Chapter 1 - The Ghost in the Woodwork
The air felt like it had been sucked out of the world,
leaving behind a cold,
vacuum-like silence that made my ears ring.
The excavator’s engine groaned,
a mechanical beast being forced into submission,
as Damian Russo held up a single,
gloved hand.
His eyes,
which were the color of a winter sea before a storm,
did not leave my daughters.
Sadie stood her ground,
her small boots sinking into the NJ mud,
while Lucy gripped the hem of her sister’s jacket.
“What did you say,
little one?”
Damian’s voice was a low rasp,
smooth like expensive bourbon,
yet sharp enough to cut through the heavy November mist.
I finally found my feet,
stumbling forward through the sludge,
my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
“Sadie,
Lucy,
come here,
right now,”
I breathed,
my voice trembling with a fear I couldn’t hide.
I reached for them,
my fingers cold and damp,
but Sadie didn’t move.
She pointed again at the cottage,
that rotting,
white-painted structure that was slated to become a pile of toothpicks.
“The blue bird,”
she whispered,
her voice carrying in the stillness.
“There is a box under the third step,
inside the wall,
where the stars are painted.”
I froze,
my hand hovering in mid-air.
We had lived in a cramped apartment in Newark for their entire lives.
We had never been to Mendham.
We had never seen this estate until I started my job as an inventory clerk three months ago.
I looked at the cottage,
then back at Damian.
His expression had shifted from cold indifference to a burning,
intense curiosity that made the hair on my neck stand up.
“There are no stars in that house,
child,”
Damian said,
stepping closer,
his expensive shoes ruining themselves in the mire.
“That house has been boarded up since before you were born.”
“The stars are behind the wallpaper,”
Lucy added,
her voice smaller but just as certain.
“In the room with the smell of lavender and old paper.”
The foreman shifted uncomfortably,
looking from the girls to his boss.
“Mr. Russo,
we’re behind schedule.
The rain is coming back,
and the ground is getting soft.”
Damian didn’t even glance at him.
“Shut the engine off,”
Damian commanded.
The silence that followed was even more terrifying than the noise.
It was the kind of silence that precedes a landslide.
He looked at me,
his gaze heavy and searching.
“Elara,
is it?”
I nodded,
swallowing hard,
trying to pull my daughters toward my car.
“Yes,
sir.
I’m sorry,
they’re just…
they have overactive imaginations.
It’s the stress of the day.”
“They are describing a room that shouldn’t exist,”
he said,
taking another step toward the porch.
“A room my father claimed was gutted by fire thirty years ago.”
He looked at the ceramic bird,
the one with the chipped wing.
Then,
without another word,
he climbed onto the sagging porch.
The wood groaned under his weight,
protesting the intrusion of a Russo.
He reached out,
his long fingers brushing the dust-caked siding.
“Wait!”
Sadie shouted,
breaking free from my grip.
She ran toward the stairs,
her small frame moving with a terrifying familiarity.
She didn’t go to the door.
She went to the side of the porch,
where the lattice work was broken and hanging by a single nail.
She reached into the dark,
cobwebbed space beneath the floorboards.
My breath hitched in my throat.
I expected her to pull out a spider,
or a rusted can,
or nothing at all.
Instead,
her hand emerged clutching something wrapped in a rotted,
oil-slicked rag.
Damian was off the porch in a second,
kneeling in the mud beside her.
He didn’t care about his suit.
He didn’t care about the rain that began to drizzle down again.
He took the bundle from her small hands.
With slow,
deliberate movements,
he unwrapped the cloth.
Inside lay a heavy,
ornate brass key.
It didn’t look like a house key.
It was long,
with a bow shaped like a weeping willow.
I saw Damian’s face go pale,
a ghostly white that made his dark stubble stand out.
“This,”
he whispered,
more to himself than to us.
“This was his.”
He looked at my daughters,
and for the first time,
I saw something other than power in his eyes.
I saw genuine,
unadulterated fear.
“How did you know where this was?”
Sadie looked at him,
her eyes wide and honest.
“The man in the tall hat told us,”
she said.
“The one who stays in the garden when the sun goes down.”
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.
Damian stood up,
clutching the key so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“Get them inside the main house,”
he ordered the foreman,
though his eyes were still fixed on me.
“And call the architect.
Tell him the demolition is cancelled.”
He turned to me,
his voice dropping to a dangerous,
intimate level.
“You and I,
May you like
Elara,
are going to have a very long conversation.”
