Chapter 5: The Sound Behind the Closed Hallway Door
The room had probably been meant for waiting guests. Two stiff chairs faced an empty fireplace, and heavy curtains kept what little daylight remained from reaching the carpet. My sister sat on the edge of one chair with her feet above the floor. Dad stood beside the locked door, one hand still wrapped around the brass key.
None of us spoke.
For a few minutes, the mansion settled around us. Pipes clicked somewhere behind the ceiling. Wind pressed a branch against a distant window. Then a dry rasp came through the door.
It lasted two seconds, stopped, and began again.
I moved closer. The noise was faint but steady, like stiff paper being dragged across plaster. It came from the direction of the torn floral wallpaper.
My sister slid off the chair. Her blue eyes fixed on the door, and both hands tightened around the skirt of her dress. When the scraping started a third time, she shook her head. She pointed toward the hallway, then touched a strand of her own blonde hair.
The meaning was clear enough.
Dad pressed his ear against the door. His face changed, though only slightly. He had spent the last several minutes trying to hold himself between disbelief and action, as if choosing either one would make the other impossible. Now someone was moving outside while the three of us waited exactly where Stepmother had wanted us contained.
A shadow crossed the thin bar of light beneath the door.
It paused.
Something brushed the other side near the lock, and Dad caught the knob before it could turn. His shoulders stiffened. The knob twisted once against his grip, then returned slowly to its resting position.
The footsteps retreated, but the scraping continued farther down the hall.
I went to the door. Dad blocked me with his free arm. I looked back at my sister. She had moved into the corner between the chair and the fireplace, making herself small without taking her eyes off us.
Leaving her alone was impossible. Letting someone erase the only thing we had seen was almost as bad.
I pointed to Dad, then to her. I made him look directly at me before I touched the key in his hand. He understood what I was asking. His jaw tightened, but he nodded once.
Dad crossed the room and crouched in front of my sister. He placed himself between her and the door, close enough to catch her if she ran. She reached for his sleeve and held on.
That was all I needed, though it did not feel like enough.
I unlocked the door and opened it only a few inches. Dad wedged one of the chairs beneath the knob from inside, limiting how far it could swing. I slipped through sideways and left it nearly closed behind me. I stayed within arm’s reach of the opening.
The hall looked empty.
The dim wall lamps threw uneven circles across the vintage flowers. At the far end, near the place my sister had pointed, Stepmother stood with her back to me. Her dark hair was still pulled tight. One hand rested against the wallpaper. The other held a loose flap flat to the plaster.
She turned when the floor creaked under my shoe.
For a moment neither of us moved. Her expression held none of the uncertainty I had seen in Dad. She glanced toward the half-open room, where his shoe and the leg of the braced chair were visible. Then she stepped away from the wall and came toward me.
Dad pushed against the door from inside. The chair legs scraped the carpet as he forced the opening wider, keeping himself between Stepmother and the room. She stopped. Dad did not retreat.
Their argument had changed. Before, it had been accusation against denial. Now Dad was physically refusing to let her reach us.
Stepmother looked from him to me, then walked past without touching either of us. Her blouse carried the same sharp perfume that had lingered near the door. Her footsteps stayed measured until she disappeared around the corner.
I did not follow.
I moved only as far as the damaged section of wall, still close enough to see Dad guarding the doorway and my sister behind him. Dust clung to the baseboard. A narrow strip of floral paper lay curled on the carpet, its torn edge fresh and pale.
The jagged opening was gone.
A larger piece of wallpaper had been pressed over it. The flowers no longer matched at the seams, and the surface bulged where it should have lain flat. A wet shine caught the light along one edge, as if paste had been applied in a hurry.
The lock of blonde hair was no longer visible.
Behind me, my sister made a small, breathless sound. Dad turned toward the wall and saw what I saw.
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The hallway had changed while we were shut away from it.
And Stepmother had been standing with her hand over the exact place where the evidence had disappeared.
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