Chapter 1 - The Voice Behind the Holly Wallpaper
The first time eight-year-old Sophie Reed said her mother was living inside the wall, her eleven-year-old brother Mason told her never to say it again.
It was December 19, and snow covered the stone lions outside Hawthorne House, the old Connecticut mansion their father had inherited from his parents. From the road, the place looked like a Christmas card: wreaths on every window, candles glowing behind old glass, and a twelve-foot spruce shining in the front hall. Inside, Mason had learned to measure every sound.
The click of their stepmother’s heels meant straighten your back.
The rattle of keys meant she was checking locked rooms.
Silence meant she was listening.
That evening Mason was carrying a basket of split firewood across the rear hall when Sophie appeared at the servants’ staircase in red pajamas.
“Mason.”
He looked around. “You’re supposed to be upstairs.”
“I heard her again.”
His hands tightened around the basket. “Who?”
Sophie’s lower lip trembled. “Mommy.”
Their mother, Emily Reed, had vanished fourteen months earlier. Vanessa, their father’s new wife, said Emily had abandoned them. Their father, Jonathan, said the police had found evidence that she left voluntarily. Mason had never believed either story.
“Where?” he whispered.
Sophie pointed toward the east hallway, where faded cream wallpaper was covered in blue flowers and tiny green leaves.
“Behind there.”
Mason set down the firewood.
A voice cut through the corridor.
“What are you two doing?”
Vanessa stood beneath a garland wrapped around the archway. She wore a burgundy dress and held a glass of wine. Her smile looked pleasant from a distance.
Up close, it never reached her eyes.
“Sophie couldn’t sleep,” Mason said.
“I asked her.”
Sophie stared at the floor.
Vanessa walked closer. “Well?”
“I heard Mommy.”
The wineglass stopped halfway to Vanessa’s lips.
Mason saw it.
Only for a second.
But he saw it.
Vanessa recovered. “Your mother is gone.”
“She said my name.”
“That is enough.”
“She’s behind the flowers.”
Vanessa seized Sophie by the shoulder.
Mason immediately stepped between them. “Don’t.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
“What did you say?”
“Let her go.”
“Mason, move.”
“No.”
The punishment came fast. Vanessa struck him hard enough to knock him against the console table. A porcelain Christmas village rattled, and one tiny ceramic church fell to the carpet.
Sophie screamed.
Mason’s cheek burned, but he got back up.
Vanessa stared at him as if she could not believe he had dared.
“You ungrateful little brat.”
“Touch her again,” Mason said, breathing hard, “and I’ll tell Dad everything.”
Vanessa laughed softly. “Everything?”
“The locked pantry. Making me carry wood until midnight. Taking Sophie’s food when she cries. The basement door. And what you buried.”
For the first time, fear crossed Vanessa’s face.
Then it vanished.
She grabbed Mason’s shirt and pulled him close.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know Mom didn’t leave us.”
Vanessa leaned toward his ear.
“Keep digging,” she whispered, “and this house will swallow you too.”
The front doors exploded open.
“POLICE!”
Vanessa released him.
Jonathan Reed charged into the foyer with Detective Rachel Cole and two uniformed officers behind him. Snow covered the shoulders of his coat.
“Mason!”
Sophie ran to him.
Jonathan dropped to his knees and caught her.
“What happened?”
Mason touched his cheek.
Vanessa stepped backward. “Jonathan, this is insane. Your children are hysterical.”
Detective Cole looked at Mason. “Your father received the recording.”
Vanessa went pale.
Mason had forgotten the old tablet hidden beneath the hall bench. He had turned on its recorder before Vanessa entered.
Jonathan stood slowly.
“You hit my son.”
“He threatened me.”
“He is eleven.”
“He lies.”
Sophie tugged Jonathan’s sleeve.
“Daddy.”
He looked down.
Her face was wet with tears.
“Mommy is still inside that wall.”
The foyer went completely still.
Vanessa whispered, “Stop this.”
Sophie pointed toward the floral wallpaper.
“There.”
Detective Cole approached the wall.
At first there was nothing unusual.
Then Mason saw a tiny tear near the baseboard.
Something pale protruded from it.
Detective Cole crouched.
Jonathan stopped breathing.
It was hair.
Long.
Blonde.
Exactly like Emily’s.
Vanessa backed toward the staircase.
May you like
Detective Cole turned.
“Nobody leaves this house.”
