The House with Quiet Walls
Emily lived in a small, sunlit house on Rosehill Lane, a place where mornings smelled of warm tea and evenings carried the soft laughter of her younger sister, Lily. Their mother, Clara, did everything she could to keep their lives steady. But Emily had always felt a strange heaviness in the house… like memories lived inside its walls.
Emily was 21, calm and thoughtful, the kind of girl who noticed little details: the way wind rustled the garden leaves, the sound of rain on the old tin roof, and the trembling in her mother’s voice whenever the past was mentioned.
Lily, on the other hand, was pure energy, 14, curious, always asking questions Emily couldn’t answer.
On a quiet morning, Emily was cleaning the attic, a room filled with dust, forgotten trunks, and old wooden beams. She pushed aside an old carpet when her foot hit something solid.
Thump.
She knelt down.
A corner of a small wooden box peeked out from beneath the floorboard.
Emily frowned. She hadn’t seen it before.
Carefully, she pulled the box free. It was old — the wood darkened with time, the metal latch rusted, and something engraved on the lid… a faint, nearly erased initial:
A.
Just one letter.
Her heartbeat quickened.
“Who did this belong to?” she whispered.
Footsteps echoed downstairs. Her mother’s voice called out, “Emily! Are you done with the attic?”
Emily quickly brushed the dust off the box, hiding it behind her dress.
“I’ll be down in a minute!” she replied.
She felt strange, excited, nervous, curious.
Something told her this box wasn’t just old.
It was part of a story her mother never told.
Part of a truth she was never meant to find.
And Emily didn’t know it yet…
but the boy she would meet later in the market carried a missing piece of this same secret.