Chapter 1: The Knocking Behind the Frame
The living room was too bright for what was happening. Sun came through the big windows by the dining table and hit the floor lamp shade and the armchair where my dad was sitting, and it made the whole house look normal. My mom and my grandpa Vincent were standing together by the window, same as always when they wanted to look like they were just watching me and Dad talk. The gold frame on the wall was catching light too. It was this huge vertical portrait, tall as a door, hanging on the light wall between the living room and the dining area. Everything was set up to look like a regular afternoon at Calder House.
Then I heard it. Three quick knocks, a pause, then two more slow ones from behind that portrait. Not the wall settling. Not pipes. A pattern I'd heard before when Grandpa Arthur used to tap on the kitchen table to get my attention. And Vincent was at his peak at that exact same moment, standing straight with his hand on the back of a chair, looking completely in charge, like nothing in the house was out of place at all.
My name is Eli Carrow and I was eleven that afternoon.
It was just after lunch. Dad had been in the upholstered armchair, Mom in her cream satin blouse and dark skirt, Vincent in his dark navy button-down and gray pants with the brown belt. The portrait had been hanging there my whole life and I'd never really looked at it. That afternoon I couldn't stop staring at it because the knocking came again. Three quick, two slow. Louder this time. I stood by the staircase in my gray hoodie over my brown t-shirt and I could feel my face getting hot and my breath coming short. Dad started to rise from the chair, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, his dark navy zip jacket pulling tight over his light shirt. Mom's hand tightened on the chair back. Vincent didn't move.
I walked to the portrait before anyone could tell me not to. Up close the canvas was dusty and the gold frame was wider than my shoulders. I could see tiny cracks in the paint. I put both hands on the edge of the frame and then on the canvas itself. The knocking came again from the other side, muffled, like knuckles on metal behind cloth. I looked at the center of the picture, at the painted faces, and I curled my fingers into the canvas. The fabric gave a little. I pulled. It didn't rip at first and my hands slipped. I wiped my palms on my hoodie, breathed once, and gripped again lower down where the canvas was tighter. I pulled hard and felt it start to split.
The tear started at the top and ran down the middle with a dry ripping sound. The canvas separated in a jagged vertical line, curling back on both sides to show a dark gap behind it. Inside was not wall. It was a set of gray metal doors, set back a few inches, with a thin dark seam where they met. The knocking had stopped. For half a second the house was just my breathing and the paper edge quivering where I'd torn it. I got my fingers into the tear and pulled wider, widening the gap until the doors were fully exposed and the torn edges of the portrait framed them like a broken window.
"Don't open it."
Mom said it from behind me. Her voice was low and flat and she didn't move from her spot by the window. Vincent stayed beside her, his lips pressed tight, staring at my hands on the canvas.
I didn't open the doors. I didn't have to. A voice came through the gap, hoarse and muffled, like it was trying to get around something covering its mouth.
"Let me go."
I felt my stomach drop. Dad was on his feet now, fully upright behind the armchair, his eyes wide on the torn portrait.
"What are you doing?"
He wasn't talking to Mom. He was talking to me, but his voice cracked in the middle like he already knew he shouldn't be asking me that. I let go of the canvas and stepped back half a step. The torn flaps hung down. Through the dark gap between the gray doors, which weren't latched all the way, I could see into the shadow. There was a blanket on the floor and a blue bucket and two water bottles, and then I saw him.
Grandpa Arthur was sitting on the floor in the dim space, his back against the far wall. He was wearing a light-colored top and his white hair was flat on one side. His hands were bound in front of him with what looked like zip ties or rope, and tape covered his mouth. He was looking right at me, his eyes wet and tired, and then he looked past me toward Dad. He made a small sound and tried to shift forward but he couldn't stand.
Dad made a noise I hadn't heard from him before, a kind of caught breath, and he took one step toward the portrait and stopped with his hand half-raised in the air.
May you like
"Dad?"
He said it so quietly I almost didn't hear it. He was staring at the old man in the shadow through the torn edges of our family portrait, and no one had touched the doors yet and no one had moved to help.
