Chapter 4 - The Empty Room
The locked room contained no furniture.
No boxes.
No curtains.
No dust.
The wooden floor had been scrubbed so recently that the scent of soap still hung in the air.
Clara stood in the doorway with Leo against her chest while Arthur walked along the walls.
“There should be marks,” he said.
“What kind?”
“If furniture had been here. A bed. A cabinet. Anything.”
He crouched beside the baseboard.
Tiny scratches showed where something heavy had been dragged toward the hall.
“Your mother emptied it.”
“She couldn’t have done it alone.”
“Someone helped her.”
Arthur rose and looked toward the ceiling.
A pale rectangle marked the place where a picture or mirror had hung.
Clara moved closer to the window. It faced the rear garden and the old stone greenhouse beyond the hedge.
The key in her hand felt warm.
“It fits the lock,” she said.
Arthur glanced back.
“You tried it?”
“The door was open, but yes.”
“Why leave the key under your pillow?”
“To frighten me. Or invite me.”
“Those are very different things.”
“Not to your mother.”
Arthur leaned against the wall.
“I should have believed you sooner.”
“You believed me.”
“I tried to make everything reasonable. My mother walking into the nursery. The monitor. The things she said.”
“You wanted peace.”
“I wanted her to be someone she isn’t.”
Clara looked down at Leo.
The baby was awake, studying Arthur with dark blue eyes.
Arthur crossed the room and touched his son’s cheek.
“I won’t let her near him alone again.”
“You need to tell her to leave.”
“I will.”
“Today.”
“Yes.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
A young housemaid named Rosa appeared, carrying a basket of folded towels. When she saw Arthur and Clara inside the room, she stopped.
Her face went pale.
“Mr. Bennett.”
“Who emptied this room?” Arthur asked.
Rosa’s eyes moved toward the staircase.
“I don’t know.”
“You were working last night.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you hear anyone upstairs?”
“No.”
Her answer came too quickly.
Arthur stepped closer.
“You won’t lose your job for telling me the truth.”
Rosa gripped the basket.
“Mrs. Bennett asked Mr. Cole to bring a van.”
“Who is Mr. Cole?”
“Your mother’s driver.”
“What did they remove?”
“I didn’t see.”
“You’re lying,” Clara said gently.
Rosa looked at her.
Fear filled her eyes.
“She told us not to look.”
“What did you hear?” Arthur asked.
The maid swallowed.
“Glass breaking. And music.”
“What music?”
“A music box.”
Clara felt Arthur become still beside her.
“Did you recognize the tune?” he asked.
Rosa shook her head.
Arthur walked to the far wall and placed his palm against it.
“I do.”
He began humming.
The melody was slow and delicate, the kind played above a child’s crib.
Clara had heard it before.
Arthur hummed it whenever Leo would not sleep.
“Where did you learn that?” she asked.
He stared at the wall.
“I don’t know.”
Rosa lowered her voice.
“There is something else.”
Arthur turned.
“Mrs. Bennett burned papers in the greenhouse before sunrise.”
The old greenhouse stood beyond the formal garden, partially hidden by tall hedges. Charles Bennett had once grown rare orchids there, but after his death, the glass structure had been abandoned.
Arthur and Clara crossed the wet lawn while Rosa stayed with Leo in the main house.
Smoke still drifted from the greenhouse chimney.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, the air smelled of ash and damp soil.
A metal barrel stood between two empty planting tables. Most of the papers inside had burned completely, but Arthur used a gardening tool to pull several blackened pieces from the edges.
Clara knelt beside him.
One fragment contained part of a typed sentence.
Custody of the minor child shall remain temporarily with
The rest was gone.
Another scrap showed a date from thirty-one years earlier.
Arthur would have been four.
He found the corner of a birth certificate, but only two letters of the child’s first name remained.
El.
Clara thought of Leo.
Then she thought of the woman in the photograph.
A sound came from the rear of the greenhouse.
Arthur stood quickly.
“Who’s there?”
No answer.
He moved around the planting tables.
The back door was open.
Beyond it, a narrow gravel path led toward the service gate.
Someone had been watching them.
On the ground near the door lay a small glass bead.
Clara picked it up.
It was shaped like a red rose.
Arthur stared at it.
“My mother had a bracelet with these.”
“Had?”
“I remember breaking it.”
“You said you didn’t remember much before nine.”
“I didn’t.”
He took the bead.
“Until now.”
A memory returned to him in pieces.
A woman kneeling in the nursery.
A red bracelet around her wrist.
A baby screaming.
Evelyn pulling Arthur into the hallway.
A man’s voice saying, “She cannot take both children.”
Arthur gripped the edge of the table.
“Both children.”
Clara moved beside him.
“What did you remember?”
“My father.”
“Was he talking about you?”
Arthur looked toward the burning barrel.
“I don’t think I was the baby in that crib.”
When they returned to the house, Evelyn was waiting in the entrance hall with three suitcases.
Arthur stopped at the foot of the staircase.
“You’re leaving?”
“I assume that is what your wife wants.”
“It’s what I want.”
Evelyn absorbed the words without blinking.
Her driver stood beside the door.
Arthur held up the red glass bead.
“I found this in the greenhouse.”
The driver looked away.
Evelyn did not.
“You destroyed court records,” Arthur said.
“I destroyed rubbish.”
“Who was the other child?”
“There was no other child.”
“I remember Father saying someone couldn’t take both children.”
“You remember dreams.”
“I remember you dragging me out of the nursery.”
Evelyn’s control slipped.
“He was trying to save you.”
“From Margaret?”
“From what she had done.”
“What did she do?”
Evelyn looked at Clara.
“She gave birth to a child that was never supposed to exist.”
Arthur’s face became white.
“Whose child?”
Evelyn picked up her handbag.
“Ask your father.”
“He’s dead.”
“Yes,” she replied. “That has always been very convenient for him.”
She turned toward the door.
Clara spoke before she could leave.
“Is Margaret alive?”
Evelyn stopped.
The driver opened the front door.
Rain blew into the hall.
Evelyn looked back at Clara.
“She was alive the last time she tried to enter this house.”
May you like
Then she walked away.
That night, someone placed a red glass rose on Leo’s pillow.
