The Maid Who Counted the Echoes

How it begins

The nursery returned four echoes.

Mrs. Vale had specified three.

Elsie checked the room before writing anything down.

One window.

One door.

One fireplace too narrow for a child to hide inside.

She clapped again.

Three sharp replies followed.

Then a woman's voice said, softly, Please.

Elsie lowered her hands.

Outside the nursery, the corridor smelled of beeswax and a raincoat nobody had hung near enough to the fire.

She had been employed for six days.

Her duties were ordinary until the last item.

Count the echoes in every room before dusk.

At interview, she had assumed this was a family expression for checking the windows.

Now she understood why the previous maid had left without collecting her wages.

The counting book lay on the small table.

Nursery: three.

Every day for seventeen years.

Elsie turned back through the pages.

Same number.

Same narrow handwriting.

Then, halfway through the previous winter, a different hand had written four.

The word had been scratched out so hard that the paper tore.

A knock sounded.

Dr. Reed stood in the doorway carrying his bag.

"Mrs. Vale said you'd heard something."

"Did she?"

He looked toward the fireplace.

"What was it?"

Elsie described the voice.

The doctor sat down without being invited.

For a moment he appeared older than he had downstairs.

"Was it a young woman?"

"I don't know."

"Did she say anything else?"

Elsie waited.

From the fireplace came three small clicks.

Then the voice again.

This time it used a name.

Arthur.

The doctor closed his bag.

Elsie looked at the counting book.

She could write three and keep her position.

Or write four and become another woman whose wages waited in a drawer.

She dipped the pen.

Outside, the dinner bell began.

For the first time since arriving, she did not hurry to answer it.