10 Jul The Hallway Game

Eli Carver was the quiet one, and everyone knew it. Even the younger kids, who shrieked over cartoons and scraped their sneakers across the kitchen tile as if it were a game, gave him space. Perhaps it was the way he held that worn Polaroid as if it might crumble if they looked at it too closely. Maybe it was how he typically nodded instead of answering questions when he could. The photo had faded at the corners, with yellow creeping in as if it had caught some kind of sickness, but her smile remained—soft and slightly tilted to one side, a little crooked, as if she hadn’t been ready when the picture was taken.

His mother.

Eli kept it under his pillow at night and in his hoodie pocket during the day. It was one of only a handful of personal items he brought with him after the fire trucks arrived, and his most prized possession.

The house he’d been placed in lacked the feeling of a home. It smelled of bleach and boiled rice, and everything was carpeted, even the bathrooms, as if the owners had hoped it’d muffle the noise. Miss Julia did her best; she cooked, hugged when asked, and didn’t yell. However, there were too many kids and not enough hours in the day. She moved through the rooms like a ghost in house slippers, one hand always holding either folded laundry or someone’s medications. She appeared tired in every photo on the fridge.

There were rules, like in any other place: No outside calls, no food in your room, lights out by nine, and no going into the hallway after bedtime. That last rule wasn’t official; it was more of a warning passed between bunks in hushed voices, the way kids shared secrets they weren’t supposed to know. Eli had heard it during his first week there, tucked between the sounds of a sneeze and a cough under someone’s blanket.

“They say if you stand in the middle of the hallway with a candle and knock three times, you can bring someone back,” a voice whispered. Eli hadn’t meant to listen, but the beds were close together, and the floor creaked whenever anyone turned over. He stayed still and quiet, his heart skipping a little at the mention of bringing someone back.

“Trevor did it once,” someone else chimed in, “before you arrived. He doesn’t talk anymore, but he used to. He saw something.”

“He tried to bring his brother back.”

“No, it was his mom.”

“That’s not what I heard—”

A loud shush silenced them, followed by a muffled laugh.

That was the first time Eli truly noticed Trevor. The older boy kept to himself. He was lanky and pale, with a thick mop of black hair and a sluggish way of moving, as if his limbs weren’t entirely connected. He sat near the window during quiet time, filling notebooks with dark ink drawings of narrow halls, stretched faces, and shadowy doorways that led nowhere. Miss Julia called him “creative,” while the other kids referred to him as “creepy.”

Eli had seen the drawings and didn’t think they were bad, just depressing, like someone recalling dreams that didn’t belong to them.

That night, he struggled to sleep as he lay in his bed. The hallway outside his room was dark, save for the dim safety light above the smoke alarm. The carpet out there always seemed damp, even when it wasn’t. Eli watched it from his doorway, the pale rectangle of light stretching down toward the kitchen like a tongue.

He didn’t know why it scared him so much; after all, it was just a hallway. But the thought of stepping into it after lights-out made something curl in his stomach, as if it wanted to hide. So, he stepped back and shut the door softly.

* * * * * *

The next morning at breakfast, Eli sat across from Trevor at the long table. Trevor was drawing again, pressing hard into the paper with a stubby pencil. Eli caught glimpses of what he was working on: hands, far too many of them, reaching out from behind a woman’s back. Her face wasn’t quite complete, but her teeth were. Dozens of them, all too small and even, stretched into a smile that seemed to extend beyond the edges of her jaw.

Trevor noticed Eli looking and yanked the notebook shut. Their eyes met for a brief moment. Eli flinched; Trevor did not.

Later, in the common room, Eli sat on the floor and flipped the Polaroid between his fingers, careful not to smudge it. The photo had a burn mark near the bottom corner, just a kiss of black, as if the fire had nearly taken it, too.

He reflected on what the boys had said about the candle, the knock, and the hallway. The idea unsettled him, and yet he had to admit he was intrigued.

That night, long after Miss Julia finished her last chore, turned off the hallway light, and retired to her bedroom, Eli sat up in bed and listened. The house made its usual sounds—pipes ticking, a screen door rattling faintly against the wind—but beneath that, he sensed something else: the soft drag of fingers on the carpet.

He didn’t open the door, too frightened to confirm his suspicions. Instead, he got up, took the candle from the drawer near the art supplies, and hid it under his bed, just in case.

* * * * * *

Trevor’s notebook was missing the next morning. Eli had waited until everyone else had gone out to the playground, pretending to dig through the art drawer for more glue sticks. He remained in place until Miss Julia went outside with the group. However, when he opened the drawer under Trevor’s bunk, he found it was gone.

