Over the next few nights, it returned. Always from the same patch of wall, always in small clusters—never scratching, never scuttling, but a firm, muffled knocking, as if from inside the plaster. It was not Emma’s stories that troubled Lucy now, nor her “no one.” It was this deliberate, unaccountable sound.
The tapping became part of her nights. Some evenings it barely sounded at all, just a muted thud behind paint. Other times, it seemed to answer the settling of the house, arriving after a creak, echoing a distant click. Lucy began noting the times on her phone, almost without meaning to.