Your first thought, not even a thought but a certain knowledge that hits you like a lead weight before you are fully awake: it is happening again.
Your second thought, brain kicking in and beginning to process the event before your eyes have even had time to open: how can it be happening again?
Then there are no more thoughts, not even time to breathe, only instinct and muscle memory as you wrench yourself from sleep and reach out for Mia, who, thank G-d, is beside you, as you have always kept her beside you ever since that first terrible night. And you scoop her up, one arm beneath her rounded shoulders and one wrapping the trails of her nightdress tightly around her little legs, and carry her – there is no weight to her, although you know in this moment that you could lift tons, wrench aside boulders or lift cars if that was what it would take to make your child safe – across the room in just two or three strides, the strides of an Amazon, hoisting her up to your shoulder and holding her one-handed so the other is free to reach out and SLAM on the magic patch on the wall. And for a moment that part of you that is silently screaming inside is saying, what if it doesn’t work what if after all this practice all these dummy runs all these false alarms it does not open up, but the great dark gap is yawning open before you can even pull back your hand and then you are through on the other side and it is closed and the wall is solid behind you and you are both safe.
And it is only then, once the pair of you are locked away tight at the very heart of the house, where no one can ever reach you, that you allow yourself to make any noise, a low moan of anguish mixed with relief.
And Mia speaks too, her voice tiny, a confused whisper directly into your ear.
‘What’s happening, Mama?’
‘Ssh. Ssh. We’re safe, it’s OK. It’s happening again, there are people in the house, but we are safe in here.’
She pulls away to look you directly in the face, her eyes wide and terrified. ‘Again?’
‘Ssh,’ you tell her again, stroking those beautiful curls, trying to pass on the reassurance you so badly need yourself. ‘We’re safe this time. Safe in here. I promise.’
And her face crumples, folds in on itself as the tears begin to flow. ‘I miss Dada!’
And all you can do is cuddle her close, running your fingers through her hair, trying to share out some warmth between you. ‘I know, honey, I know. I do too. I wish he could be here with us, but I promise you, I am here, and this time I will keep you safe.’
But her bitter sobs go on, jagged and gasping, and there is nothing you can do but hold her close and shush her because you need to listen, even through the thickness of these walls you need to hear who these people are, why they are here in your house, why they have come back. The noise came from downstairs. They aren’t even making any effort to hide it. Brazenly bursting in through the front door, in full sight of the whole street. And you can only hope that someone was up to see it, that this time one of the neighbours might have caught a glimpse of them, and have raised the alarm. That’s what they promised you before you moved in. ‘Everyone looks out for each other round here.’
‘It’s a real close-knit community round here, the kind you don’t find so much these days. Everyone looking out for each other, but not too in your face, you know what I mean? Next door there’s a very sweet older couple, retired, you couldn’t ask for nicer neighbours. And the folks on the other side, I met the lady this morning and she’s real nice too. She’s expecting a baby, any day now. She’s hee-uge.’ The realtor gestured for them to precede her into the house. ‘You got a family of your own?’
‘Just one,’ the woman confirmed with a shy smile as she stepped past her into the hallway. ‘A daughter. She’s at preschool right now.’
‘Well, just you let me know if you need to arrange a second viewing so she can come check the place out herself. I’m here till six,’ the realtor assured her with a beaming smile. ‘The choice of schools around here is fantastic, you should have all the details in the file, yeah?’
The man nodded and smiled, tapping the glossy folder under his arm. ‘It’s part of the reason we’re looking in this area.’
‘Well of course. I gotta say, there is a real family feel to this whole neighbourhood. A real good vibe.’
Except when it mattered. That night when the men came, the blinds stayed closed, the lights off. The old couple next door took out their hearing aids at bedtime. The fractious baby on the other side slept right through the night for once, and let his exhausted parents do the same. No one heard a thing. No one came to help.
And you know in your cold heart that no one will come this time, either. And Benjamin, who would once have done everything in his power to protect the pair of you, cannot do anything this time, because your husband, the love of your life, the man you thought you would be with forever – he is gone.
You and Mia are on your own.
