The carpet in our hallway was worn thin near the narrow door, but Marcus had never paid attention to it until tonight. Our seven-year-old daughter, Lily, was kneeling on the floor in her pink pajamas, carefully sliding a plate of chicken nuggets beneath the dark wood trim. The house in Dallas was quiet, except for the hum of the air conditioner and the strange, deliberate scraping sound of her small fingers against the trim.

Marcus: Lily? What in the world are you doing down there?

Lily: I’m sharing my dinner, Daddy.

Marcus: Sharing with who? It’s past eight o'clock. There’s nobody down here but us.

Lily: The girl who lives in the wall. She told me she was hungry.

Marcus laughed, a short, nervous sound that died in his throat when he saw the serious look in his daughter’s eyes. He took a step closer, the floorboards creaking under his weight. He bent down, expecting to find a toy or a stuffed animal stuffed into the small crawlspace opening beneath the stairs. Instead, he heard a soft, trembling breath coming from behind the dry wall.

Marcus: Lily, move back right now.

Lily: Don't be mad at her, Daddy. She’s really nice.

Marcus unclipped the heavy metallic flashlight from his belt, its beam piercing the dim hallway. He reached for the small brass latch on the crawlspace door, but before his fingers could touch the cold metal, heavy footsteps hurried down the wooden stairs behind him.

Elena: Marcus, leave it alone! Get away from that door right now!

Marcus froze, turning his head slowly to look at his wife. Elena’s face was completely drained of color, her eyes wide with a frantic, suffocating panic that he had never seen in their ten years of marriage. Her hand gripped the stair banister so tightly her knuckles turned white. Why was she terrified of a tiny utility door? What had she been keeping inside the darkness of their own home?