Chapter 1 - the knocking behind breakfast)
Five days before the slap, Lily Mercer woke at 4:13 in the morning because somebody was knocking inside the wall.
Three slow knocks.
Pause.
Three more.
Lily opened her eyes.
Moonlight washed across the bedroom ceiling.
Her stuffed rabbit, Buttons, lay beside her pillow.
For several seconds she remained completely still.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
She pulled the blanket beneath her chin.
The sound wasn't coming from her bedroom door.
It wasn't coming from the window.
It seemed to be traveling through the walls.
Lily knew exactly where it was coming from.
The pantry.
She had heard it twice before.
The first time, Vanessa told her it was the pipes.
The second time, Vanessa became angry.
There was something about the difference between those two reactions that even a seven-year-old understood.
People did not become angry at pipes.
Lily climbed out of bed.
The hallway outside her room was dark.
Across from her, Owen's bedroom door was slightly open.
She crossed the hallway and pushed it wider.
“Owen.”
No answer.
“Owen.”
Something moved beneath his blanket.
“What?”
“I heard it again.”
Her brother groaned.
“If this is about the pantry…”
“It knocked.”
Owen lowered the blanket.
He had their father's dark hair and their mother's gray-blue eyes.
Claire's eyes.
That was what everyone used to say.
Before people stopped saying Claire's name around Daniel.
“What time is it?”
Lily showed him the digital clock she had carried from her room.
4:14.
Owen sighed.
“You know Vanessa said…”
“I know what Vanessa said.”
“Then go back to sleep.”
“It said my name yesterday.”
Owen stopped.
Lily had not told him that part.
“What?”
“The pantry.”
“Pantries don't talk.”
“I know.”
Owen sat up.
That answer disturbed him more than if she had insisted the pantry was alive.
He climbed out of bed.
“You stay here.”
“No.”
“Lily.”
“No.”
Owen knew the argument was already over.
They moved downstairs together.
The Mercer mansion felt different at night.
During the day, sunlight poured through its tall windows and made the cream walls glow. Employees moved through the halls. Music sometimes played in the kitchen. Delivery vans came and went.
At four in the morning, the house seemed to hold its breath.
The children crossed the formal dining room.
The breakfast table had already been prepared for morning by the evening staff.
Beyond it stood the white marble kitchen.
And at the end of the kitchen were the pantry doors.
Owen stopped.
Lily nearly walked into him.
“What?”
He pointed.
The pantry had not looked like that yesterday.
There had always been a simple brass latch.
Now there were silver locks.
Several of them.
Heavy.
Industrial.
Brand new.
“Why would she put locks on food?” Lily whispered.
“Maybe there's medicine.”
“Why would medicine knock?”
Owen gave her a look.
“Please stop saying things like that.”
They moved closer.
Seven latches.
Three padlocks.
A chain.
Owen reached toward one.
A floorboard creaked behind them.
Both children turned.
Vanessa stood in the kitchen entrance.
She wore a long cream nightgown.
Her dark hair hung loose over her shoulders.
She wasn't sleepy.
That was what frightened Owen.
She looked completely awake.
“What are you doing?”
Lily stepped behind Owen.
Owen answered.
“She heard something.”
Vanessa's gaze moved to the pantry.
Then back to Lily.
“What did you hear?”
“Knocking.”
“That is impossible.”
“It said my name.”
Vanessa's expression changed.
Only for a second.
But Owen saw it.
Fear.
“Lily,” Vanessa said softly. “Come here.”
Lily remained behind her brother.
“Come here.”
Owen stepped sideways.
“No.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“You don't tell me no.”
“You're not her mom.”
The words escaped before Owen could stop them.
Vanessa's face hardened.
For four years she had been married to their father.
She insisted Owen and Lily call her Mother.
Lily sometimes did because it prevented arguments.
Owen never had.
“You're tired,” Vanessa said. “Both of you are going upstairs.”
Lily pointed toward the pantry.
“What's inside?”
“Food.”
“Then why are there locks?”
“Because I said there are.”
“That doesn't answer her,” Owen said.
Vanessa walked toward them.
“You are ten years old. I don't owe you explanations about how I run this house.”
“It was Mom's house first.”
Vanessa stopped.
The temperature in the kitchen seemed to drop.
Owen immediately regretted saying it.
Claire Mercer had designed this kitchen.
She had chosen the marble.
The cabinets.
The breakfast nook.
The strange little blue tiles behind the stove that Daniel refused to replace because Claire had loved them.
Vanessa hated those tiles.
Owen knew because he had once heard her asking a contractor how difficult it would be to remove them.
Daniel had walked in.
The conversation ended immediately.
Vanessa leaned toward Owen.
“Your mother is dead.”
Lily began crying.
Owen's hands curled into fists.
“Don't say it like that.”
“Then stop using a dead woman as an excuse to disrespect the living one raising you.”
Three knocks sounded behind the pantry doors.
Nobody moved.
Vanessa's face became white.
Owen looked at her.
“You heard that.”
“No.”
Another knock.
Louder.
Lily whispered, “Mom?”
Vanessa seized Lily's wrist.
The little girl cried out.
Owen shoved Vanessa's arm.
“Let go!”
Vanessa released Lily and turned toward him.
For one terrible second Owen thought she would hit him.
Instead she crouched.
Her voice dropped.
“If either of you comes down here again at night, I will tell your father you're having nightmares because you refuse to follow your therapist's instructions.”
“We don't have a therapist,” Owen said.
“You will.”
She stood.
“And if you tell Daniel ridiculous stories about voices and dead mothers, he'll believe you're sick.”
Owen stared at her.
Vanessa smiled.
“He's already worried about you.”
That was a lie.
Owen knew it.
But good lies didn't work because people believed them completely.
They worked because they made people question what they already knew.
Vanessa pointed upstairs.
“Go.”
The children obeyed.
Halfway through the dining room, Lily glanced backward.
Vanessa was standing directly in front of the pantry.
She waited until she believed both children were gone.
Then she leaned toward the locked doors.
And whispered something.
Lily could not hear the words.
But she saw Vanessa's expression.
She wasn't speaking to a pantry.
She was speaking to someone.
Back upstairs, Lily climbed into Owen's bed instead of returning to her room.
Neither child slept.
At 5:02, Owen whispered into the darkness.
“We need proof.”
Lily turned toward him.
“Of the knocking?”
“Of everything.”
“How?”
Owen stared at the school blazer hanging from the back of his chair.
A gold crest was sewn above the pocket.
May you like
The week before, Owen's science teacher had shown the class a camera smaller than a shirt button.
Owen suddenly knew exactly where he wanted to put one.