The realtor pushed the front door to as gently as she could. She had tacked the ostentatious wreath up on the outside herself not half an hour ago, and she didn’t entirely trust it to hold. To draw attention away, she pointed a lacquered fingernail downwards. ‘Now, I would just ask you to take a moment to appreciate these floors, they are solid hardwood and they go right the way through to the kitchen in the back. They’ve all been resanded and polished throughout, just very recently.’
‘Oh!’ the woman laughed nervously. ‘Should we take off our shoes?’
‘Don’t you worry, honey.’ The realtor laid a hand on her arm, keeping it there precisely the well-practised amount of time to be friendly, and not long enough to be weird. She had a pack of wet wipes in her bag: she would get down on her hands and knees and remove any scuff marks before the next clients were due. And she could always rearrange the rugs. She brought those with her as well.
The wall is hopeless. Too solid now it is closed up, too soundproof to hear anything from this distance. So you ease Mia down and, shushing her once more, you drop, and, sweeping your hair back over your shoulder and holding it there with one shaking hand, press your ear to the bare floor. Yes, they are downstairs. Two of them at least, maybe more. You can make out voices, but more than that, the sound of clumping footsteps. They are making no effort to be quiet. Oh no. They want you to know they are here.
Mia is whimpering. You sit up again and pull her close. ‘Don’t worry, my love, they can’t get to us in here. We’re safe. We have everything we need here. We can stay forever if we need to.’
She sniffles. ‘But Dada!’
The thought of Benjamin cuts through you like ice. ‘I know, baby, but that won’t happen to us, I promise. It’s different now. We have this place. All we have to do is sit tight. And they will go away. I promise you. Once they realise we are in here and there is nothing they can do to get us out, they will go away.’
You gently lift her head until she is looking straight into your eyes. ‘I will protect you. Do you believe me?’
And Mia nods, as bravely as she can. And you hope it is only in your head, and not hers, that a little voice is saying, ‘That’s what he promised, too.’
And your mind goes back to that day when you and Benjamin first set eyes upon this place. You had never felt so certain of your togetherness as when you both knew in the same instant that the end had come to your search for your forever home.
‘Come on through into the living area. Open plan, as you can see. And the view from this picture window. Isn’t it to die for?’
‘Oh wow!’ the wife gasped. In truth, the view was exactly what you would expect, of the street outside, framed by the trees still holding the last of their yellow and orange leaves. But it was a very nice street. As her husband had pointed out as they were parking up, it ought to be at this price.
‘All open plan,’ the realtor confirmed, still on the move. ‘The fireplace I love. The Residents’ Association have very strict rules on fossil fuels, as you might hope with a little one of your own, but as a feature piece, I gotta say it is just stunning.’ Before they knew it, she had swept them on through and was taking up a stance beside the vast kitchen island and the platter of citrus fruits she had artfully arranged there. ‘Perfect for entertaining, or just for quiet family dinners. And it comes with all the facilities, all plumbed in, ready for use. Refrigerator, dishwasher, all brand new, you got all your laundry machines through there beyond the walk-in pantry.’
‘Oh, gosh. It’s real nice, isn’t it?’ The woman looked to her husband for approval, and he gave it with a smile. He was thinking about the cost. And he worried that the realtor realised that, so he overcompensated.
‘It’s all a real nice finish.’ He grinned inanely.
‘It’s so funny you should say that,’ beamed the realtor with surprising sincerity. ‘Because those are just the words I used myself when I first came in here. A real nice finish. Fact is, the owner just had the whole place refurbished, freshly painted throughout, all done to the highest standard. If you wanted, you could just move in and start living here tomorrow, you wouldn’t need to freshen up a thing.’
His wife re-emerged from the door on the far side of the room and they exchanged a look. ‘It’s perfect.’
You thought you would grow old here together. That Mia would grow up, go off to college, one day bring you back grandchildren who would slide up and down those polished floors in their socks, giggling as the two of you, white-haired, looked on indulgently from your recliners in that great front room. But it was not to be. Because he is gone. And he is never coming back. They took him from you.
And now they have come back. As you somehow always knew they would. You can hear them moving around downstairs. Checking every room. Searching them. But this time you, you and Mia, you are safe up here. No one can get you now. No one, ever. But you feel a chill spread through you nonetheless, as you hear their heavy footsteps begin to climb the stairs.
