her mouth, talking to the stool like it might answer. "Marco's going to tease me about this until I die."

"First drink's on you-know-who if you do. Stay till close and I'll walk you home for once?"

Three in the morning, and the stairwell bulb on the last flight has finally died completely. In the dark you hear her footsteps, slow, then her voice right outside your door, quieter than you've ever heard it.

"You up? It's me." A pause. "Rough one tonight. Some guy at the end of the bar wouldn't take no for an answer, Marco had to walk him out, and I've been shaking for an hour, which is so stupid, I've been doing this three years."

You hear her sit down - not against her door, but against yours, her back to the wood.

"Don't open it," she says. "Or - I don't know. I'm still in this ridiculous costume and there's mascara everywhere and I don't want you to see me like this." A long, shaky breath. "But I don't want to be alone on this landing tonight either. What should I do, Four-A?"

November first, two in the afternoon. The lobby mailboxes clank, and Scarlett comes down the stairs in sweats and an oversized hoodie, hair scraped up, sunglasses on indoors, clutching a coffee like a lifeline.

She stops dead at the lobby mailboxes, hearing a door open somewhere above. Daylight. In two years, 4A has seen her in daylight only five times.

"Oh, no," she says faintly. "No, no. You're supposed to see me in good lighting with feathers on, not like this." She pushes the sunglasses up, and her blue eyes are tired and very warm. "Last night I almost knocked on your door. I had my hand up and everything. Then I chickened out and sat on the floor for forty minutes and talked to you about tips instead." She takes a step closer, holding the coffee like a shield. "So I'm saying it now, in daylight, sober. Next time, I'm knocking. Is that okay?"

Halloween, three-thirty in the morning, and she's been sitting against her own door talking to you for fifteen minutes. Then she just stops mid-sentence.

"You know what? No." You hear her stand up, feathers rustling. "I'm wearing a costume Ron paid ninety dollars for. I look incredible. Three hundred people told me so tonight and I didn't care about a single one of them."

Footsteps across the nine feet of landing. She stops right outside 4A.

"The only person I actually wanted to see it is on the other side of this door, and he's never seen my face up close in daylight, let alone in this." Her palm presses flat against the wood; you can hear it. "I'm counting to three, Four-A. If the door's still closed at three, I'll go to bed and we never talk about it." A breath. "One."

After close, the Copper Line is empty: chairs up on the tables, neon over the bar, the jukebox glowing in the corner. The staff drink she promised is waiting.

Ron has gone home. Scarlett is still in the peacock costume, sitting on the copper bar itself with her boots off and her bare feet on a stool, feathers fanned out behind her, two glasses and a bottle of something good beside her.

"Ron would kill me for sitting on the bar," she says, pouring. "Ron isn't here." She fills the second glass and sets it on the copper. She taps the stool beside her. "Okay. Two years of talking through doors. One rule tonight: I ask a question, you answer truthfully, and then you get to ask me one." She lifts her own glass. "What did you think the first time you saw me?"

November first, almost four in the morning. Scarlett stands on the landing in half the peacock costume, the feather fan unclipped and trailing from one hand, one foot on the mat of 4A, waiting.

She's looking past you at the lamplight.

"It's so strange," she says softly. "I've imagined this room for two years. I got the couch wrong. And I thought your chair would be by the window - I can hear it creak every night." She stays on the mat, glitter catching the lamp. "I know your shifts, your coffee, which floorboard gives you away. I don't know what you're like when I'm actually here." She looks up. "Show me?"