CHAPTER 10: A Family Tree With Missing Names
1032 Words
The pain faded slowly, like a tide pulling back from shore, leaving behind a dull ache and the sickening certainty that it could return whenever the house decided I’d gone too far.
I leaned against the inside of the front door, breathing hard, waiting for my heart to slow. The silence that followed was oppressive—not empty, but watchful. As if the house were listening to see what I would do next.
Start with the family tree.
The groundskeeper’s words lodged themselves in my mind, sharp and insistent.
I pushed myself upright. My legs felt weak, but they held. The house didn’t stop me as I moved deeper inside, which felt like permission—or a test.
The library was on the east wing of the house. I knew that without knowing how. My feet carried me there unerringly, down a narrow corridor paneled in dark wood that smelled faintly of old paper and smoke.
The door was already open.
The room beyond was vast, shelves stretching from floor to ceiling, packed tight with books and ledgers bound in cracked leather. A large oak table dominated the center of the room, its surface scarred and uneven, as though it had been carved into over generations.
And on the far wall—
I stopped short.
A family tree had been painted directly onto the plaster.
It was enormous, sprawling from floor to ceiling in thick, dark strokes. Branches twisted outward in unnatural angles, overlapping and doubling back on themselves. Names were written along the limbs in careful script, some faded with age, others so dark they looked freshly inked.I stepped closer.
Bailey.
Bailey.
Bailey.
Generation after generation, the same surname repeating endlessly, like the house had never allowed it to die out. Dates accompanied each name—births neatly recorded, deaths… less consistently so.
Some names had no death date at all.
Others had something worse.
Gaps.
Entire branches ended abruptly, chopped off mid-growth. Names scratched out. Painted over. In some places, the plaster itself had been gouged away, leaving rough scars in the wall.
My chest tightened.
I scanned the names until I found hers.
Lillian Bailey
—no death date.
My fingers hovered just inches from the wall. “You died,” I whispered. “I buried you.”
The house did not correct me.
I looked lower.
Amara Elise Bailey
Born ——
No date.
Just my name, waiting.
Beneath it, faint and almost completely erased, was another name. The paint had been scrubbed so hard it had damaged the wall beneath, but enough remained for me to make it out.
— — Bailey
The first name was gone.
But the space it occupied felt… loud.
My stomach twisted violently. I pressed a hand to it, breath hitching.
“That’s him,” I whispered. “Isn’t it?”
The room seemed to darken, shadows stretching unnaturally long along the shelves.
I heard movement behind me.
“You shouldn’t have found this yet,” my grandmother said.
I turned sharply. She stood in the doorway, hands clasped in front of her, her expression tight—not angry, but wary.“You erased him,” I said, my voice shaking. “You erased my brother.”
“I protected you,” she replied.
“By pretending he never existed?”
“Yes.”
I laughed, the sound raw and broken. “That didn’t work very well.”
She stepped into the room, the floor creaking beneath her weight. The house seemed to settle around her, attentive.
“Names have power here,” she said. “To write one is to invite it to stay.”
“So you wiped him out?” I demanded. “Like he was a mistake?”
Her jaw tightened. “He was a risk.”
I stared at her, horror blooming slow and cold in my chest. “You talk about him like he was a thing.”
“He was not meant to survive,” she said quietly.
The words landed like a blow.
“You mean I wasn’t,” I said.
Silence stretched between us.
Her eyes flicked to my stomach.
“No,” she said carefully. “You were meant to survive. Just not alone.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“You said I carried more than one life,” I whispered. “That wasn’t just metaphor, was it?”
She shook her head once.
“The house required balance,” she said. “Two lives to anchor one.”
My throat burned. “So you let my mother believe I killed him.”“I let her believe what she needed to,” my grandmother said. “Grief makes people careless with truth.”
“You let her hate me,” I said.
“Yes.”
The word was soft. Final.
I staggered back, pressing my palm flat against the family tree to steady myself. The wall felt warm beneath my hand, pulsing faintly, like a living thing.
“He’s still here,” I said suddenly.
My grandmother didn’t deny it.
“He never left,” she admitted. “He couldn’t.”
A sharp pain flared in my abdomen, stronger this time, curling my fingers into fists. I gasped, bending forward.
“He’s inside me,” I whispered.
My grandmother’s expression broke then—just for a second. Fear. Real fear.
“Not inside you,” she said. “With you.”
“That’s not better,” I choked out.
“No,” she agreed. “It’s worse.”
The pain eased, leaving behind a heavy, nauseating warmth.
I straightened slowly, meeting her gaze with something hard and unyielding.
“You don’t get to decide what happens next,” I said. “Not anymore.”
She studied me for a long moment, then nodded once.“That,” she said, “is what I was afraid of.”
The lights dimmed, shadows crawling up the walls like grasping hands. Somewhere deep in the house, something shifted—something old, something restless.
The family tree seemed to loom larger now, its branches stretching subtly outward.
Making room.
And with terrifying clarity, I understood:
The missing names were not forgotten.
They were waiting.
- Writer
