Chapter 8 – Losing Sleep
Lucy didn’t sleep that night.
After leaving Emma’s room, she sat at the kitchen table in complete silence, staring at the notebook where she had been recording the knocking.
The words Emma had whispered replayed again and again in her mind.
They knock because they can’t talk.
The others are deeper inside.
They’re stuck.
Lucy rubbed her temples.
None of it made sense.
Emma had a vivid imagination. That had to be the explanation. Children invented stories all the time, especially in new environments. The unfamiliar house, the strange noises, the quiet forest—her mind could easily turn all of that into something mysterious.
But Lucy couldn’t explain one thing.
The knocking had answered her.
And Emma had been talking to the wall before Lucy even discovered the sound.
Lucy stared at the notebook again.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Two knocks.
The pattern looked deliberate even on paper.
Lucy closed the notebook and leaned back in her chair.
The quiet house seemed heavier tonight.
Almost watchful.
The Long Days
Over the next few days Lucy tried to return to normal life.
But sleep became harder and harder to find.
Every night she listened for the knocking.
Sometimes it came.
Sometimes it didn’t.
But when it did, the pattern was always the same.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Two knocks.
Lucy continued writing everything down.
10:31 PM – Pattern repeated twice.
11:07 PM – Same pattern again.
12:02 AM – Very faint.
The notebook slowly filled with observations.
Lucy began noticing other things too.
The knocking almost always happened late at night.
Usually after Emma had fallen asleep.
Sometimes the sound stopped completely when Lucy touched the wall.
Other times it seemed to continue just faintly enough that she couldn’t be sure.
The uncertainty was the worst part.
Because Lucy could no longer tell the difference between real sounds and imagined ones.
The First Signs of Exhaustion
By the end of the week, Lucy was barely functioning.
She woke up tired every morning.
Dark circles appeared under her eyes.
Even simple tasks felt heavier.
One afternoon she was working on her laptop when she suddenly heard it.
Tap.
Lucy froze.
She looked around the living room.
Nothing.
She waited.
A few seconds later—
Tap.
Lucy stood up quickly.
The sound had seemed to come from upstairs.
Her heart began racing.
She hurried up the staircase.
But when she reached Emma’s bedroom, everything was silent.
Emma sat on the floor coloring a picture.
She looked up.
“Mom?”
Lucy frowned.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Lucy listened carefully.
The house was completely still.
“No… nothing,” she said.
Emma returned to coloring.
Lucy remained standing there for another moment before slowly backing out of the room.
When she returned downstairs, the tapping never came again.
Lucy sat back down at her desk.
But her hands were trembling.
Had the sound really happened?
Or had her mind imagined it?
The Sound That Wasn’t There
The following morning Lucy tried to work again.
Her email inbox filled quickly.
She read the same message three times before realizing she hadn’t absorbed a single word.
Then suddenly—
Tap.
Lucy looked up.
The sound had seemed to come from the wall behind her.
Her breath caught.
She turned around slowly.
Nothing.
Just the quiet kitchen.
Lucy held her breath.
Silence.
No second knock.
No pattern.
Just the ticking of the clock.
Lucy forced a laugh under her breath.
“You’re losing it,” she muttered.
She rubbed her eyes and stood up.
But the unease didn’t fade.
Because now Lucy couldn’t trust what she was hearing anymore.
The Appointment
Two days later Lucy finally made a decision.
She needed to talk to someone.
Not a neighbor.
Not Emma.
A professional.
She scheduled an appointment with a therapist in the nearby town.
The small office smelled faintly of coffee and lavender.
A woman in her forties greeted Lucy with a warm smile.
“Lucy, right?”
Lucy nodded.
“Please, come in.”
They sat across from each other in comfortable chairs.
For a moment Lucy didn’t know where to begin.
Then the words started spilling out.
The knocking.
Emma talking to the wall.
The patterns.
The notebook.
The lack of sleep.
The therapist listened patiently without interrupting.
When Lucy finished, the room fell quiet.
The therapist nodded slowly.
“Moving into a new home can be very stressful,” she said gently.
Lucy frowned.
“You think I’m imagining it.”
“I think you’re exhausted.”
Lucy didn’t respond.
The therapist continued.
“When people experience sleep deprivation, their brains become very good at finding patterns in normal sounds.”
Lucy thought about the notebook.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Two knocks.
The therapist leaned forward slightly.
“You’ve gone through a lot recently,” she said. “A divorce, a move, adjusting to a completely new environment.”
Lucy looked down at her hands.
“Sometimes the brain tries to create meaning out of random noise.”
Lucy didn’t want to believe that.
But part of her wondered if it could be true.
“What about Emma?” Lucy asked.
“Children are extremely perceptive,” the therapist said. “If she senses that you’re anxious, she may create stories that match that feeling.”
Lucy sat quietly.
The explanation sounded logical.
Too logical.
Because Lucy still remembered the moment the wall had knocked back.
The therapist smiled gently.
“I think the best thing you can do right now is rest.”
Lucy nodded slowly.
Maybe she was overthinking everything.
Maybe the house was just old.
Maybe the sounds were normal.
Maybe Emma was just playing.
Lucy left the office feeling slightly calmer.
But that night—
When she returned home—
The first thing she heard as she stepped through the front door was a faint sound upstairs.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Two knocks.
