“I know you’re in there.” He speaks in an unhurried, pitchless croak. I hear the tip of the knife tap gently but insistently. “Come out, come out.” More scratching now, and it is deliberate; I follow the sound, the motion. He is carving an X on my door.

“I told you I wouldn’t hurt you,” he says through the door. “Last time was an accident. I’m better now.” More scratching, and this time it sounds like his nails. “I’m better now. You can come out.” The scratching grows, impossibly, as if a multitude of hands are clawing at the door in livid desperation. “But don’t look at me. Come out but don’t look at me. You can’t see me.” A bang, the flat of his palm. “You can’t see me.” His mouth seems to be pressed right up against the crack between the door and the hinge, and his voice sounds of something awful bubbling up from the recesses of his throat, and he beats his fist against the door.

I close my eyes and press my hands to my ears, pleading silently that the memory will stop. At some point a madman lived in this house, and I shake with sick fear at listening to his deranged railing against my door, his uncontrollable rage trapping me here in this room.

“Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!” he says amid the pounding of hands and the clattering of the knife.

Then all at once it stops.

My heart jackhammers and my breathing comes in gasps, but gradually it all slows, calms.

Then the near-inaudible voice presses to the crack in the door: “Auntie?” Tap. Tap. Tap. “I’m sorry. Auntie?”

I can hardly move. My breath is caught in my throat, the gunflint slick with sweat from my palm.

Auntie. I shake my head. It isn’t me. No, no, I am not an aunt.

At least, not yet.

3

I cannot expunge the faceless boy from my mind, even in the light of day; he lingers there as we clear away breakfast and ready ourselves for the drive to Elizabeth’s doctor. I keep trying to get her attention, knowing that the closer we get to the appointment, the more likely it is I will lose my nerve before I can tell her my suspicions about Julian.

But Mother is still within earshot as we pull on our shoes, and I don’t want to have this conversation in front of her—not when she is so keen on bringing this new life into the house. All morning she has been smiling, making pancakes, talking about how to prepare the house for a child. I don’t have the heart to dampen her spirits.

Perhaps I should sign to Elizabeth when Mother isn’t looking? It would be stilted, fumbling, ungraceful after so many years, but we used to converse in sign all the time. Just as my father and I had secret code words we shared with each other, made-up signs that only we would understand, so too had my silent language with my sister evolved. In the years following his death, however, she increasingly pushed away my attempts at signing. Whereas I thought it was a marvelous secret language, she seemed to think it was foolish, since we could both hear.