Chapter 3 - Number NineteenMara’s first instinct was to grab Noah and run.
That decision may have saved her life.
She left Noah’s room while Dr. Pike attempted to restrain him, although “restrain” seemed generous for what Mara witnessed.
The doctor caught Noah’s wrists.
The boy screamed.
“Stop fighting me.”
Noah twisted desperately.
“Dr. Pike,” Mara said.
His head snapped toward her.
“You may go.”
“He’s frightened.”
“He is dysregulated.”
“He keeps looking at your hand.”
Pike released Noah so suddenly the child stumbled backward.
“My hand?”
Mara immediately regretted saying it.
She forced an embarrassed smile.
“The ring. I think it caught his attention.”
Pike looked down at the black onyx signet ring.
For perhaps half a second, his expression changed.
Not fear.
Calculation.
Then the friendly doctor returned.
“Noah fixates on objects associated with traumatic memories. It is common.”
“What memory?”
“That is private medical information.”
“Of course.”
Mara lowered her eyes.
She had spent enough years cleaning motel rooms and wealthy homes to learn something important about powerful people.
They noticed challenges.
They rarely noticed furniture.
So Mara became furniture.
She finished replacing the sheets. She emptied the trash. She wiped fingerprints from the mirrored wardrobe.
And when nobody was looking, she poured the untouched glass of water into an empty spray bottle from her cleaning cart.
She wanted proof she was not imagining things.
By midnight, the estate had settled into its unnatural silence.
Mara should have gone home.
Her shift had ended at nine.
Instead she sat inside her thirteen-year-old Honda in the employee lot, staring at a voicemail from St. Gabriel.
“Miss Bennett, this is regarding your brother’s surgical scheduling. Please contact Patient Financial Services…”
She stopped the message.
Her phone immediately rang.
Eli.
Mara answered.
“You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“So are you.”
“I’m working.”
“You always say that.”
His breathing sounded faintly strained.
Mara closed her eyes.
“Did you take your medication?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Don’t call me Mom.”
“You sound like Mom.”
That hurt in the familiar place.
Their mother had died when Eli was eight.
Their father had disappeared years before that.
Mara had been sister, guardian, paycheck, emergency contact, and occasional liar ever since.
Everything’s going to be fine.
Of course we can afford it.
I’m not scared.
She had become very good at lies told out of love.
“You sound tired,” Eli said.
“I’m okay.”
“How’s the haunted mansion?”
Mara smiled despite herself.
“Less haunted than advertised.”
“And the demon kid?”
“Don’t call him that.”
Silence.
“You like him.”
“I barely know him.”
“That’s a yes.”
Mara watched rain slide down the windshield.
“He’s scared, Eli.”
“Of what?”
Mara looked toward the mansion.
“I don’t know.”
A shadow moved behind an upstairs curtain.
Her stomach tightened.
“Go to sleep,” she told Eli. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She hung up.
Then she saw a light come on in the west wing.
Noah’s floor.
Mara should have driven away.
Instead she got out of the car.
Ten minutes later she was inside the mansion again, using the excuse that she had forgotten her phone charger.
The night guard barely looked at her.
She climbed the servants’ staircase.
Halfway to the second floor, she heard crying.
Not screaming.
Crying.
Noah.
She followed the sound.
His bedroom door stood open.
The room was empty.
Mara’s pulse accelerated.
“Noah?”
The crying stopped.
She stepped into the hallway.
A small hand appeared from behind a tapestry.
Noah pulled the fabric aside, revealing a narrow service passage.
Mara stared.
Older mansions often had corridors allowing servants to move without disturbing guests.
Apparently the Vale house had preserved theirs.
Noah put one finger to his lips.
Then disappeared inside.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Mara whispered.
She followed.
The passage smelled of wood and dust.
Noah crawled beneath exposed pipes until they reached a tiny hidden alcove behind his bedroom wall.
Inside were drawings.
Dozens of them.
Hundreds, perhaps.
Mara’s breath caught.
Almost every picture showed the same things.
His mother.
A black car.
The black ring.
A bird.
A staircase.
A woman in a gray nanny uniform.
A red X.
Another nanny.
Another red X.
Seventeen women.
Mara counted twice.
Then she found number eighteen.
Ms. Palmer.
A red X had been drawn over her too.
Mara’s mouth went dry.
“Noah…”
He handed her a crayon.
Then pointed at the empty space beneath Palmer’s picture.
He wanted Mara to understand.
“Are these the nannies?”
Noah nodded.
“You hurt them?”
His chin trembled.
He nodded again.
“Why?”
Noah took the crayon.
He drew another woman.
Then drew a box around her.
A box with vertical lines.
A cage?
No.
A basement room?
He drew the black-ring man beside her.
Mara’s skin prickled.
“Someone hurt one of the nannies?”
Noah pressed his fist against his mouth.
His breathing became rapid.
“Okay. You don’t have to tell me.”
He grabbed her sleeve.
Then came another whispered word.
“Clara.”
Mara remembered the staff gossip.
Nanny number six.
Clara Whitfield.
The only nanny who had not officially quit.
Everyone had been told she stole jewelry and disappeared.
Noah pointed at the picture of the caged woman.
“Clara?”
He nodded.
Mara felt cold.
“Where is she?”
Noah drew a bird.
A black bird with spread wings.
Beneath it he made three lines.
Then the sound of footsteps entered the hidden corridor.
Noah’s face transformed.
He shoved the crayons into a wooden box and pushed Mara toward the opening.
Someone was coming.
Mara switched off her phone flashlight.
They crouched in darkness.
The footsteps stopped five feet away.
A man spoke quietly.
“He’s drawing again.”
Dr. Pike.
Another voice answered.
Mrs. Harrow.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Find them.”
“And if Bennett has seen anything?”
Mara stopped breathing.
Pike’s response came after a pause.
“Then she becomes number nineteen.”
Noah silently reached for Mara’s hand.
May you like
And for the first time, she understood exactly why eighteen women had run.
Noah had been making sure they did.
Related Stories
