Chapter 7 - The Ghost in the Nursery
The haunting, unfamiliar lullaby drifted out from the small speaker of the foyer base station, the gentle, echoing melody completely at odds with the chaos that had just consumed the house. Julian froze, his right foot hovering inches off the polished hardwood floor. His blood ran cold. He had left the baby sleeping peacefully in the portable bassinet inside the study, not the upstairs nursery. Yet the audio feed coming clearly through the monitor was broadcasting live from the second-floor bedroom—a room that had been locked and empty for the past six months since the tragic miscarriage Eleanor had lied about.
“Did you... did you move him?” Julian asked, his voice shaking as he turned his hollow eyes toward Clara.
Clara shook her head violently, her eyes widening with a fresh wave of terror. “No! I swear to you, Mr. Vance, I never touched the baby after we came back inside. When Mrs. Vance locked me out by the pool, the baby was in the study with you. I haven't been upstairs all night!”
Julian didn't wait to hear another word. He bolted down the hallway, taking the grand staircase two steps at a time, his heavy footsteps thundering against the wood. Clara scrambled right behind him, her wet shoes squeaking on the risers. The air grew noticeably colder the higher they climbed, the central heating seeming to bypass the upper west wing entirely.
Reaching the top of the landing, Julian threw his weight against the heavy white double doors of the nursery. The lock gave way with a loud crack, the door swinging wide open to reveal a scene that made his stomach violently heave.
The room was bathed in the soft, eerie glow of a nightlight shaped like a crescent moon. The crib in the center of the room—a piece of furniture that Eleanor had kept meticulously polished and draped in expensive silk—was currently occupied. But the baby wrapped in the white blanket was nowhere to be seen. Instead, lying dead center in the middle of the empty crib, was a vintage, porcelain doll dressed in an identical infant gown, its painted blue eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling.
And sitting in the rocking chair in the corner of the dark room was a young woman with tear-stained cheeks and messy blonde hair, softly rocking back and forth while humming the very lullaby they had heard through the monitor.
Julian staggered back, grabbing the doorframe for support as his breath hitched in his throat. “Who... who are you?” he demanded, stepping into the room with his fists clenched. “Where is my son? What have you done with my baby?”
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The woman stopped rocking. She slowly raised her head, looking up at Julian with eyes that were utterly hollow, holding a kitchen knife dripping with fresh blood.
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