THE GIRL IN THE WALL

THE GIRL IN THE WALL Part One — The Photograph “We have plenty of time.” My mother said it without looking at me. She was standing at the kitchen window, one hand wrapped around a mug that had gone cold, watching rain slide down the glass in long silver threads. I was seventeen years old. At seventeen, you still believe adults say things because they are true. I believed her. That was the first mistake. The second was finding the photograph. It happened three weeks later, on a Tuesday afternoon, when the builders knocked a hole through my bedroom wall. Our house had always been old in the way some houses are old without admitting it. The floorboards complained whenever someone walked across them. The pipes groaned at night. Doors opened by themselves when the wind changed. There were rooms that smelled permanently of dust, even after my mother cleaned them. The house had belonged to my grandmother. Then my mother inherited it. Then I inherited the stories. But never the truth. The builders were repairing a leak behind my wardrobe when one of them called out. “There's something in here.” I looked up from my book. My mother appeared in the doorway. “What?” The builder reached into the cavity in the wall and pulled out a small cardboard box. It was wrapped in yellowed cloth. My mother went completely still. I noticed because I had never seen her do that before. Not when my father died. Not when she received the letter from the bank saying we might lose the house. Not even when she had found me unconscious after I fainted at school. But now she stared at that box as if it had spoken her name. “Give it to me,” she said. The builder laughed nervously. “It's probably just old junk.” “Give it to me.” Her voice had changed. The builder handed it over. My mother took the box and turned away. I saw something fall from underneath the cloth. A photograph. It landed face-up on the floor. I bent down. My mother said my name. I picked it up anyway. There were four people standing outside our house. The photograph was old, perhaps twenty years old. My mother stood on the left. She looked impossibly young. Beside her was my father. He had both hands resting on the shoulders of two little girls. One of them was laughing. The other was staring directly at the camera. I stopped breathing. The girl staring at the camera looked like me. Not similar. Not vaguely familiar. Me. Same dark hair. Same narrow face. Same tiny scar above the left eyebrow. Even the strange expression I had always hated in photographs—the look of someone trying not to cry—was there. I turned the photograph over. Five words had been written on the back. DON'T LET HER REMEMBER. “Who is she?” My mother's hand closed around my wrist. “Give me that.” “Who is she?” “Mara.” I had never heard fear in my mother's voice before. Not real fear. She took the photograph. Then she looked at me. For a second, neither of us moved. “Where did you get this?” I asked. “You shouldn't have seen it.” “That doesn't answer my question.” She folded the photograph in half. “Forget it.” “You know her.” “No.” “She's me.” “No.” The answer came too quickly. My mother looked away. That was when I knew she was lying. That night I searched the house. I didn't know what I was looking for. Maybe another photograph. Maybe a diary. Maybe proof that I wasn't crazy. I found nothing. My mother had hidden the box. But she hadn't hidden the photograph. She had burned it. I watched from the upstairs window as she stood in the garden after midnight, holding the photograph over the flames. The rain had stopped. The fire reflected orange against her face. Then she looked toward my bedroom. I ducked beneath the window. My heart was pounding. I stayed on the floor until I heard her footsteps disappear. At 2:13 in the morning, someone slid a piece of paper underneath my bedroom door. I heard it. A soft scrape. I opened the door. Nobody was there. The hallway was dark. The paper said: YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO HER. I read it twice. Then three times. I turned the light on. There was another line underneath. YOU JUST DON'T REMEMBER. The next morning, I asked my mother about Elena. I didn't know why I chose that name. It simply appeared in my head. “Who was Elena Vale?” My mother's spoon stopped halfway to her mouth. “What did you say?” “Elena Vale.” She put the spoon down. “Where did you hear that?” “So you know her.” “I know a lot of people.” “Was she family?” “No.” “Then why did I dream about her?” My mother stood. “You need to stop.” “Stop what?” “Looking