Chapter one hundred and nineteen
Chapter one hundred and nineteen
Vivienne & Emeline
The room has shrunk around us.
I know this isn’t possible—the architecture is fixed, the beams overhead anchored deep into the bones of the house—but still, the ceiling seems lower, the corners darker, the air thinner. Emeline lies beside me, small but certain, as if she belongs in this shrinking world in a way I never could.
“You’re awake,” she murmurs, though her lashes are closed against her skin.
I want to deny it, to pretend I am elsewhere, but my voice betrays me. “I can’t sleep.”
Her hand slides into mine, her fingers curling tight. “Good. Don’t.”
The word lands too heavily. I want to ask what she means, but silence feels safer. Safer to let her lead, as if I am following a thread in a labyrinth I no longer trust myself to navigate.
Then her eyes open—dark, luminous, strange. “Do you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“The walls.” A flicker of a smile crosses her mouth. “They’re breathing.”
I should laugh. I should say no, Emeline, they are not alive. But something keeps me from it. When I press my palm flat against the wall behind the bed, there’s a faint vibration, almost imperceptible, like a pulse muffled through layers of stone.
My chest tightens. “That’s not possible.”
Her laugh is soft but cutting, too knowing for her age. “You just never wanted to see it. You never wanted to believe.”
The room tilts, or maybe it’s my mind that sways. She watches me with the quiet patience of someone who understands more than she should, someone waiting for me to catch up.
“You wanted me safe,” she says gently, “but safety doesn’t exist. Not here. Not with him gone. The only safety is in staying where the walls can hold us.”
I swallow hard. “And if they don’t?”
“They will,” she insists. “Because they know us. They know you. They’ve been listening longer than you realize.”
A shiver crawls down my spine. I want to tell her she’s wrong, that she’s dreaming, that her grief has taken root and twisted into something unrecognizable. But the truth is—I can feel it too. The walls pressing closer, the air turning thick, the floor humming faintly beneath the bed.
I glance at her, and the dim light reshapes her face—no longer fragile, no longer the child I thought I was protecting, but something else. A reflection, maybe. Or an inheritance I don’t want to claim.
“Do you believe me now?” she asks, her lips close enough that her breath brushes my cheek.
“I don’t know anymore.”
“That’s enough,” she whispers, almost tender. “We’ll stay. We’ll stay until it stops mattering.”
Her certainty steadies and terrifies me in equal measure. I feel her warmth pressed against me, her pulse steady beneath my fingers where she still clasps my hand.
“Vivienne,” she says, as though testing my name. “We don’t need them. Not the detective, not the museum, not the world outside this room. Only this. Only us.”
And for the first time, I can’t tell if she’s binding me in love or trapping me in madness.
The walls exhale again, long and slow, and this time I exhale with them.
When I close my eyes, I can’t decide if I’ve surrendered—or if I’ve finally been sealed inside.