Recalculating

Fourteen feet.

The digital display glowed stark white in the dim lighting of the master closet. The red dot of the laser held steady on the back cedar paneling.

I dropped my hand, my thumb popping the battery compartment open. The device was three years old. A low battery could throw off the calibration. I swapped the AAA batteries with spares from my pocket, wiped the glass lens with the hem of my shirt, and pressed my spine against the bedroom doorframe.

I aimed the beam dead center. Click.

*14' 0"*

Four feet of missing space. In residential architecture, four feet isn't a rounding error. Four feet is a canyon. It’s a luxury shower. A double vanity. It doesn't just vanish into the framing.

My pulse beat a frantic, shallow rhythm against my collarbone. The air in Mother's closet felt thick, pressing down on me with the heavy scent of mothballs, dried lavender, and decades of absolute silence. I needed the blueprints.

The leather drafting tube sat exactly where I kept it in my home office down the hall. Mother had guarded the original 1928 city lot plans as fiercely as she guarded the family name. I hauled the tube onto my angled drafting table, pulling out the thick, yellowed vellum. It curled fiercely at the edges. I pinned the corners down with a stapler, a tape dispenser, and two empty coffee mugs.

My index finger traced the main floor layout. It was meticulously detailed, a testament to 1920s craftsmanship. Load-bearing pillars, HVAC chases, plumbing drops—all clearly marked in sharp, black lines.

I dragged my finger up to the second-floor schematic. The master suite took up the entire eastern gable. But the space behind the closet was a mess.

I leaned closer, my nose almost touching the vellum. The ink around the rear closet wall was heavy, bleeding slightly into the paper fibers. A dark block of dense cross-hatching filled the space, labeled simply: *Structural Support/Firewall*.

No dimensions were listed. No joist intervals indicated. Just a solid void of ink.

Mother had been rigorous about this house. She hired preservationists for the trim and specialized masons for the chimneys. She never would have accepted a sloppy, vague drafting job. Unless she was the one who altered it. The cross-hatching ink was slightly darker, less faded than the original 1928 lines.

Someone had drawn over the plans.

I stepped out of the office and walked back toward the master suite. The hardwood floors creaked under my weight. As I passed the brass floor grate in the hallway, voices drifted up from the dining room. The house’s old ductwork carried sound like a megaphone.

"—measuring again," Arthur’s baritone rumbled, distorted but unmistakable.

Harrison’s response was a low, clinical hum. "The stress... adjust the dosage... make sure she doesn't dig into..."

The rest was swallowed by the hum of the refrigerator kicking on downstairs.

My fingernails dug crescent moons into the meat of my palms. They weren't arguing about property taxes anymore. *Adjust the dosage.* Harrison's go-to solution for any question I ever asked.

I slipped back into the master closet, pulling the heavy cedar door firmly shut behind me. Total darkness swallowed the room. I fumbled for my phone, flicking on the flashlight. The harsh LED beam swept over the hanging rods, the built-in shoe racks, and finally settled on the back wall. The supposed firewall.

Brick doesn't give. Brick absorbs sound. It kills it.

I stepped over a stray shoe box and pressed my palm flat against the cedar paneling. It was freezing cold. Colder than the rest of the room.

I pulled my hand back, made a fist, and rapped my knuckles hard against the wood.

*Thump-thump.*

The sound reverberated, traveling upward and outward. It vibrated through the wood, echoing back into the small closet. A long, low resonance of trapped air.

It wasn't a solid brick firewall. It was a hollow cavity.