Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN IN THE WALL
The next morning, Mara convinced herself she had imagined the voice.
Old houses creaked.
Pipes groaned.
Wind moved through vents.
And eight-year-old boys had nightmares.
That explanation lasted until breakfast.
Eli sat across from Mara in the staff kitchen while she cut strawberries.
“Does she say anything else?” Mara asked.
He nodded.
“She says she’s sorry.”
“Who?”
“The lady.”
“Do you know her?”
Eli stopped eating.
His face changed.
Mara noticed.
“Eli?”
He whispered, “Grandma says I’m not supposed to talk about her.”
“Your grandmother says that about a lot of people?”
He looked toward the door.
Then leaned closer.
“She sounds like my mom.”
Mara’s knife stopped.
She knew the public story.
Everybody did.
Rebecca Callahan, Grant’s younger sister, had died in a boating accident three years earlier.
Her body had never been recovered.
Eli had been five.
The Callahans became his legal guardians.
“She sounds like your mom?”
“I remember her voice.”
Mara’s throat tightened.
“Have you told anyone?”
“Dr. Hale says remembering things wrong can happen when your brain is sick.”
“What does that mean?”
“He says I have episodes.”
“What kind of episodes?”
Eli shrugged.
“Sometimes I wake up and everybody says I broke things.”
“Do you remember breaking them?”
“No.”
“Do you remember taking your medicine?”
He looked away.
That afternoon, Mara watched Dr. Hale prepare Eli’s medication.
Two pills.
One white.
One pale yellow.
“What are those?” she asked.
Dr. Hale didn’t look at her.
“Prescribed medication.”
“For what?”
He smiled.
“You’re the housekeeper, correct?”
“Mostly.”
“Then mostly clean.”
Mara felt heat rise into her face.
Grant walked into the room.
“Problem?”
“No,” Hale said.
Mara looked at Eli.
The boy’s hands were already trembling.
“Yes,” she said.
Grant turned slowly.
Mara softened her voice.
“I just want to know what side effects I should watch for when I’m with him.”
Grant’s face relaxed.
“Reasonable.”
Dr. Hale handed Eli the pills.
“Drowsiness. Confusion. Occasionally irritability.”
Eli swallowed them.
Twenty minutes later, he could barely stand.
Mara carried him upstairs.
Halfway there, he whispered against her shoulder.
“They make me forget.”
“Forget what?”
“The basement.”
Mara stopped walking.
“What basement?”
Eli’s eyes fluttered.
“There isn’t one.”
That night, Mara waited until the house went quiet.
At 1:40 a.m., she slipped into the east wing.
One hallway.
Two locked doors.
A sitting room nobody used.
Then she saw the old service elevator.
The panel showed three levels.
And B.
A basement.
Mara pressed B.
Nothing happened.
Locked.
Behind her, a floorboard creaked.
She spun around.
Mrs. Bell stood in the darkness.
Her face had gone white.
“You need to go back to your room.”
“There’s a basement.”
Mrs. Bell grabbed Mara’s arm.
Hard.
“Listen to me. You need this job.”
Mara stared at her.
“So?”
“So stop trying to find a reason to lose it.”
Then a scream ripped through the floor beneath them.
May you like
A woman screamed one word.
“HELP!”
