Chapter 2 Private Line

The morning light barely touched the inside of Gwen's apartment. It filtered through low clouds and gray windowpanes, casting everything in the color of spoiled milk.

She hadn't slept, not really. Drifted, maybe. She blinked for a few hours on the couch, but her body never truly released itself to rest. Her muscles were too tight, her thoughts too sharp.

The journal was still open on the kitchen table. Last night's pen had rolled onto the floor. The purple hair clip sat where she'd left it, glossy and unblinking.

Not a dream.

Not a memory lapse.

Not a breakdown, either-she'd had one of those at twenty-four, and it didn't feel like this. That one had come with numbness. This felt like the skin of reality was stretching thin over something stranger.

She stood, her limbs creaking, and walked to the phone.

It hung limp on the wall, lifeless. She plugged it back into the jack. The cord clicked into place like a bone resetting.

She lifted the receiver. A dial tone.

Normal.

Then she rewound the answering machine's tape, clicked it to the right spot, and hit play.

"Gwen... it's me."

Click.

She let it play again.

Then again.

Still there.

Still her voice.

Still impossible.

She should've cried by now. That would've been normal. Or screamed, maybe. But everything in her felt too suspended, like if she broke the silence, the whole thing would come crashing down-herself included.

She got dressed methodically, layering a sweater over her T-shirt, jeans over leggings, and pulling her boots on with practiced friction. As she passed the mirror by the door, she saw her reflection blink-but it felt like it had been staring before she had.

She left the hair clip on the table. Like evidence.

The tape recorder she slid into her coat pocket.

Then she headed out into the cold morning, her breath trailing behind her like fog.

The Pacific Bell office sat behind a squat concrete facade on 6th Avenue, half-obscured by overgrown shrubs and the shadow of a massive satellite dish. It was one of those buildings designed to be invisible-functional, anonymous, and grey.

Inside, the air smelled like dust and old plastic. Pale blue carpet tiles dulled every footstep. A wall-mounted map of area codes hung behind the service desk, faded around the edges like a leftover from another decade.

The woman behind the desk wore a red vest and a name tag that said "ROBYN." She looked up without interest as Gwen approached.

"Customer service or technical?"

Gwen hesitated. "Technical, I think."

Robyn gestured with a chewed pen toward a narrow counter along the side wall.

Gwen stepped over and waited. After a minute or two, a man in his fifties emerged from the back room. Tall, bony, with an apologetic hunch and hair that had long given up the fight against gravity.

"You got a line problem?" he asked, rubbing his temple. "Cut? Buzzing? Dead tone?"

"No," Gwen said. "I got a call."

The man blinked. "O...kay."

She pulled the slip of paper from her pocket, where she'd scribbled the number off the tape. "This number called me last night. But my phone wasn't even plugged in."

He took the paper. Adjusted his glasses. Read it twice. "Are you sure this is the number?"

"Positive."

He frowned and typed slowly on a beige computer with a faded CRT monitor. His fingers made soft plastic clacks.

"No one's issued this number. It doesn't exist."

"What do you mean, it doesn't exist?"

"I mean," he said, not unkindly, "this number hasn't been in service for about ten years. It's been decommissioned. Number block was pulled."

Gwen's mouth was dry. "Can you tell me who had it before?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not really supposed to-"

"It's important," she said. "Please."

The man studied her face for a long moment. Then he sighed and typed again.

He squinted at the screen.

"Well... huh."

"What?"

He leaned in. "This line was active until October 1996. Terminated due to... 'hardware destruction in residential fire.' No transfer of number. Location registered to..."

He hesitated.

"...Morley residence, 184 Holly Drive."

Gwen didn't respond.

"Ma'am?"

She nodded slowly. "That was my house."

The man scratched the back of his neck. "Look, I don't know what you're into, or what this is. But no one could be calling from that number now. It's been dead longer than some of my files."

Gwen's mouth worked, but no sound came.

After a beat, she asked, "Can I set up a trace? For future calls?"

He shook his head. "Only if your line's active and analog. Yours is flagged as... wait..."

He looked up at her again, brow furrowing.

"Your line... isn't marked active at all."

Gwen stared at him.

"I mean, it should be," he said, double-checking. "But the system has it flagged as disconnected. Yesterday. At 3:33 a.m."

Gwen's breath hitched.

That was the time she'd woken up last night.

"That's not possible," she said quietly.

"I know," he agreed. "But it's what it says."

He paused, as if to add something else, then thought better of it.

"Sorry. Wish I could help more."

Gwen nodded, muttered a thank you, and turned to go.

As she pushed the door open and stepped into the cold morning, the name Morley Residence. October 1996 played over and over in her head.

And behind that, beneath the thoughts, quieter and more terrible, came a memory she hadn't let herself think of in years:

The smell of smoke.

A door that wouldn't open.

And her mother's voice, screaming Lila's name.

She didn't remember the walk home.

Only the cold.

The slap of wind against her cheeks, the drizzle sliding down her collar, the way every passing car sounded like it was whispering.

Gwen locked her door behind her and leaned against it, trying to slow her breathing. Her boots left muddy prints on the floor, but she didn't take them off.

Instead, she walked straight into the kitchen, opened the drawer where she'd stashed the hair clip, and stared at it.

Purple. Plastic. Real.

Then she plugged the phone back in again.

A soft click. Dial tone.

But all she could hear now was static. Not from the phone-from inside her own head.

Because the technician had said the line died in October 1996.

But the fire had been in September.

Hadn't it?

She walked to the window. Same gray light. Same quiet street. But her reflection-it looked younger now. Not the face she'd seen all her adult life. There was something in it-a curve in the jaw, a tiredness in the eyes-that reminded her of herself then.

