“Hello?”
Silence.
I pressed the phone harder against my ear.
“Hello?”
For three seconds, nothing happened.
Then I heard breathing.
Not ghostly breathing.
Not some theatrical gasp from the dead.
Human breathing.
Faint.
Uneven.
Somewhere underneath it was another sound.
A rhythmic clicking.
Click.
Pause.
Click.
Pause.
Then a woman's recorded voice whispered:
“Sofia?”
Every child in the kitchen froze.
Rowan ripped the phone from my hand.
She ended the call.
“What did you do?”
Her anger hit me so fast I stepped back.
“I answered.”
“You weren't supposed to answer!”
“You handed me the phone.”
“I showed it to you!”
“Rowan—”
“You shouldn't have answered!”
She threw the phone onto the kitchen island.
Mila started crying silently.
Noah disappeared into the hallway.
The twins grabbed each other's hands.
Sofia screamed.
Not a normal toddler tantrum.
A terrified, broken scream.
“Mama! Mama! Mama!”
She ran toward the phone.
Rowan caught her before she reached it.
Everything exploded at once.
Elliot came running.
“What happened?”
Nobody answered.
He saw the phone.
His face changed.
“Again?”
Rowan glared at me.
“She answered.”
Elliot turned toward me.
“What?”
“You told me not to interfere,” I said, “but nobody told me a dead woman's cellphone was ringing.”
His jaw tightened.
“Your shift is over.”
“Fine.”
“Leave.”
“Also fine.”
I grabbed my bag.
Then Sofia screamed again.
She twisted free of Rowan and ran into me.
Her small arms locked around my knees.
“Don't go.”
The room went silent.
Elliot stared at his daughter.
Rowan stared harder.
Sofia pressed her face against my skirt.
“Don't go.”
I looked down.
Her body was shaking.
Something inside me broke.
I placed my bag back on the floor.
Elliot's voice hardened.
“I said leave.”
“And your daughter asked me not to.”
“This isn't your family.”
“I know.”
“Then don't act like it is.”
I looked straight at him.
“Maybe somebody should act like this is a family.”
His face went cold.
For half a second, I thought I'd just thrown away the highest-paying job I'd ever had.
Then Rowan said, “Dad.”
He looked at her.
“She ate.”
Elliot's expression shifted.
“What?”
“Sofia ate dinner.”
He looked at the plates.
Then at me.
Then at his youngest daughter still holding my knees.
“How much?”
“Most of a pancake,” Rowan said.
Elliot stared.
Apparently that mattered.
A lot.
His shoulders dropped.
“Stay tonight.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“The agency contract includes overnight availability if required.”
“I wasn't told—”
“Triple rate.”
I thought about my tuition.
Of course I did.
“Fine.”
He looked toward the phone.
“But you do exactly what I say.”
“I've never been good at that.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I'm serious.”
“So am I.”
Rowan almost smiled.
That night I learned the Hawthorne house had rules.
No phones in the children's bedrooms.
No locked doors upstairs.
No music after nine.
No one entered Lucía's old bedroom.
And if the old cellphone rang again, nobody answered.
“Why keep it?” I asked.
Elliot stood in the hallway outside the guest room.
“Because Rowan refuses to let me destroy it.”
“Why?”
“Ask Rowan.”
“I asked you.”
“And I told you to ask Rowan.”
That was Elliot.
Every answer was a locked door.
At eleven, the mansion went quiet.
I changed into sweatpants and sat on the guest bed with textbooks open in front of me.
I tried to study pharmacology.
Instead, I kept hearing that voice.
Sofia?
At 12:17 a.m., someone knocked.
Three soft taps.
I opened the door.
Noah stood there.
Eight years old.
Barefoot.
“Nightmare?”
He shook his head.
“What happened?”
He whispered, “The hall light turned off.”
I looked.
It was still on.
“Noah.”
His eyes filled.
“Mom said she'd always leave it on.”
I understood.
The light wasn't about darkness.
It was about memory.
I stepped into the hallway.
“I'll sit out here until you fall asleep.”
He looked suspicious.
“You don't have to.”
“I know.”
That made him trust me more than if I'd said I wanted to.
We sat on the floor.
Ten minutes later, Mila appeared.
Then Elise.
Then the twins.
Within half an hour, five children were gathered around me.
Only Rowan stayed away.
“What happened to the other workers?” I finally asked.
Elise answered.
“They heard things.”
“What things?”
“Mom.”
Piper said, “One woman heard Mom singing.”
Wren added, “Another saw messages.”
Mila whispered, “One got a picture.”
“What picture?”
Nobody answered.
Then Rowan appeared at the end of the hallway.
“Go to bed.”
The younger girls obeyed immediately.
I waited.
When they were gone, Rowan walked toward me.
“You think we're doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Scaring people.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Then who is?”
Her face hardened.
“If I knew, I'd stop it.”
“Why doesn't your father investigate?”
“He did.”
“And?”
“He thinks someone is playing a sick joke.”
“That seems possible.”
Rowan gave a humorless laugh.
“Until the calls started saying things only Mom knew.”
My skin prickled.
“Like what?”
“She called Mila ‘Little Cinnamon.’ Nobody knew Mom called her that.”
“Could be in messages.”
“Dad checked.”
“Photographs?”
“No.”
“Videos?”
“No.”
Rowan stepped closer.
“Last month the phone sent Noah a picture of the hallway night-light.”
I looked toward the wall.
“He was standing under it.”
“When?”
“When the picture arrived.”
My stomach tightened.
“Security camera?”
“Dad's company checked every camera.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
Rowan swallowed.
“That's why people leave.”
For the first time, she didn't look like a thirteen-year-old soldier.
She looked like a child.
“Do you think your mother is calling?”
Her eyes filled.
“I don't know what scares me more.”
“What?”
“That it is her.”
She paused.
“Or that it isn't.”
Before I could answer, the old cellphone rang downstairs.
Both of us froze.
Rowan ran.
I followed.
We found the phone on the kitchen counter.
MOM.
Again.
Rowan reached for it.
I stopped her.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“The sound I heard earlier.”
“What sound?”
“Clicking.”
I looked around.
Then I saw it.
The security camera above the kitchen entrance.
A tiny green indicator blinked.
Click.
Pause.
Click.
Exactly the rhythm I'd heard over the phone.
I stepped beneath it.
“Your mother isn't calling from the dead.”
Rowan's breathing quickened.
“What?”
“Someone is using this house.”
The phone stopped ringing.
Then a text appeared.
COME UPSTAIRS.
Rowan stared.
“No.”
I looked at the staircase.
“Where?”
Another message appeared.
MOM'S ROOM.
Rowan grabbed my arm.
“No one goes in there.”
I looked toward the dark upstairs corridor.
“Maybe that's exactly why someone wants it that way.”
Then we heard a door slowly open above us.
---