Eli was certain Trevor had seen him. He hadn’t said a word, but he just watched from across the room as Eli walked away with his hands empty.

The rest of the day dragged on. To keep himself busy, Eli helped fold towels in the laundry room, but his thoughts kept drifting back to Trevor’s drawings—particularly the woman’s smile—and about what the other kids had said about the hallway ritual.

That night, while the others brushed their teeth, Eli walked past the bathroom and headed down the hall toward the far end, where the bedrooms met the storage room. The carpet muffled his steps, and he stopped near the center of the hallway, where a square of moonlight spilled onto the floor from the cracked curtain above.

He looked down and ran his foot along the seam in the carpet. This had to be the place.

“Don’t.” The voice came from behind him, barely audible.

Eli turned around to find Trevor standing near the bathroom door with his arms crossed and eyes cast down. He didn’t move or come closer; he just stood there, waiting for Eli to say something.

Eli swallowed and stepped toward him. “I just want to see her,” he said.

Trevor didn’t respond. After a few seconds, he reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a folded scrap of notebook paper. Without meeting Eli’s eyes, he held it out.

Eli hesitated for a moment before taking it. Trevor turned and walked away.

The paper had one word written on it in shaky block letters: RULES.

On the other side, there was more, written hastily as if the pen had fought against the paper.

Rules for the Hallway Game:

1. Must be after lights out.
2. Must be alone.
3. Light a candle and place it in the center of the hallway.
4. Knock on the floor three times.
5. Say their name clearly.
6. Leave something they loved beside the candle.
7. Walk away without looking back.

Eli read it repeatedly that night, long after the others had gone to bed. The note felt crumpled and soft at the edges, like it had been folded and unfolded too many times. Although the rules didn’t seem complicated, something about the way they were written felt like a warning, a dare that had been regretted. Still, the idea worked its way into his thoughts. What would he tell everyone if it worked? What would she say?

He opened the drawer by his bed and pulled out an old candle he had taken earlier. It was a fat red one with a stub of wick and waxy fingerprints near the base. He didn’t have matches, but he remembered that the kitchen had a lighter tucked near the stove, one Miss Julia used for birthday candles.

His mother’s antique locket was still tucked in the lining of his backpack. It was broken and no longer clasped shut, but it still contained that tiny photo of her and his late grandmother on the beach, their hair tied back, as they laughed at something off-camera. One of her favorite things. He’d held onto it all this time, hoping to salvage the memories.

He sat with it in his hand for a long time before tucking it under his pillow. That night, Eli waited until the usual evening sounds ceased—Miss Julia’s footsteps creaking overhead, someone coughing in the next room, the click of the back door latch—and silence enveloped the home.

He pulled on his sweatshirt, slipped the locket into his pocket, and padded quietly into the hallway, which seemed longer than it should have been, its edges disappearing into the shadows stretching strangely along the walls. Moonlight slanted through the curtains, but it felt faded somehow, too pale to be of any use.

Eli crouched at the midpoint and set the candle on the floor. He lit it with the plastic lighter he had taken earlier. The flame flickered, but held steady. He placed the locket beside it, and his fingers trembled as he withdrew his hand.

Without thinking, he acted, knocking once, twice, three times.

“Danielle Carver,” he whispered.

The flame shook once but didn’t go out. He waited, his heart racing with anticipation.

Nothing had changed. There was no sound or breeze, not even a flicker of movement at the far end of the hall.

Slowly, Eli stood, embarrassed, trying to calm the rush of heat in his face. The entire affair now felt foolish. Was he really that desperate?

He turned and walked back to his room, forcing himself not to glance over his shoulder and avoiding looking at the candle still flickering behind him.

He closed the door quietly and climbed back under the blankets. The hallway remained silent.

He drifted off sometime after midnight, the absence of the locket bothering him more than he had expected it to.

In his dreams, he saw water, shallow and warm, crawling up to the edge of his bed, and heard a voice he hadn’t heard in years whispering just outside the door.

* * * * * *

Eli was awakened later by the sound of soft, polite knocking and sat up, blinking into the darkness. The room was quiet, except for the ticking of the radiator beneath the window and the faint hum of the box fan Miss Julia had set up to combat the heatwave.

Then came three slow knocks again, right at the door.

He slipped out of bed, his feet sinking into the thin rug. The house was still, and the hall light was off. Miss Julia always left it on until sunrise, but now it was gone, replaced by something colder and dimmer.

