Chapter 16 - The Door Beneath the FloorEdward did not move when Lily called his name.
The machinery beneath Caldwell Manor continued its slow awakening.
Metal scraped against stone.
Something enormous was shifting under the foyer.
“Edward?”
Catherine’s voice joined Lily’s from the staircase.
Edward finally turned.
“Get Thomas. Get Marcus. Nobody leaves the house.”
Lily came down three steps.
“What happened?”
Edward held up the photograph.
Her face changed immediately.
William Caldwell stood at the center of twenty-four children.
Three days ago.
Impossible.
Lily descended the remaining stairs and took the photograph.
“That’s him?”
“My father.”
“The dead one?”
Edward almost laughed.
“Yes.”
A second metallic sound vibrated beneath their feet.
Thomas appeared from the eastern hallway wearing sweatpants and a gray shirt, still favoring his healing side.
“What did you break?”
Edward handed him the photograph.
Thomas stared at it.
For several seconds, nothing moved in his face.
Then he whispered, “I know that building.”
Edward felt the room contract.
“Where?”
Thomas pointed to the mansion behind William.
“I never saw the outside. But those windows.”
Three narrow arches above a stone entrance.
Thomas touched the photograph.
“Third House.”
Lily looked toward the open passage behind the portrait.
“And Samuel?”
Thomas went pale.
“I knew a Samuel.”
Edward stepped closer.
“At St. Orison?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Before.”
One word changed the air.
Before.
Thomas had almost never spoken about his earliest memories because he claimed they were fragmented beyond usefulness.
Marcus arrived carrying his laptop. Noah followed with a sidearm already drawn.
Edward explained quickly.
Marcus crouched at the new opening in the floor.
The mechanism had revealed a staircase beneath the restored foyer.
“That was not on any architectural plan.”
“No,” Edward said.
Marcus shone a flashlight downward.
Fresh footprints marked the stone steps.
Child-sized.
Noah leaned close to the wall.
“Airflow.”
“Meaning?”
“This connects somewhere outside.”
Thomas stood behind them.
“Or underneath.”
Edward looked at him.
Thomas continued.
“St. Orison liked buildings beneath buildings.”
They descended together.
Edward first.
Noah second.
Marcus.
Thomas.
Lily ignored every instruction to remain upstairs and followed.
Catherine followed Lily.
Edward did not argue.
They had spent enough years being divided for their own protection.
The staircase ended forty feet underground.
A steel corridor stretched beneath the manor.
Old electrical cables ran along the ceiling beside newer fiber-optic lines.
Someone had maintained the place.
Recently.
At the end stood a white door.
No handle.
Only a small speaker.
Edward approached.
“Samuel?”
Static.
Then the child answered.
“You came.”
“Where are you?”
“Not there.”
“Are you in danger?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Who has you?”
Another pause.
“Grandfather.”
Edward’s blood went cold.
Thomas stepped toward the speaker.
“Samuel?”
Silence.
Thomas pressed his palm against the door.
“It’s Thomas.”
A quiet inhale came through the speaker.
Then:
“Tommy?”
Thomas staggered backward.
Edward caught his shoulder.
Samuel began crying.
Not loudly.
The restrained crying of a child who had learned noise caused consequences.
“I knew you’d come back.”
Thomas looked at Edward.
“He was five.”
“When?”
“When they took me.”
Edward’s heart began pounding.
Thomas pressed the speaker.
“Samuel, listen to me. Where are you?”
“The house with no shadows.”
“What does that mean?”
“Grandfather says shadows prove there is somewhere else to go.”
Lily stared at the photograph again.
She suddenly zoomed into one corner with her phone.
A reflection appeared in one of the mansion’s windows.
Not sunlight.
A long row of artificial ceiling panels.
“The windows are fake,” she said.
Thomas nodded slowly.
“The house with no shadows.”
Marcus was already typing.
“If that photograph contains metadata—”
“No,” Lily interrupted.
She turned the photograph over.
There was writing beneath the cedar emblem.
Coordinates.
Noah entered them.
A map appeared.
Northern Maine.
Less than fifteen miles from the Canadian border.
Marcus went still.
“What?”
Edward asked.
Marcus enlarged the satellite image.
There was no mansion.
Only forest.
Then he changed layers.
An abandoned rehabilitation hospital had once occupied the property.
Demolished eighteen years earlier.
Thomas whispered, “They didn’t demolish it.”
Edward looked toward the sealed white door.
“Then what’s behind this?”
The speaker crackled.
Samuel spoke again.
“The way in.”
The steel door unlocked.
Beyond it stood a room filled with screens.
Every screen displayed a different home.
Bedrooms.
Kitchens.
Schools.
Hospital rooms.
Twenty-four children.
Some sleeping.
Some reading.
Some staring directly at hidden cameras without knowing they were being watched.
One screen showed Grace’s house.
Daniel sat at the kitchen table.
Another showed Catherine’s cottage.
Another showed Thomas’s therapy office.
Another showed Lily’s classroom.
Edward stepped toward the screens.
The network had never stopped watching them.
Then the largest screen turned black.
William Caldwell appeared.
Older than when Edward had buried him.
Thinner.
But unmistakably alive.
“Hello, son.”
Edward could not breathe.
William smiled gently.
May you like
“You finally found the basement.”
And behind him, Samuel screamed.
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