CHAPTER 9 — THE LOCKED ROOM
The brass key had been sitting on George's desk for three days when Mara finally noticed something about its shape.
It was smaller than an ordinary house key, with a narrow shaft and three unusual teeth cut into the end.
George had already tried it on every lock he could find, including the basement door, the study desk, the old wardrobe, and the front and back entrances.
Nothing had worked. The only lock they had not tried was the narrow door at the end of the upstairs hallway.
George had attempted to open it when they first arrived, but the lock had been so old that he had assumed it was broken.
Now Mara stood outside that door holding the brass key.
“Try it,” she said. George looked at the key, then at the lock.
“You think this is for it?” Mara nodded.
George inserted the key. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then he felt the mechanism shift beneath his fingers.
A quiet metallic click came from inside the door.
George slowly turned the key. The lock opened.
The door moved only a few inches before stopping against something inside.
George pushed harder, and a cloud of dust drifted into the hallway.
The room beyond was dark and cold. Mara raised her flashlight and stepped beside him.
What they saw made both of them stop. It was a child's bedroom, preserved almost perfectly beneath decades of dust.
A small wooden bed stood against one wall, its blanket still neatly folded.
A writing desk sat beneath the window, covered with old schoolbooks and pencils.
Drawings had been pinned across the walls, their colors faded but still visible.
A small wooden bookshelf contained children's novels, exercise books, and several notebooks arranged carefully by size.
There was even a stuffed rabbit sitting on the bed, its fur gray with age.
Nothing had been disturbed. Nothing had been removed.
Unlike the rest of Blackwood House, this room had not been emptied.
It had been left exactly as someone had walked away from it.
Mara stepped inside slowly. “George,” she whispered.
He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the wall opposite the bed.
Several photographs had been arranged there in a small grid.
Unlike the empty spaces throughout the rest of the house, these photographs were still present.
Mara moved closer and examined them one by one.
Most showed the same little girl at different ages.
She appeared to be between six and perhaps twelve years old, with dark hair and a serious expression that seemed strangely mature for a child.
In one photograph she stood beside a birthday cake.
In another she was sitting beneath a tree.
In another she stood on the front porch of Blackwood House with a man and woman who were clearly Daniel and Helen Kant.
Mara picked up the photograph carefully.
On the back, written in faded blue ink, were two words: Rebecca Kant.
George looked over her shoulder. “Rebecca?”
Mara nodded. “Daniel and Helen's daughter.”
George frowned. “There was no mention of a daughter in the newspaper.”
Mara looked toward the photographs again.
“Maybe that's why this room was locked.”
They began searching the room without moving anything unnecessarily.
The schoolbooks contained the same name over and over.
Rebecca Kant. Her handwriting appeared in exercise books, drawings, and small notes tucked between pages.
One mathematics book contained a teacher's comment dated 1997.
A reading book had a library stamp from a nearby school.
There were drawings of trees, houses, animals, and one recurring picture that immediately caught Mara's attention.
It showed Blackwood House beneath a dark sky, with six people standing outside it.
One figure had been crossed out in black pencil.
Beneath the drawing Rebecca had written a sentence in childish handwriting: “Daddy says we don't talk about them.”
Mara stared at the words. George read them silently.
“Who are they?” he asked. Mara shook her head.
“I don't know.” She opened another notebook.
On several pages Rebecca had written about ordinary things—school, weather, books, and her parents.
Then, in the final entries, the tone changed.
The handwriting became smaller and more hurried.
At the back of the desk drawer, Mara discovered a diary wrapped in a faded blue cloth.
The cover was worn, and a name had been written across it in careful handwriting.
REBECCA KANT. She opened the first page.
The diary began in 1995, when Rebecca appeared to have been around eight years old.
The early entries were innocent and ordinary.
She wrote about school, her mother making pancakes, her father's work, and a dog she wanted her parents to let her keep.
But as the years progressed, the entries became increasingly strange.
Rebecca wrote about people arguing downstairs at night.
She mentioned adults visiting the house and leaving through the basement.
She wrote about being told to stay in her room whenever certain visitors arrived.
One entry from October 1998 was only three sentences long: “Daddy told me to lock the door. He said if I hear three knocks, I must not answer. Mommy was crying.” Mara's hand tightened around the diary.
George looked at the next page. It had been torn out.
Several pages after it were also missing.
The final remaining entry was dated October 17, 1998.
The handwriting was uneven, as though Rebecca had been writing in a hurry.
“Daddy says we have to leave tonight. He says everything is going to be different tomorrow. Mommy says we can't trust anyone. Daddy keeps saying that they know about the room. I don't know who they are. I asked him where we're going. He said somewhere they can't find us.”
Beneath those words was a final sentence, written much darker than the rest.
“If they come, I will hide here.” There was no entry after that.
Mara slowly closed the diary. “She disappeared too,” she whispered.
George looked at the photographs. “Maybe.”
Mara shook her head. “No. Look at this.”
She held up a school record she had found beneath the diary.
Rebecca's name appeared on several documents, but none of the official property records mentioned her.
There was no indication that she had ever been registered as a resident of Blackwood House.
George searched the room again, this time with growing urgency.
He opened the wardrobe and found several children's dresses still hanging inside.
He checked the shelves and discovered old birthday cards addressed to Rebecca.
He found a school certificate, a library card, and a photograph of Rebecca standing beside a classroom teacher.
Everything confirmed the same thing. She had existed.
She had lived here. She had gone to school nearby.
She had a family. Yet somewhere outside this room, her existence had been erased.
Mara sat on the edge of the small bed, holding the diary against her chest.
“Why would they erase a child?” she asked.
George didn't answer. He was staring at a framed photograph on the desk.
It showed Daniel, Helen, and Rebecca together.
On the back was a handwritten date: October 17, 1998. Beneath it were three words.
The last photograph.
Mara looked at George. “We need to find out what happened that night.” George nodded, but before he could respond, something made them both turn toward the door. It was still open. The hallway beyond it was empty. Yet from somewhere downstairs came a faint sound.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
George froze. Mara slowly stood. They looked at each other.
The clock on the wall read 2:17 AM. George looked down at the diary still resting in Mara's hands.
For the first time, the three knocks no longer seemed connected only to the house.
They might have belonged to Rebecca. And if her diary was telling the truth, then someone had once taught a child to be afraid of that sound.