Chapter 4
Story: She Slapped the Little One for Pointing at the Wall — Then Marcus Took a Mallet to It
Priya's thumb hovered over the screen of her phone. Her finger shook, just slightly, but she kept her voice steady.
"Everyone stay where you are," she said. "I'm calling 911. This is happening. Nobody moves."
"No—" Corinne started.
"Corinne," Priya said, "if you say one more word to me before the police arrive, I am going to describe to them, very carefully, exactly what I saw when I walked into this room. The slap. The red mark on the child's face. The way you've been standing in front of a walled-up room with your husband's father on the other side. Do you understand?"
Corinne sagged. She sat on the floor, her back against the window frame, her legs bunched under her, her easy-composed ash silk blouse clinging to her knees. She didn't look sharp or expensive anymore. She looked like a woman ten years older, her chestnut knot coming loose on one side, a strand of hair fallen across her face.
"I didn't know he was still alive," she said. Her voice was flat, desperate, small. "I swear. I didn't know. When I walled it up, he was—he was already dead. I checked. I checked, Marcus. I swear."
Marcus stared at her. "You checked what?"
Corinne's eyes glistened. "After the funeral. After you buried the coffin. The, god, I'm sorry — after the service, I came back here. The room was already a box, it had been sealed before I ever met you, but — but there were old drawings, old documents, our house, this house, my uncle showed me. He showed me the property drawing, and there was a room in the house that didn't exist. A room that had been sealed and forgotten. And I – I went into it. I found his things, Marcus. Dad's things. His old watch, his coin collection. He used to go into that room to smoke when he visited my uncle, before – before you and I bought the house, before he fell sick."
Marcus's forehead creased. "You're not making any sense. What uncle? What property drawing?"
"My uncle owned this house before we bought it," Corinne said. "You know that. You bought the house from my family. He told me about the room. He showed me how to open the wall."
Priya spoke, not looking up from her phone, her thumb in the middle of crossing the 911 call. "Wait. Corinne, you said the room was sealed when you bought the house. But you just said an uncle showed you how to open the wall."
Corinne's mouth opened and closed. A small trickle of sweat had appeared at her hairline.
"Corinne," Marcus said, "did you wall up my father?"
"No! I didn't—I never—he was dead! He was already dead, and I was just checking, because – because the house had this cold spot, this empty space, and I thought maybe it was just a crawlspace, or it was a part of the wall that had been sealed. I was just checking the house, Marcus. I bought a house with my husband, and I wanted to know what was in every room."
The voice from behind the door spoke again, and it cracked through the room:
"Son, that woman hasn't set me in here. She – she found me in here. I was already in here when she came in."
Marcus's face broke. He turned toward the door, pressing his palms against it. "Dad," he said, and his voice was raw, "Dad, what do you mean you were already in here? Who put you there?"
The voice from behind the door was quiet for a long time. When it spoke, it was trembling.
"I came to the house eight years ago," the voice said. "After the funeral – your mother's funeral, son. I came to your house to talk about your mother's things, about the old property, about your inheritance. And I found your wife in this room. She was standing in front of an open wall, holding papers, and she looked like a ghost. She looked at me – I'll never forget – and she said, 'Where did you get those keys?'"
"Keys?" Priya said.
"In my coat pocket," the voice said. "I kept keys to the house on me. Old keys, from when it belonged to – to my brother. He'd lived here before. He was the one who mentioned the sealed room to me, years ago. He'd sealed it himself after his wife was gone. He said he never wanted anyone to see the inside of that room again."
"They were the keys to this door," Marcus said slowly. "You had the keys to this room in your pocket."
"Yes," his father said. "And when he – when Corinne – saw them, she grabbed for them. I thought she was just curious, and then – then I realized what else she was holding in her hand. A hammer, son. A hammer from your garage, and a box of old nails. She wasn't checking the house. She was sealing it."
Absolute silence filled the junk room. The small figure stood with her palm flat against the metal door, her dark curls hanging in her face. The red ladder of the slap had faded but still hung on her cheek.
"That's a lie," Corinne said, but her voice was small. "That is a lie, Marcus. He's – he's an old man, he's confused, he's been in there for God knows how long without food or water, you can't trust anything he says."
Priya raised the phone to her ear. "911, I'm at 42 Morrow Lane, we have a man trapped in a sealed room in our house, he's been there for years, I need—"
Corinne lunged. She hit Priya with her shoulder, sending her staggering into the wardrobe. Priya's phone clattered to the floor, landed face-up, the blue glow of the sky light on the screen.
Marcus moved. He crossed the junk room in three strides, his work boot planted in the dust, and he grabbed Corinne by the arm and pulled her away from his sister.
"Enough," he said. His voice was flat, hard, a man who had reached the limit of his mercy. "Sit down. Put your hands where I can see them. Don't move from that spot."
Corinne looked at him, and for the first time all evening, there was nothing left in her face but fear.
"Marcus," she whispered. "Please. I was just—"
"You sealed my father into a room," Marcus said, "and you let him rot in there for eight years. And when a five-year-old realized it, you slapped her. So no, Corinne. I am not interested in what you were just trying to do."
He bent down and picked up Priya's phone. The call was still connected. He raised it to his ear.
"Yes," he said. "I'm with the woman who called. We have a man sealed in a room in our house. He's been there for several years. We're breaking the door down now."
He hung up and looked at the metal door.
The keyhole was old, black, rusted. And lying against the baseboard, scuffed and forgotten in the chaos, was a ring of old keys.
Priya saw it. She bent down and picked it up, careful to hold it by the edge, and held it up to the light.
"There are eight keys on this ring," she said quietly. "One of them looks older than the rest. Old iron, with a head shaped like a cross."
The small figure turned from the door and looked at Priya. She pointed at the ring.
"The one with the cross," she said. "That's the one that opens the door."
Nobody asked her how she knew.
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