My heart hammered against my ribs as I crawled through the damp earth, following the low murmur of voices. The tunnel ended behind a rotting wooden door that opened into the root cellar beneath the old detached carriage house.
Dust motes danced in the pale morning light streaming through a cracked high window. Emily sat on a wooden crate, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Standing opposite her, leaning on a worn wooden cane, was a woman with severe features, silvery hair, and the exact same piercing green eyes as my mother.
It was Margaret—my mother’s elder sister, whom I had been told died in a car accident thirty years ago.
“You have her eyes, child,” Margaret was saying softly to Emily. “And now you carry a child into the same cage I barely escaped.”
I stumbled into the light, my knees trembling. “Aunt Margaret?”
Both women turned. Emily’s face turned to stone the moment she looked at me, her gaze completely devoid of the warmth I had known for five years.
“You’re not supposed to be alive,” I choked out, stepping between them. “Mom said…”
“Your mother lies, David,” Margaret said, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp register. “She lies to control, and she destroys whatever she cannot rule.”
What secret about the house did Margaret reveal? Continue reading Part 3 below for the truth behind the storage room.