for things that aren't there.” She walked out. I followed her. “Who is Elena?” She slammed the door to her study. I stood outside. For ten seconds. Twenty. Then I noticed something underneath the door. A newspaper clipping. I pulled it out. The headline was almost faded. LOCAL GIRL MISSING Underneath was a photograph. A little girl. Twelve years old. Elena Vale. I stared at her face. She wasn't the girl from my photograph. She looked nothing like me. Blonde hair. Round cheeks. Blue eyes. I laughed. It was the kind of laugh that comes when fear has nowhere else to go. I had spent the entire night imagining some impossible connection. Now I had proof there wasn't one. Elena was somebody else. A missing girl. Not me. I turned the clipping over. Someone had written a date. June 14. Twenty years earlier. And underneath: She didn't disappear. My stomach tightened. I went downstairs. My mother was standing at the sink. “Mom.” She didn't turn around. “Was Elena Vale ever found?” “No.” “Did she die?” Silence. “Mom?” “No.” Her voice was barely audible. “She went away.” “Where?” “I don't know.” “You're lying.” She turned. Her face looked exhausted. “Some truths don't make anything better.” “Maybe I want the truth anyway.” “You think you do.” She walked past me. At the front door she stopped. Then she said something I didn't understand. “If you find the red coat, don't touch it.” “What red coat?” She left. That was when I knew I would find it. The house seemed to understand that I had started looking. I searched my grandmother's attic first. Boxes of Christmas decorations. Old clothes. Tax papers. Furniture nobody used. Then, behind a stack of broken chairs, I found a narrow wooden door. I had lived in the house for twelve years. I'd never seen it. There was no handle. Only a keyhole. I tried my mother's keys. The third one worked. Inside was a small room. No windows. No electricity. A single shelf ran around the walls. And on that shelf were dozens of objects. A child's shoes. A schoolbag. A music box. A red coat. I froze. My mother's warning came back to me. Don't touch it. So naturally, I did. The coat was heavier than it looked. Something crackled inside the pocket. I pulled out a cassette tape. There was writing on it. FOR MARA — WHEN SHE STARTS ASKING QUESTIONS My hands began to shake. I found an old cassette player in the corner. The batteries still worked. I pressed play. Static. Then breathing. A child's voice. My voice. “I don't know how long they'll let me remember.” I stopped the tape. I couldn't breathe. I pressed play again. “I don't know if this is the first time or the fifth.” The voice was trembling. “If you're listening to this, you're Mara.” A pause. “But that's not your name.” I stood. The cassette continued. “They'll tell you Elena disappeared.” Static. “They'll tell you she was dangerous.” Another pause. “They'll tell you she killed someone.” The tape clicked. Then the child's voice whispered: “Don't believe them.” The tape ended. I sat on the floor. For several minutes, I didn't move. Then I noticed something written on the wall behind the shelf. A sentence carved into the wood. REMEMBER THE THREE KNOCKS. That night, I heard them. Three knocks. A pause. Two knocks. A pause. Three knocks. I opened my bedroom door. At the end of the hallway stood Mrs. Bell. Our neighbor. She was seventy years old and had lived beside us for as long as I could remember. She smiled. “You've been looking,” she said. I couldn't answer. She walked closer. “Your mother always was terrible at hiding things.” “How do you know?” Mrs. Bell looked toward my bedroom. “Because I helped her.” My blood went cold. “Helped her do what?” Mrs. Bell smiled sadly. “Forget.” Then she walked away. I followed. She was already halfway down the stairs. “Who am I?” She stopped. For the first time in my life, Mrs. Bell looked frightened. “You really don't remember?” “No.” She closed her eyes. “Then God help us.” “Who am I?” She turned. “You're Elena.” The house seemed to tilt. I remembered the photograph. The two girls. The cassette. The red coat. The words carved into the wall. And then, somewhere deep inside my mind, something moved. A memory. A little girl running. A door slamming. Someone screaming. A hand covered in blood. And a voice saying: We have plenty of time. Then everything went black. When I woke, I was in my mother's arms. She was crying. I had never seen her cry before. She whispered my name. “Mara.” But this time I knew something was wrong. Because somewhere inside me, another voice answered. That's not my name.