Chapter 1

"No, I won't go, so just don't touch me!"

Maeve's scream pierced the tranquility of the peaceful Sunday morning.

I shoved open the downstairs kitchen door, not even pausing to wipe the coffee stains from my hands as I took the steps two at a time toward the staircase.

There, at the landing leading up to the second floor, seven-year-old Maeve was clinging desperately to the banister.

Standing in front of her with a frown, our mother, Helena, was trying to pry the girl's arm away.

"Maeve, stop throwing a fit, your paintbrushes are right on your desk, and it only takes ten seconds to go get them."

Helena's tone dripped with the exhausted frustration of someone whose patience had completely run dry.

"I won't go, I'm not walking down that hallway!"

Maeve struggled violently with her eyes tightly shut, not daring to cast even a single glance toward the second-floor corridor.

"What happened?" I asked as I stepped forward and shielded Maeve behind my back.

The little girl was trembling all over.

Helena let out a heavy sigh and massaged her temples.

"Your wonderful sister is pulling this for the fourth time this week."

"She completely loses her mind the moment I ask her to walk down that second-floor hallway alone, and I am absolutely sick of this nonsense."

Crouching down, I touched Maeve's forehead, finding it covered entirely in cold sweat.

I lifted my head and looked up the stairs toward the second-floor hallway.

It was the most utterly ordinary part of this old house.

A dark red Persian runner rug stretched across the floor, bordered by slightly faded iris wallpaper lining the walls.

Six white wooden doors were evenly distributed along both sides of the hall—my bedroom, Maeve's bedroom, my parents' master suite, the study, the guest room, and the bathroom at the very end.

That was absolutely it.

What in the world was she so terrified of?

Our father, Arthur, poked his head out of the study with a newspaper still in his hand.

"Why don't we take her to see Dr. Howard, because she might have gotten spooked at school and could be dealing with some kind of post-traumatic stress."

He was the best psychologist in town.

Three days later, we found ourselves waiting in Dr. Howard's clinic.

I sat on the sofa in the waiting area and watched as Helena walked out holding a diagnostic slip, her face looking rather grim.

"What did the doctor say?" I asked, immediately getting up to meet her.

"He called it 'mild claustrophobia accompanied by separation anxiety,'" Helena sneered as she shoved the paper into her purse.

"And the doctor suggested she might have tripped in the dark hallway or had a nightmare about it, leading to a psychological projection, so he recommended we walk her through it more often for 'desensitization therapy.'"

Psychological projection?

Remembering the utter despair in Maeve's eyes as she clung to the banister, I knew that kind of sheer terror could absolutely not be caused by a mere nightmare.

The desensitization therapy began that very night.

Helena held Maeve's hand as they stood at the starting edge of the second-floor hallway.

"Look, Maeve, there's absolutely nothing here but one, two, three, four, five, six closed doors, and we just need to walk right to your room, okay?" Helena said, forcing her voice to be as gentle as possible.

Without saying a word, Maeve kept her head down and bit her lower lip hard as she was half-dragged onto the carpet by Helena.

She took her first step, and then her second.

Chaos suddenly erupted the moment they reached the doorway of the third door, which was our parents' master bedroom.

Maeve violently ripped her hand away from Helena's grip, clamped her hands over her ears, and let out an incredibly bloodcurdling shriek.

Instead of running toward her own room, she spun around and scrambled frantically back to the top of the stairs, burying herself headfirst into my embrace.

"Enough," Helena finally exploded as she stood in the middle of the hallway, pointing angrily at Maeve, "I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but tonight you are sleeping in your own room!"

"Mom, please stop pushing her."

"You spoil her way too much, Valerie," Helena threw back coldly before spinning around and marching into the master bedroom.

I sat on the steps of the staircase, holding Maeve tightly in my arms.

Lowering my head, I looked down at my violently shivering little sister.

Conventional medical diagnoses had entirely failed, and our parents' patience had completely run out.

As the older sister she trusted most in this world, I simply had to uncover the truth.

"Maeve," I whispered in a hushed tone, "tell me what you actually saw out there in the hallway."