Eli reached for the knob. Before he could turn it, however, a voice spoke through the wood.

“Eli?” it called out.

It was her.

His knees nearly gave out as he cautiously opened the door. The hallway stretched quietly before him, and he noticed that the candle had gone out. In its place, a woman crouched near the baseboard. She rose slowly, gracefully, as if she weighed nothing at all, and stepped into the moonlight. She looked just like the photo of his mother, with her hair brushed back and curls falling around her collarbones. That same lopsided smile graced her face.

“Hi, baby,” she said.

He stared, unable to speak, barely able to breathe.

She came forward, knelt before him, and took his hands in hers. They were cool, but not cold. Her skin felt real, her nails short, clean, and shaped exactly as he remembered.

“I missed you,” she said, drawing him in. “It’s been so long.”

He buried his face in her shoulder and sobbed. She held him the way she used to when he couldn’t sleep after thunderstorms. The familiar, soothing scent of her, of lavender shampoo and freshly-laundered cotton, clung faintly to her skin. He sighed in contentment and snuggled closer.

“I knew you’d find me,” she whispered. “I knew my boy wouldn’t forget.”

When he finally pulled away, she wiped his tears with her sleeve and smiled again—but something was off. She hadn’t blinked, not once, and her smile hadn’t faded during the embrace.

She stood, her movement so fluid it seemed as if she never touched the floor.

“I’ll stay close,” she said. “I’ll never leave you again, I promise.”

Then she stepped back into the shadows of the hallway and vanished.

Eli lingered in the doorway for a long time after that. His arms felt numb, and his legs tingled as if they’d fallen asleep. When he finally shut the door, it felt heavier than it had before.

He climbed back into bed, clutching the blanket around him, and fell into a restless slumber.

* * * * * *

The following morning, the hallway looked normal again.

Eli checked the spot where he’d left the candle and the locket. The candle had melted to a stub, blackened and stuck to the carpet, and the locket was gone.

At breakfast, Miss Julia asked if anyone had heard any strange noises overnight. A noise complaint had been reported by the neighbors behind the fence, mentioning something about whispering and a woman singing off-key. No one spoke up, but from the way she eyed him, Eli suspected she knew he had been involved. To his surprise, however, she didn’t press the issue, and everyone went on with their day.

Trevor sat across the table, his plate untouched. He wasn’t drawing today and didn’t even pretend to eat, but when Eli met his eyes, something unspoken passed between them. Trevor didn’t look angry; he looked afraid.

That night, Eli lay in bed and waited.

She came again just before two a.m.. There was no knock this time; he only heard the sound of the door unlatching gently, and then her head poked in.

“Oh, you must have been sleeping,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

He nodded slowly as she stepped inside.

“Can I sit with you?” she asked.

He scooted over, and she sat beside him on the edge of the mattress. He noticed that the bed didn’t sink under her weight.

She reached out, brushing his hair back from his face. “You’re safe now,” she said, stroking his cheek with her thumb. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

He wanted to believe it; he needed to. But all the same, something gnawed at him. As before, she never blinked, and he realized, too, that her pupils never shifted. It was as if her eyes were painted on. Tonight, she didn’t smell right, either. It wasn’t an issue with the lavender or cotton. Rather, there was something underneath the more comforting scents, faint but sharp, like the odor of mildew clinging to old wood.

When he asked her about the fire, she recalled every detail accurately. She knew the street name, the names of the firefighters, what the neighbors were wearing, and her final words before the window shattered.

He hadn’t told anyone those things, not even the social workers.

She kissed his forehead and tucked him in, humming as she stood. Her hand brushed the corner of the dresser, and just for a second, the lamp flickered.

The next morning, the bulb was burnt out. Eli didn’t say anything. Miss Julia replaced it, sighing and remarking snidely about the wiring.

Trevor didn’t come to breakfast.

* * * * * *

Later that afternoon, Eli went searching for him. He found Trevor in the basement, curled in the corner near the old furnace, surrounded by torn-out pages, each one covered in drawings of empty eye sockets, staring back from every inch of the paper.

Eli sat across from him on the concrete floor.

“I think I brought her back,” he said.

Trevor looked up slowly, then back down. He picked up a fresh scrap of paper, fumbled for a pen, and scribbled:

That’s not your mother.

Eli swallowed hard.

“She remembers everything.”

Trevor shook his head, and Eli noticed the uncertainty and fear in his eyes.

“She sings the song she used to—”

Another paper slid across the floor:

It’s wearing her.

