Chapter 19 - The Frequency in the Attic Nursery
Ethan climbed back out of the sub-basement with his muscles coiled like springs. The house above was dark now, the grandfather clock in the main hall striking ten deep, resonant chimes.
He moved silently up the grand staircase to the second floor, bypassing his own master suite and heading directly toward Leo’s nursery at the end of the east corridor. He tapped three times on the wood paneling—their pre-arranged signal.
The deadbolt turned, and Thomas opened the door, his eyes wide with questions.
"Is Leo asleep?" Ethan whispered.
Thomas nodded, stepping aside. "Fast asleep since eight. Mrs. Gable left for the night. I checked the window locks and the perimeter sensors. Not a fly has crossed the grounds."
Ethan walked to the crib in the center of the warm, sun-yellow nursery. Leo was curled on his stomach, his small chest rising and falling beneath his cotton pajamas, his golden curls catching the amber glow of the nightlight.
Ethan looked at the boy’s face with a painful, agonizing tenderness. He looked at the tiny curve of his nose, the soft arch of his eyebrows—the spitting image of Clara. But how could this child be eighteen months old if Clara had passed away three years ago?
Ethan remembered Clara’s final months with sudden, terrifying clarity. Clara had spent the last five months of her life completely secluded in the Zurich clinic. Ethan had been permitted to visit her only twice, kept behind glass partitions under the strict instructions of her attending physician—Dr. Marcus Mercer—who claimed Clara’s immune system had completely collapsed. When Clara died, her body had been cremated in Switzerland under private estate orders, her ashes returned to Ethan in a silver urn that currently sat on the mantle in the study.
Ethan had never held Clara's body after she passed. He had only received Leo six months later, brought to his door by Mercer himself, who claimed Leo had been delivered prematurely via emergency cesarean before Clara succumbed, and had spent his first year in an intensive neonatal isolation unit in Bern.
Ethan had believed every word. Why would he doubt the physician who had treated Clara’s family for three decades?
"Thomas," Ethan whispered, his eyes never leaving the sleeping baby. "Where did Clara keep the old family radio receivers? The ones her father used for his ham radio setup?"
Thomas blinked, surprised by the question. "In the old attic storage room above the third floor. Your father-in-law had an antenna array installed on the roof ridge back in the nineties. Why?"
"Take this," Ethan handed Thomas his spare flashlight and pointed to the baby. "Lock this door behind me. If anyone tries to enter who isn't me, do not hesitate."
Ethan left the nursery, taking the narrow service stairs up to the dusty third-floor attic. The air here was hot and dry, smelling of cedar chests and aged insulation.
He navigated the maze of covered furniture until he found the partitioned room beneath the north gable. On a scarred wooden workbench sat an antique shortwave receiver and a commercial-grade signal scanner, powered by an auxiliary battery bank.
Ethan flipped the scanner’s power switch. The green vacuum-fluorescent display flickered to life, scrolling rapidly through local frequencies before locking onto an active, unencrypted transmission on 462.575 megahertz—the standard channel for long-range baby monitors.
Ethan turned the volume dial.
At first, there was only the gentle rush of white noise. Then, a low, rhythmic sound broke through the static.
It was breathing. Deep, steady, slow breathing.
Ethan leaned over the receiver, his heart pounding in his ears. He tapped the microphone jack.
Suddenly, a voice came through the small speaker. It was not the mechanical drone of a recording. It was the soft, raspy voice of an old man, humming a lullaby. The exact melody Clara used to play on the grand piano downstairs.
The humming stopped abruptly. A metallic scrape echoed through the speaker, followed by a child’s quiet, drowsy voice:
"Doctor Marcus? Is it time to see my brother yet?"
May you like
Ethan felt the breath get ripped from his lungs.
Through the speaker, the old man replied gently: "Not yet, Julian. Your father is still searching the cellar. Go back to sleep, little one. The car will be here at midnight."