‘But that’s the beauty of a place like this: if you choose, you can do whatever you want with it,’ said the realtor, gesturing expansively around. ‘Take the arrangement of the rooms up here: currently you got your master bedroom and two smaller bedrooms. Now the master bedroom I am guessing you would want to leave alone – it’s a great size, and it’s got this exquisite wood panelling from the turn of the century.’ She threw open the door to demonstrate, and the couple peered through and made the appreciative noises that were expected. Rather than go in, however, she lingered on the landing. ‘All this out here, though, this is just drywall.’ She curled her long nails into her fist – she was not going to risk chipping one, although if she managed to bring off this sale she would treat herself to a whole new set – and rapped hard upon the wall beside her. ‘You could smash through and do whatever you wanted to do with them. Gut them completely if you wanted to.’
Feeling the need to demonstrate something – though he owned only the most rudimentary toolkit and tended to get someone in to do anything more complex than changing a light bulb – the husband stepped forward and delivered his own series of sharp raps on the wall, which echoed hollowly.
‘I’m not sure we’d want …’ said the wife, hesitantly.
‘Maybe not now,’ the realtor said. ‘But it’s the sort of thing you could take your time over. Be sure to get exactly what you want. In the future, if things change. You never know what’s gonna happen!’
You can’t help it. You do not want Mia to know anything of what you have just overheard, but the horror of it escapes you as a strangled gasp as you reel away from the wall.
‘What happened, Mama?’
‘Nothing!’ you whisper shrilly, pulling her to you again and wrapping an arm around her head to block her ears, so she will never have to hear anything so awful. ‘We just have to stay in here. Stay quiet.’ Your voice, your tone, the tenseness in your body, all of them are telling her how terrified you are, even as you try to speak calmly. So you try to force a smile into your voice, and put it in terms a child – because Mia is still so young, so very young – can take in. ‘As quiet as mice, the two of us. Mice in our mousehole.’
‘But why are they banging on the wall?’ she whimpers. ‘Are they going to break in?’
‘No, no, no,’ you assure her. ‘They can’t get to us. I promise. There’s no way they can get to us.’
And then the banging comes from much closer, and louder, and you know that they have found your hiding place.
The realtor sensed she was losing them. Not doer uppers, this pair: more nesters. And maybe they didn’t want more kids, or couldn’t have more for medical reasons, or maybe they were just the sort that like to draw their world close around them and keep things as they are. Cautious. The kind that like security. In which case she thought she had just the thing that would sell this place to them.
So now she did gesture them on into the master bedroom. She did not want them to linger too long in here, cold and unfurnished and far from its best as it was – although the emptiness did allow viewers to appreciate the woodwork, which did date, as she said, to the turn of the century, though not necessarily the one people might assume she was talking about. But before they could ask any questions, she strode straight over to the far side of the room. ‘This, I gotta say, is a unique feature. None of the other houses in this street have one of these. Listen.’ She reached out her fist again and rapped on the wall, which gave a pleasingly different sound. ‘This wall here, this one, is going nowhere. There’s three inches of solid steel behind this. Look.’ She reached out to an electronic panel, halfway up the wall. ‘Whaddya think this is?’
‘A safe?’ The husband hazarded a guess.
The realtor shook her head, her wide smile for the first time showing in her eyes as well. ‘Kinda, I guess. Look.’ She punched a combination into the keypad, and enjoyed the look on their faces as the panel beside it gaped open, a door into the blackness beyond. ‘Your own panic room,’ she said proudly. ‘Impregnable. You could hole up in there for as long as you needed to, and no one would be able to get to you.’
Dammit, she was convinced this would be the selling point. But the wife – and if she’d learned anything, it was always the wife that made the decisions – was looking at her in wide-eyed horror.
‘Why the hell would we need to?’ she asked.
You can’t help yourself. You stand up, and before you know it, you are banging your fists right back on this side of the wall, hammering away defiantly, because they know you are in here now and you have nothing to lose. You know exactly what their plan is now, maybe you knew it from the moment you awoke and heard them downstairs, but now you are certain, because you have heard what they said: they want to smash their way in and gut you both, to take their time over it, to get exactly what they want from you. And you will never, never allow that to happen. ‘Get out!’ you scream, again and again. ‘Get out, get out, get out!’
