Chapter 8 — The Sound Through the Wall

Nora had moved Lily to Owen's room and Owen to the guest room that same evening, and both children had protested with the standard energy of children asked to do something they don't understand but had eventually settled. Owen on the air mattress in the guest room — he was twelve, he had opinions — and Lily in Owen's proper bed at the front of the house, furthest from the attic.At 2:30 on Tuesday morning, Nora woke to Lily standing at the bedroom door.She was in her pajamas. She was holding her pillow."Lily." Nora sat up. "What's wrong?""It followed me," Lily said.Nora got out of bed. She brought Lily to the bed, settled her between herself and the still-sleeping David. Lily lay down with the practiced composure of a child who has decided to be brave."Tell me," Nora said quietly."It's in Owen's room now. The voices. Through the vent." Lily's voice was matter-of-fact, but Nora felt her daughter's small body pressed close, the way she hadn't done since she was six. "It knew I'd moved. It asked me why."Nora's hand tightened on Lily's shoulder."You could hear the words?" She kept her voice level."Clearer than before. I think it's been practicing. Like I said." A pause. "It said my name right this time."David had woken. He was lying on his side, listening. Nora could tell by his stillness."What else?" she said."It said it was cold. It said it had been waiting a very long time." Lily's voice had a faint roughness to it now — not tears, not fear exactly, something more like the exhaustion of someone who has been carrying something heavy. "It said the door was all it needed. Just once, Mom. Just to open the door."David sat up."It's trying to get the children to open it," he said. Not a question."Yes," said Lily. "It tried Owen first. He didn't hear it as well. So it went to me."Nora looked at her daughter. "Owen doesn't know?""He's not listening. Owen doesn't listen to quiet things." She said this without judgment, just observation.David and Nora looked at each other over Lily's head."I want to leave," Nora said."In the morning," he said. It was not disagreement. His face was doing something she'd never seen it do before — a collapse of the last of his skepticism, which had been holding up his composure, and without it he looked briefly like someone younger and less certain. "First light. We go.""Good.""Good."They lay down. The three of them in the bed, David's hand reaching across Lily to find Nora's, and Nora holding onto it.At 3:11, Nora heard it.Through the wall. The master bedroom wall. Faint, barely at the threshold of hearing. Not words — not quite — but the shape of words. A cadence she could almost resolve.It had moved from Owen's room vent to the master bedroom wall.It was learning which room held the adults.She did not tell David. She lay and listened and kept her breathing even so that Lily, who was between them, would not know.In the almost-words, she caught one thing — a fragment, a syllable structure that might have been a name. Might have been hers.Getting it right, she thought. Practicing.She held David's hand and waited for light.