CHAPTER 2 — The Song He Buried
CHAPTER 2 — The Song He Buried
The last note of the lullaby didn’t fade.
It hung in the room.
Like the house itself remembered it.
Andrew’s face went completely still.
Not shock.
Recognition.
Grief that had never finished healing.
The maid sat frozen on the floor, tears sliding down her cheeks, as if she had just crossed a line she could never step back from.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to scare them. I just—when they cry at night, they ask for that song. I don’t know why I know it. It just comes out.”
The woman in blue silk tightened her grip on Andrew’s arm.
“This is insane,” she said quickly. “She’s manipulating you. People do this kind of thing all the time—trauma bonding, imitation—”
But Andrew pulled his arm away.
Slowly.
Like her touch suddenly weighed too much.
His eyes never left the maid.
“Where did you learn it?” he asked.
The maid shook her head.
“I don’t know. I’ve sung it since I was a teenager. I used to think my mother taught it to me before she—” She stopped, swallowing hard. “Before she died.”
Andrew stepped closer.
“No,” he said quietly.
His voice cracked on the single word.
“That song… my wife made it up for our sons. No one else knew it. Not even my staff. Not even my family.”
The room went silent again.
Even the boys stopped crying, sensing something shift in the air.
The older boy hugged the maid tighter.
“She hums it when we’re scared,” he said. “She sits by the bed.”
The maid shook her head harder now.
“I never told them to call me anything,” she said desperately. “They started on their own. I tried to stop them.”
But Andrew wasn’t listening to the words anymore.
He was staring at her face.
Studying it.
Not searching for similarity.
Searching for truth.
And then—
His gaze dropped to her wrist again.
The scar.
Small.
Curved.
May you like
Faint.
But identical.
