“I don’t think so. Why?”
Owen touched the side of his hair.
“Someone fixed my blanket and brushed this part.”
Tessa sat up fully.
“Did you see anyone?”
“No. I kept my eyes closed.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
“Because their hands were cold.”
Adrian blamed the house.
That evening, he carried his tools into Owen’s room and tightened every bolt in the bed frame. He checked the floor with a level and adjusted one of the legs by less than a quarter inch.
“Old houses move,” he said. “Cold weather makes the wood contract.”
“That doesn’t explain someone touching his hair.”
“He was half asleep.”
Tessa watched Adrian’s hands as he packed away his wrench. He moved too quickly.
“I’m thinking of putting a camera in here for a few nights.”
The wrench slipped and struck the floor.
Adrian picked it up without looking at her.
“That seems excessive.”
“It would reassure him.”
“Or convince him there’s something to be afraid of.”
His answer was reasonable enough that Tessa almost accepted it.
Then he walked out without checking the wardrobe.
The following afternoon, Tessa found one of its doors open.
Owen was downstairs doing homework. Adrian had left for a job across town.
A damp crescent marked the floor beside the wardrobe, shaped like the front half of a bare footprint. It was larger than Owen’s foot.
Tessa crouched and touched it.
The water was still cold.
She opened the wardrobe. Shirts, jackets, and winter clothes hung in an orderly row. Nothing appeared disturbed until she noticed a wooden bead on the floor.
It came from a bracelet Adrian had worn in college.
She remembered seeing that bracelet in the same photograph as the silver locket.
When Adrian came home, she showed him the bead.
“I must have dropped it during the renovation,” he said.
“The floor has been vacuumed a hundred times since then.”
He shrugged and put the bead in his pocket.
That evening, three bread rolls disappeared from the kitchen. So did a jar of peanut butter and an old gray sweatshirt Adrian had owned for years.
He said he had taken the sweatshirt to work.
Tessa knew he had not. She had watched him leave in a blue jacket with nothing in his hands.
The next night Adrian was scheduled to supervise an overnight renovation at a hotel. He kissed Owen, kissed Tessa, and paused near the back stairs.
“Call me if anything feels strange,” he said.
The words were ordinary. His expression was not.
After he left, Tessa placed a motion camera on Owen’s bookshelf. She told her son it was there and explained that it would help them understand why he kept waking.
Owen glanced toward the wardrobe.
“Dad won’t like it.”
“Why would you say that?”
“He doesn’t like people finding things before he’s ready.”
Tessa knelt in front of him.
“What things?”
Owen looked frightened by his own sentence.
“I don’t know.”
She tucked him in, read two chapters from his favorite adventure book, and left the hallway light on.
For hours, the camera showed nothing unusual.
At midnight, Owen rolled onto his stomach.
At 12:38, the radiator clicked and hissed.
At 1:47, Tessa’s phone vibrated on the nightstand.
She opened the alert and saw the wardrobe panel moving.
Less than a minute
