Page 92 of Where the Snakes Sleep

I move my hand six inches, tap again, and the sound is slightly different.

Or maybe I am imagining it because I desperately want there to be a hidden chamber containing murder evidence instead of discovering that my grandfather’s builder simply sucked at math.

I knock again and feel certain the area behind it is hollow.

Tap.

Hollow.

Tap left.

Duller.

Right.

Hollow again.

I’ve made a rectangle.

I go to the little utility cupboard beside the back entrance and find the toolbox right where I left it. Camille had found me holding the hammer yesterday afternoon, taken one look at my face, and said, “No.”

That had been the entire conversation.

It’s my property, so…

I carry the hammer back over to the section of wall, then stand there. I decide to start high enough above the baseboard to avoid anything running low, but not so high that I somehow attack a structural beam.

My heart is beating stupidly fast as I lift my arm and tap the wall lightly. Nothing happens, which is honestly a little disappointing, so then I put a bit more weight into it. This time, a thin crack appears, a spiderweb of fractures. Plaster flakes drift down like pale snow.

My breath catches. Camille is going to lose his fucking mind. I swing again, this time with intention. A chunk of plaster shatters off, clattering across the tile. Gray dust puffs outward. The hollow knock behind it sounds like a distant drum. I press the tip of the hammer into the gap and pry. An older layer of mortar peeks through, rough and crumbly, darker than the fresh white surface.

I frown. This is no shallow cavity. I strike the mortar—tap, tap, tap, then a confident whack that pushes a piece inward. A rush of cooler air brushes my knuckles, untangling the warm kitchen breeze. I jerk back, goosebumps racing across my arms. The musty scent of enclosed stone slips through the crack.

“Oh my God,” I whisper.

My hammer rests against the wall as I shine my phone’s flashlight into the widening hole. At first, I see nothing but jagged edges. Then the beam stretches beyond the broken mortar, across a field of darkness, and lands on a second wall, several feet away. My breath hitches so sharply I taste dust. This is real.

Holy shit.

I bang my shoulder against the cabinet, cursing under my breath at my clumsiness. Pain flares, but I barely notice. My mind pings between panic and exhilaration. I glance at my phone, feeling the tug of responsibility—should I call him?

No. I need to see this room first. Then I’ll call him.

I set the phone down, grip the hammer again, and begin to widen the opening. This time I work more precisely, knocking away brittle mortar in measured strokes. Fragments scatter on the floor. Dust coats my fingertips and becomes caked beneath my nails. Fifteen minutes pass in hammer-strike echo and flake of debris. The hole swells to the size of my palm, then an open maw.

My chest tightens with a mixture of triumph and dread. I make the hole large enough to fit my head, then my whole body, prying at the edges until the old stone and plaster widen into a rough tunnel. My hands are shaking so badly I nearly drop the hammer twice. I cough, the dust clawing at the back of my throat.

If Camille were here, he would be yelling at me about inhaling asbestos or falling through a floor joist, but he isn’t. It is just me and the pulse of my own heart beating in my ears.

I wedge my shoulders through the opening, scraping my skin on the raw lip of the stone. I am not claustrophobic—thank God—but I am sweating and slightly dizzy as I worm my way forward, feet scrabbling for purchase. My phone’s flashlight bounces erratically off the rough interior, illuminating a stone passage that’s maybe a meter deep, then a sharp left turn into darkness.

I wriggle the rest of the way through, shoes slipping on a layer of fine powder. For a second I just crouch there, catching my breath, half convinced I’m about to find a nest of venomous spiders or worse, a mummified body waiting for me like a final fuck you from the Legrand bloodline.

I sweep the phone’s light. The space is narrow but tall, maybe a meter wide, running parallel to the kitchen wall. Mortar dust cakes the floor. The air inside smells ancient, a mineral tang overlying a faint undertone of something organic and rotten.

And there’s nothing here.

Not a coffin, not a chest of gold. I almost laugh, a ragged sound that echoes off the stone ceiling. Of course, it would be empty. Of course, after all this, there would be nothing left but dust and disappointment.