The step stool had three steps, and Edna trusted the first two completely. It was the third one, the one closest to the hatch, that had always felt slightly less certain under her foot, a little too springy. She had been meaning to get it fixed for ages.
She pushed the hatch open and was just climbing down when her left foot slipped. The step stool tipped, she grabbed uselessly at the rope more tightly, but she came down in a sideways spill onto the hallway floor, pulling the coiled rope with her as she fell.
She lay still for a moment, heart pounding, but checking herself methodically, starting at the ankles and working up. She didn’t think anything was broken. Her hip ached a bit. The rope was coiled around her left arm and trailing across her chest, and she thought, with the dry clarity that comes right after a fright, “This rope has more to tell…I must find out…”
