The Room in the Wall

For several seconds no one moved. The child’s voice came again from above them, thin and unmistakable through the ruined stairwell.

“Don’t let him take it.”

Then came a knock, or the sound of something falling.

Tom was the first to climb. He moved quickly, almost eagerly, and Nell caught his sleeve before he reached the landing.

“You’re not going up alone.”

He looked at her hand. “Still protecting me?”

“No,” Nell said. “I’m preventing you from making another decision on everyone’s behalf.”

The second floor had changed since morning. The demolition crew had torn open the eastern rooms, exposing beams blackened by age and a strip of blue sky beyond the broken roof. Dust sifted down in pale curtains. The bedrooms stood doorless, their wallpaper hanging in strips like old skin.

The voice had come from the nursery.

Mara entered first. She had always hated the room, though she had never said why. A row of painted animals marched along the walls, their eyes enormous and fixed. The little iron bed was gone, and the floor beneath it had been split by the demolition. In the far corner, a child’s wooden chair rocked once and stopped.

“Who’s there?” Suzie called.

No answer.

Art crouched near the wall. “There’s a draft.”

He brushed dust from the baseboard and found a narrow brass grille beneath it. Lydia, who had followed them more slowly, made a sound that was almost a laugh.

“The speaking tube,” she said. “My father had one installed between the nursery and his study. For emergencies.”

“Whose emergency?” Mara asked.

“Usually mine.”

Art put his ear to the grille. From inside the wall came a faint hiss, followed by a child breathing. Then the voice spoke once more.

“Daniel said he hid it where the house could remember.”

Nell stepped back. The words seemed to pass through her rather than reach her. Tom’s face had gone slack, his practiced expressions abandoned.

“That isn’t a live child,” Art said.

“How do you know?” Suzie asked.

“Because it’s repeating.”

He was right. The line came again, exactly as before, with the same pause between “house” and “remember.” Somewhere inside the wall, a mechanism clicked and whirred.