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Something inside me went cold.
“Who gets mad?” I asked.
There was a pause. Then, carefully, “The house.”
I should have run. I know that. Any sane person would have slammed the vent shut and fled, calling the police, calling anyone.
But this was my daughter’s voice.
Ten years older, thinner, worn around the edges—but unmistakably hers.
“I’m coming to get you,” I said.
The humming stopped again.
“No,” she said quickly. “You can’t. You don’t fit.”
“I’ll make myself fit,” I said, already pulling at the vent opening, scraping my hands bloody as I widened it.
She started to cry then, soft and terrified.
“It doesn’t like when you change it,” she whispered. “It notices.”
I froze.
“What do you mean, it notices?”
The walls creaked.
Not randomly. Not settling.
The sound traveled—slow and deliberate—toward the guest bedroom.
“I told you not to,” my daughter whispered. “It was happy. It’s been happy for a long time.”
The vent grew warmer against my skin. The darkness inside seemed to ripple, like something breathing.
“What is it?” I demanded.
She hesitated.
“I think,” she said slowly, “it’s where lost things go.”
The floor shifted beneath me. The dresser I’d moved scraped a fraction of an inch back toward its original position.
“You have to stop,” she said. “If it wakes up all the way, it won’t let either of us leave.”
I thought of the mall. Of the cameras losing her between racks. Of my parents’ stunned faces.
“Did it take you?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I wandered. I was mad at Grandpa. I followed the humming.”
My stomach dropped.
“There was a vent,” she continued. “Behind the ice cream place. I thought it was funny.”
The walls creaked again, louder now. Closer.
“I’ll be quiet,” she said urgently. “I’ll hum. That keeps it calm. Please—put the cover back.”
