Chapter 3 - A Girl Who Remembered
The emergency doctor found bruises on Lily's knees, mild dehydration, and no serious injuries.
Mark should have felt relieved.
Instead, the words she'd whispered in the ambulance kept returning.
Someone else down there.
Detective Nora Ellis waited outside the examination room with a notepad and a calm voice.
"I need to ask Lily a few questions, if she's comfortable."
Mark stayed beside the bed.
Lily twisted the corner of her blanket.
"Grandma told me Mommy's things were in the old well. She said I could look, but only if I was quiet."
Mark felt cold.
His wife, Claire, had died of leukemia three years earlier.
Her possessions were supposed to be in the cedar chest in his bedroom.
"Why would Grandma tell you that?" Ellis asked.
"I asked about Mommy's star necklace. Grandma said she knew where it was."
Lily touched the hollow of her throat.
"She lowered the bucket, and I climbed out when it stopped. Then she got mad because I found the little hole."
"Did you see another person?"
Lily nodded.
"I heard someone behind a wall. They said, 'Don't touch the red door.'"
Ellis exchanged a look with Mark.
"Could it have been an echo?"
"I don't know," Lily said. "But I know what Mommy's necklace looks like."
She reached beneath her pillow and produced a tiny silver star, muddy but unmistakable.
Mark had given Claire that pendant the day Lily was born.
He had searched for it after the funeral and never found it.
"Where was this?" he asked.
"On a nail inside the little well."
Ellis slipped on gloves and asked Lily if she could photograph it.
A nurse brought juice, and Lily fell asleep before drinking half.
Mark went into the hallway to call his mother.
A man's voice answered Margarethe's phone.
May you like
"You should have left the well alone, Mark."
Then the connection died.
