Chapter 1 - The Girl Behind the WallFor three weeks, I heard someone moving inside our bedroom wall.
At first, I blamed the heating pipes.
Then I blamed the old house.
My four-year-old daughter, Lily, blamed her secret friend.
“She gets hungry at night,” Lily told me one morning.
I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do.
My wife, Vanessa, didn’t laugh.
She took Lily’s hand and led her out of the room before I could ask another question.
That should have frightened me.
Instead, I told myself Vanessa was tired. We had both been tired lately.
The noises always came after dark. A soft scrape. A dull knock. Once, something that sounded so much like a child crying that I stood beside our bed with my heart racing.
Vanessa said it was the wind.
We slept with the television on that night.
Yesterday afternoon, I came home early because a meeting had been canceled. I found the house quiet except for Lily humming in her bedroom.
Her closet door stood open.
I watched her take a slice of bread from beneath her sweater and push it through a narrow gap behind the lowest shelf.
“Lily?”
She jerked around. Her eyes filled with tears.
“I was supposed to wait until Mommy went outside.”
The floor seemed to shift beneath me.
I knelt beside her.
“Who told you that?”
Lily looked toward the wall.
“My friend. She said Mommy gets mad when she eats.”
I moved the shoes piled beneath the shelf. One wooden panel sat slightly crooked. Fresh scratches marked the edge.
I pulled it loose.
A little girl was crouched in the darkness behind it.
She was thin, filthy, and shaking so hard the bread slipped from her fingers. She looked about six. Her hair hung over one eye, and she wore a yellow sweater with a torn cuff.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then I heard Vanessa behind me.
“Ryan, get away from her.”
Her voice barely sounded human.
I turned. My wife stood in the doorway, white-faced, gripping the frame.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Please. Don’t touch her.”
The little girl flinched at Vanessa’s voice. She backed farther into the passage and hit the wall behind her.
I understood one thing immediately.
She was afraid of my wife.
I reached toward her slowly.
“It’s okay. My name is Ryan.”
She stared at me with enormous eyes.
Then she whispered, “You’re Lily’s daddy.”
I swallowed.
“Yeah.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Please don’t let her take me back.”
Vanessa made a strangled sound.
“Ryan, listen to me.”
“No.”
I stood up.
She took one step toward me.
“Please.”
“Who is she?”
Vanessa looked at the little girl.
The child recoiled.
I moved between them.
“Who is she, Vanessa?”
My wife’s lips trembled.
“Her name is Nora.”
“And why is Nora living inside our wall?”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“I was trying to protect her.”
“From what?”
She opened her mouth, but before she could answer, the little girl spoke.
“From Dad.”
Vanessa went completely still.
I looked at her.
“Her dad?”
Nora nodded.
“He said Mommy would never come for me.”
Vanessa pressed a hand over her mouth.
“Ryan, you don't understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
She glanced toward the hallway.
“Not here.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“A six-year-old has been sleeping inside our wall for three weeks, and you’re worried about where we have this conversation?”
Nora flinched at the word sleeping.
I crouched beside her again.
“When did you last eat?”
She looked at the bread.
“Yesterday.”
My stomach turned.
I stood.
Vanessa whispered, “She won’t tell you the whole story.”
“Neither will you.”
“Ryan—”
“Get me a blanket.”
She stared at me.
“What?”
“A blanket. Water. Food. Now.”
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then Vanessa disappeared down the hall.
Nora crawled carefully out of the passage.
Only when she stood in the light did I see the bruises around her wrists.
I felt something inside me go cold.
“Who did that?”
She covered them with her hands.
“Dad.”
“Where is he?”
“He said he was coming back.”
“When?”
She looked toward the bedroom wall.
“He always comes at night.”
A car door slammed outside.
Nora froze.
Vanessa came running back.
“Ryan.”
Her face had changed.
“What?”
“You need to take her somewhere else.”
“Why?”
She grabbed my arm.
“Because that might be him.”
Nora began shaking.
She stared at the bedroom window.
Then she whispered four words that made Vanessa let go of me.
May you like
“He knows this house.”
The front door handle started to turn.
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