Despite being gone for so long, Ellis still remembered which floorboards creaked and which were silent. He took care to step only on the silent ones so as not to wake his father whose room was directly beneath the hallway. At the end of the hallway was his sister’s room. He could see that her door was closed which struck him as odd because he remembered helping her remove it. He wondered what other changes she had made.

He wondered how she had changed.

‘Who is Lucy?’ was the question running through his head as he walked down the hallway, turned the doorknob, and opened the door. A quick scan told him that the answer was, ‘She’s the same,’ for Lucy’s room was also unchanged. Unlike his room, hers was bare which would come as a surprise to people who knew her. But she had confided in him that though she loved creating, she did not have the patience to decorate.

“And besides,” she had said, “I only sleep in my room.”

Which was true. He would always see her doing something, but he had only ever seen her relaxing in her room. He had asked her once if she was privy to something that he was not, but she only laughed and said it was just a preference. When she went on to explain that it was ‘the separation’ that she liked, he simply nodded his head even though he did not understand.

But now he understood. Or he thought he did. He could see the appeal in having a room that was free of clutter, and he had to admit that the naked walls were less distracting. Yes, the room was good for sleep, but something about it unsettled him. He felt as though the room had too much room which made little sense even to himself.

Then, an open book on her nightstand caught his eye. Upon closer inspection, he saw that it belonged to his father who must have been reading in her bed and forgotten to put it back on the shelf downstairs.

Ellis took the book and was about to return it to its place when he was reminded of the space beneath the nightstand. At once, the voice in his head told him to look. And he listened.

He set the book on the bed and moved the nightstand to the side. His hands probed for the loose floorboard and once it was found, he pried it off to reveal a small hole.

And within the hole was a stash of letters.

The pit, which had been dormant since entering, returned.