Sixteen.

The year everything went silent.

She hadn't thought about it in years. Not really. She told herself it was buried. Filed away in whatever mental vault therapists pretended could lock trauma tight.

But now, it unspooled.

The memory.

It came not like a flash, but like a shadow slipping beneath the doorframe.

Rain.

Smoke.

A locked door-her door-from the inside. A flame chewing its way across the ceiling. Her mother's hands pounding the wood. Her voice was hoarse with panic.

"Gwen! Gwen, open the door!"

But she couldn't. She was choking. On air. On guilt. On something she didn't understand.

And Lila-

Lila had been downstairs.

No-no, upstairs?

There was a moment, always fuzzy, like a dream where the logic didn't track. Gwen remembered screaming, remembered her own voice rising, echoing through the halls. And Lila's voice answering, but not with words-with laughter. Distant. Muffled.

Then gone.

They told her Lila was trapped in the back bedroom. The fire department found her in the corner, asphyxiated. Nothing left to do.

But that wasn't what Gwen remembered.

And now... now a voice was calling her from a dead number. From that house. From that night.

She looked at the phone.

"I need to know," she said aloud, to no one.

Her voice cracked.

She picked up the receiver. Put it to her ear.

Nothing.

No dial tone now.

Just a hum.

A quiet hum, like someone breathing on the other end.

She dropped it back on the cradle.

Her hands were shaking again.

She didn't sleep.

Not even the restless half-sleep from the night before. Gwen sat curled on the couch, legs tucked beneath her, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The living room light was off. Only the soft glow from the hallway nightlight lit the space, and it made everything seem underwater.

She kept the tape recorder on the coffee table, armed and ready.

The phone was plugged in. Connected. Watching her.

She glanced at the clock: 1:42 a.m.

The second hand swept its tight little circle like it was trying not to wake anyone.

She sipped cold coffee. It had gone bitter in the mug, but it didn't matter.

Her eyes stung, but she didn't dare blink too long.

What if the call came and she missed it?

The hair clip sat on the table now. Not in the drawer. She had taken it out earlier without thinking and placed it there like a relic at an altar. It sat beside the tape recorder like a witness.

2:12 a.m.

The street was dead quiet. Even the rain had thinned to a drizzle.

2:14.

Gwen leaned forward.

2:16.

Her heart began to tick in her throat.

2:17.

RING.

Her whole body jerked.

Not loud - not like before. This time, it rang with a soft insistence, like someone knocking politely at a door only they knew existed.

She hit RECORD.

Then she picked up the phone.

"Hello?" she said. Voice tight.

There was a brief hiss. A pause.

Then - her.

"Remember the cellar door?" Lila's voice. Same tone, same softness.

"Don't tell Mom," she added. "Pinky swear."

Gwen's vision swam.

That wasn't just a memory.

That was their secret.

A game they played when they were small, back in the first house on Red Fern Lane, before their dad left. The cellar had always been off-limits, locked, full of creaking shelves and old canned food. They used to sneak in when their mom was at work.

"Don't tell Mom," Lila had whispered the first time. "Pinky swear."

No one else knew that.

No one alive.

"Lila," Gwen said, voice cracking. "Is it you?"

But there was only silence.

Then: click.

The line went dead.

Gwen sat frozen, the receiver still pressed to her ear.

She was afraid to move. Afraid that if she shifted even a breath too far, the moment would snap and take her with it.

She slowly replaced the receiver.

The recorder's red light blinked, still spinning tape.

She picked it up and rewound it. Played it back.

"Remember the cellar door?" Lila's voice. Clear. Intact.

"Don't tell Mom. Pinky swear."

Click.

Gwen clutched the recorder against her chest and pressed her eyes shut.

It was her.

It had to be.

Or something that remembered exactly what Lila had once been.

The sun was trying to rise, but the sky outside remained the same smothered gray. The kind of light that didn't warm anything.

Gwen sat at the kitchen table again, legs drawn up beneath her. Her journal lay open, page half-blank. Pen poised.

The tape recorder was on the table beside her. Rewound. Still. Quiet now, like the voice inside it had fallen back asleep.

She touched the page lightly with the tip of the pen. Wrote without thinking.

"She said it again. Lila said it again.

The cellar door. The pinky swear.

No one could know that.

I didn't remember it until she said it."

Her handwriting was messier than usual - sharp angles, pressed deep into the paper.

"It's her.

Or someone who was her.

Or someone who wants me to think it's her."

She stared at that line. Debated crossing it out. Then didn't.

The hair clip glinted softly beside the tape recorder, catching a sliver of weak morning light. Gwen reached out, touched it once, then opened the small drawer beside the fridge and placed it inside. She shut it gently, like tucking away a child's toy.

Out of sight.

But not out of mind.

She stood, stretched, poured what was left of the cold coffee down the drain. Her arms felt heavy, her neck tight. Her body knew it needed sleep, but her mind couldn't let go yet. Not with a voice still echoing in her chest like a heartbeat out of sync.

As she walked back toward the living room, the phone rang again.

Just one short ring.

She froze.

The receiver didn't move. No new message blinked on the machine.

But she heard it.

Not a full ring. Not like the earlier ones.

Just a sharp, short chirp, like someone had just tapped the line. Like a knuckle against glass.

Then silence.

She walked slowly to the phone.

Waited.

No second ring came.

She stood there, hand hovering over the receiver, until the silence settled into something deeper. Something permanent.

She whispered, barely audible, "Okay."

Then she turned away.

But behind her, on the wall, the phone seemed to listen.