I left my daughter with my parents during a business trip. Two days later, she disappeared at the mall. My parents said, “we only looked away for a moment.” Ten years later, while cleaning out my grandmother’s house, I found a strange vent in the wall. I leaned in and heard a little girl humming from inside.

The house was old—older than it looked from the outside. Narrow halls, low ceilings, the kind of place where sound traveled strangely. I’d spent summers there as a child, sleeping on the floor and listening to the house breathe at night. I’d forgotten how it creaked even when you stood still.

I worked room by room, filling boxes with clothes that smelled faintly of mothballs and rosewater. By the third day, I reached the guest bedroom at the back of the house.

That room had always made me uncomfortable. As a kid, I’d hated sleeping there. The walls felt too close. The air felt stale, no matter how many windows you opened.

I assumed it was just childhood imagination.

Until I moved the dresser.

It was heavy, old oak, the kind of furniture you assume has always been there. I had to brace my foot against the wall to shove it aside. When it scraped away, a thin rectangle appeared in the wallpaper behind it.

A vent.

Not a normal one. It wasn’t connected to any ductwork I could see. Just a narrow metal grate, painted over so many times the screws were barely visible.

It wasn’t on any of the house’s blueprints. I checked later.