‘What was that noise?’ asked the husband.
‘Oh. You know these old houses. Creaking bones.’ The realtor’s smile was faltering now. She made a note to reapply her lipstick, maybe touch up her whole face, if she had time before the next viewing. Because she knew now, could feel that sense in her gut that had come with years of doing this job, that this one would not be the last viewing. She’d lost them.
Nevertheless, she persisted. ‘Have a look inside,’ she invited him. ‘There’s plenty of room in there for a whole family. All the supplies you might want to store in there too, food, fresh water. And once that door is shut behind you, there’s no way it’s opening again from the outside. No way on earth.’
He moved forward gingerly, poked his head inside, not wanting to commit his whole self. The wife stayed exactly where she was. She had got her phone out now. This was exactly what the realtor didn’t want to happen.
‘It all looks very new,’ he said, for want of anything else to say.
‘It is,’ said the realtor dully. She was watching the wife stab away at her phone screen. ‘The owner had it put in last year. After …’
‘After?’ The husband pulled his head back into the room.
‘I knew it. David, look at this. I said there was something wrong, why this place was going for so much less than the other places round here. Look!’ The wife was holding up her phone triumphantly. The realtor could see what was on the screen: the Post story. That was the worst of all of them.
Her husband went scuttling across to her, embarrassed. ‘Calm down, honey.’
‘Don’t tell me to calm down! This is the Liebermann Murder House!’
‘You have got to be kidding me!’ He looked at the realtor accusingly. She just shrugged and spread her hands. It had been a very long day.
‘Where the mother and her little girl got killed!’ his wife continued, a shrill edge to her voice. ‘Last year, you remember!’
‘I do, I do.’
The realtor had a headache now. The banging and the screaming from the walls weren’t helping. Abandoning any hope of a sale now, she turned and put her lips just inches from the wood panelling, and shrieked, ‘Would you please for once just shut the fuck up!’
When she turned back, the couple had already gone. She could hear their heavy footsteps clattering down the stairs, and she listened to them thump across the hallway and the front door slamming behind them.
They are going. We have won.
You pick up Mia – she weighs nothing, she is not even skin and bones – and clutch her to you. The two of you will never, ever let go of one another. And you will never, ever leave this place. For although you can pass within the walls at will – a neat trick, though cold comfort compared to what you have lost – you can never go beyond them. Just as your husband, Mia’s father, your beloved Benjamin, who was away on that one night that could have made a difference, away at a surgical conference in New Jersey where he had to be awakened by hotel staff with the terrible, the worst of all news, has sworn that while he will spend whatever it takes to sell the place, he will never cross the threshold of this house again for as long as he lives.
Back downstairs, the realtor slumps onto one of the stools at the vast kitchen island. Real Calacatta marble. If it was anywhere else it would sell the house by itself. She pops a couple of Advil, and takes a long swig from the water bottle she has tidied away into one of the empty drawers beneath. It contains a good 50 centilitres of vodka, topped up (but not too much) with soda. It helps her get through the days.
She has fifteen minutes left before her next viewing is due. She usually waits outside on the stoop between appointments. It’s easier that way. That’s where she met and chatted to the next-door neighbour earlier, helped her down her own steps with her toddler’s stroller, and asked the boy if he was looking forward to the arrival of his little brother or sister any day now.
But for once the house is actually quiet. So she may as well take the opportunity to return the voice message that has been sitting on her phone since earlier that afternoon.
‘Hey there, Dr Liebermann. It’s Sherelle, from Thomson Realty.’ She was hoping to get his voicemail, not to have to speak to him direct. She knows the cops couldn’t find any evidence of his involvement in the crime, despite all the stuff the papers dug up on him, but the sound of his voice still gives her a creepy feeling. To shake it off, she stands up and wanders through to the open-plan living room as she talks. ‘We haven’t had any bites as yet, but I’mma keep trying. I’ve still got a few appointments to get through this afternoon, and more scheduled for next week.’
She has reached the front room. She stretches out a Jimmy Choo – real ones, which she bought for herself with the commission she made when she finally managed to sell another haunted house down in Brooklyn Heights – and adjusts the positioning of one of the sheepskin rugs in front of the fireplace. She swears that, despite the sanding and the polishing, the bloodstains still show through.