Chapter 3 - THE FORBIDDEN WING
By noon, Maya had already scrubbed the massive marble dining table, polished the brass fixtures in the grand salon, and vacuumed a library so large it felt like a public museum. The house was enormous, yet it felt astonishingly lonely.
Throughout the morning, she had caught faint echoes of a distant, piercing sound floating down from somewhere above—a ragged, rhythmic crying that sounded less like regular tantrums and more like a continuous wave of distress.
She paused while dusting a mahogany bookshelf near the grand staircase.
The East Wing, she remembered Mr. Harris saying.
The crying intensified, punctuated by a dull thud that vibrated right through the ceiling boards. Maya winced. Whatever was happening up there, those children sounded terrified, angry, and completely abandoned. Where was their mother? Where were the people paid to comfort them?
Just then, her phone buzzed in her apron pocket. It was a text from the local daycare provider where Lily had been temporarily placed for the morning orientation: “Everything is fine, Maya. She’s taking a nap.”
Maya exhaled a sigh of relief. At least Lily was safe.
She turned back to her dusting, but her mind wandered. As she worked her way down the secondary hallway toward the rear service pantry, she noticed something peculiar.
The heavy double doors separating the main house from the East Wing were standing slightly ajar.
A silver housekeeping cart was parked directly in front of the threshold, abandoned with a pile of fresh linens still stacked on the top shelf. Evidently, one of the upstairs maids had gotten overwhelmed and bolted, leaving the passage wide open.
Maya froze. She knew the rules. Do not enter the East Wing.
Yet, as another raw, choked sob echoed down the corridor from upstairs, her feet refused to obey Mr. Harris’s commands. A mother’s instinct—honed by years of sleepless nights and struggling alone—pulled at her heartstrings. No baby deserved to cry like that without someone trying to help.
She stepped cautiously through the double doors.
The hallway here was lined with thick acoustic carpeting that swallowed the sound of her footsteps. The walls were painted a pale, soothing sky-blue, but the atmosphere felt oppressive, charged with a heavy, electric tension.
She crept closer to the heavy white wooden door at the end of the hall—the nursery.
The door was cracked open about two inches.
Maya peeked inside. What she saw made her breath catch in her throat.
The room was enormous, filled with high-end educational toys, designer cribs, soft pastel rugs, and state-of-the-art air purifiers. But it looked like a war zone. Oatmeal was smeared across the wallpaper. Plastic blocks were scattered everywhere. And standing inside two separate mahogany cribs were two identical toddlers with flushed faces, tear-streaked cheeks, and eyes wild with exhaustion.
They weren't just crying; they were screaming themselves hoarse, trapped in their high-walled cages while an empty chair sat in the corner where a nanny had obviously just fled in terror.
Maya’s heart ached. She reached out her hand to push the door open further, wanting nothing more than to walk in and pick them up.
Suddenly, a tiny, squeaking sound echoed behind her.
Maya spun around in sheer panic.
Stepping out from behind a decorative hallway alcove was a two-year-old girl in pink overalls and scuffed white sneakers.
Lily.
“Mommy?” Lily whispered loudly, holding up a half-eaten graham cracker she had somehow smuggled out of her temporary backpack stash in the staff lounge.
Maya’s blood ran cold. How did she get out of the staff wing? How did she find her way up here?
“Lily!” Maya hissed, dropping to her knees and grabbing her daughter by the shoulders. “What are you doing here? You aren't supposed to be out of the lounge—”
Before Maya could grab her and flee back down the hall, Lily slipped right out of her grip with the slippery agility of a toddler on a mission. Her eyes had caught the open nursery door, and the sound of the twins crying had triggered a natural, fearless curiosity.
May you like
“Babies!” Lily declared happily.
And before Maya could stop her, the little girl toddled right past her, pushed the nursery door wide open with both hands, and marched straight into the forbidden room.
