Chapter 1 - Mama in the Wall
At 2:14 in the morning, eighteen-month-old Ethan Warren screamed so violently that his father thought someone was killing him.
David hit the bedroom door hard enough to crack it against the wall.
“Ethan!”
The night-light painted the nursery blue.
The crib was empty.
David’s heart stopped.
Then he saw his son.
Ethan stood barefoot in the far corner, his tiny body shaking beneath dinosaur pajamas. Both hands were pressed against the wall.
His cheek was flattened against the paint.
“Buddy?”
Ethan screamed again.
David rushed forward and grabbed him.
The toddler fought with shocking strength.
“No! No!”
“Ethan, it’s Daddy.”
The boy twisted in his arms and reached desperately toward the wall.
“Mama!”
David froze.
Ethan had learned that word only recently.
David had shown him pictures.
“This is Mommy,” he would whisper.
Sarah.
His wife.
The woman who had died eighteen months earlier giving birth to the little boy now trembling against his chest.
Ethan pointed.
Not at Sarah’s photograph.
At the wall.
“Mama in there.”
David stopped breathing.
“What did you say?”
“Mama.”
Ethan’s finger shook.
“In there.”
A cold feeling moved through David’s chest.
Sarah was buried twelve miles away in Rosewood Cemetery.
David had stood beside her grave in pouring rain.
He had watched the casket disappear into the ground.
He had spent eighteen months waking up expecting her side of the bed to still be warm.
There was nothing of Sarah inside that wall.
There couldn’t be.
David carried Ethan downstairs.
The boy cried until nearly four.
At sunrise, David returned to the nursery with a screwdriver, flashlight, and enough anger to make him feel ridiculous.
He removed the outlet plate.
Nothing.
He checked behind the dresser.
Nothing.
He knocked along the drywall.
Solid.
Solid.
Solid.
Then—
Hollow.
David knocked again.
The sound changed directly where Ethan always pressed his face.
His stomach tightened.
He placed his palm against it.
Cold.
Not cool.
Cold.
He grabbed a drill from the garage.
Then stopped.
Three weeks earlier, one of Ethan’s babysitters had quit without explanation.
Before leaving, twenty-two-year-old Grace Miller had stood in the foyer with tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Warren. I just can’t come back.”
“Did something happen?”
“No.”
“You look scared.”
“I’m fine.”
She had looked toward the staircase.
Toward Ethan’s room.
Then she had almost run out the front door.
David had dismissed it.
Now he remembered another babysitter.
And another.
Four women in eight months.
Every one of them had left.
David lowered the drill.
At nine that morning, child psychologist Dr. Rebecca Mitchell arrived.
She watched Ethan play.
Blocks.
Toy trucks.
A stuffed elephant.
For forty-seven minutes, he behaved like any healthy toddler.
Then Ethan suddenly stopped.
His red block slipped from his hand.
He looked toward the wall.
Slowly, he stood.
He crossed the room.
Dr. Mitchell watched silently.
Ethan placed his ear against the cold spot.
His face changed.
Fear.
Not curiosity.
Fear.
“Ethan?” Dr. Mitchell said gently.
He backed away.
Then pointed.
“Mama.”
Dr. Mitchell’s eyes moved to David.
“In there.”
Neither adult spoke.
Then Dr. Mitchell walked toward the wall.
She placed her ear against it.
Ten seconds passed.
Twenty.
David almost laughed from nerves.
Then her face went pale.
“What?”
She raised one finger.
“Quiet.”
David listened.
At first he heard nothing.
Then—
So faint he almost imagined it—
a woman’s voice.
Singing.
David stumbled backward.
He knew that song.
Sarah used to sing it while rubbing her pregnant stomach.
You are my sunshine…
Dr. Mitchell stepped away from the wall.
“David.”
He stared at her.
“That’s my wife’s voice.”
The singing stopped.
A soft mechanical click came from somewhere inside the wall.
Then something moved behind it.
Not a mouse.
Not pipes.
Something heavy.
Dr. Mitchell pulled out her phone.
“Don’t open that wall.”
David’s eyes stayed fixed on the cold patch.
“Why?”
May you like
She was already dialing 911.
“Because I think somebody may be inside your house.”