Eli stared at the words a moment, considering the implications, and stood up. Trevor met his eyes briefly before turning his attention back to his drawings.

That night, Eli stayed awake as long as he could, waiting in the dark and watching the door.

It opened again at 2:08 a.m. She stepped in without knocking, smiling softly. Her smile remained, and as before, she didn’t blink.

He didn’t sleep that night. And as the sun rose over the horizon hours later, he realized something had changed.

She was no longer limited to nighttime visitations.

It wasn’t long after that when Eli realized the others couldn’t see her. One morning, as he walked down the hallway, Miss Julia passed right by him, humming to herself and carrying a basket of towels. She didn’t blink or flinch; she simply didn’t see the woman standing there, half-shadowed by the upstairs landing, smiling softly as Eli brushed past.

It wasn’t just Miss Julia; none of the kids reacted either. They didn’t respond when she stood by the playroom door or accompanied Eli down the back stairwell. She never touched anyone else or talked to them. She spoke only to him, and at first, only at night.

By the end of the week, however, she began to appear at odd times—mid-afternoon and early evening—always when no one was looking. She never announced her presence; she simply materialized nearby, watching and waiting for Eli to notice her.

At first, he tried to ignore her and convince himself he was imagining it. But then things started disappearing. His old shoebox of drawings was gone, along with the string bracelet one of the girls had made for him. A birthday card from Miss Julia turned up, torn in half, leaving behind only the words “To Eli.”

He found the bracelet in his closet one night, tucked into the folds of a dusty blanket. The string had been stretched out and tied into a loop, as if someone had worn it, or tried to.

The next night, she appeared at the edge of his bed once again. “You’ve been quiet,” she said.

Eli sat up slowly and replied, “You’ve been taking my things.”

“The things you loved are part of me now,” she said.

Her smile didn’t change, even when he stared at her and said clearly, “You’re not my mom.”

She tilted her head and asked, “Then why did you call for me?” He didn’t answer.

She moved closer, her arms opened wide. “You brought me here because you needed me,” she whispered. “That hasn’t changed.”

He turned away as her hand hovered just an inch from his shoulder.

“I’ll be nearby,” she said before backing into the dark.

He kept the lamp on until sunrise, only dozing off for an hour or so once he was certain she was gone.

* * * * * *

Trevor skipped breakfast again that day.

By that point, he hadn’t come down for meals in two days. Miss Julia chalked it up to another “mood episode” and let him be. That morning, she was short-tempered, spilling her coffee and snapping at one of the younger boys for chewing with his mouth open. Eli tried to ask if she’d checked on Trevor, but she waved him off with a tired shrug.

“He just needs time,” she said. “Some kids go quiet for a bit. That’s normal.”

Eli didn’t argue.

Later that afternoon, Eli found Trevor’s drawings again, spread out in the corner of the rarely used upstairs room. He turned the pages slowly, noting that each one was worse than the last. Once again, the hallway appeared, longer this time, twisted as if bent in the middle. Dark stains crept along the carpet in tendrils, and the candle at the center was drawn in black, the pencil lead rubbed until the page warped.

And then there was the woman. She appeared on nearly every page, sometimes standing, sometimes crouched, sometimes in pieces, but always smiling. Her hands were too long, her jaw too wide, and her hair resembled strips of cloth. Her eyes seemed empty, as if whatever lived behind them didn’t need to see, only to be seen.

Eli heard a creak behind him and quickly folded the papers. When he turned, the hallway was empty, but the light had gone out.

That night, she didn’t knock. She opened the door before he could even sit up and stepped into the room, sitting beside him as if she belonged there, folding her legs beneath her.

“I’m worried about you,” she said, her tone warm yet strained. “You’re pulling away, and it hurts me when you do that.”

Eli shifted toward the wall. “You said you’d stay nearby, not in my room.”

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I just want to sleep.”

She studied him for a long moment. He didn’t look up, but he sensed her watching, unmoving, still as a painting.

“You used to hum,” he said. “When I was little, before bedtime.”

She remained silent.

Eli finally looked at her. “You used to hum ‘Greensleeves,’ but you don’t do that now.”

She smiled. “I can hum something else if you like.”

“No,” he said. “That’s not the point.”

Her expression didn’t change, but Eli swore the temperature dipped the moment the words left his mouth.

“You’re not supposed to ask so many questions,” she said softly. “It’s better when you just let yourself be loved.”

Then she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Eli stared at the crack beneath the door for a long time, until at last the faint, flickering light beyond the threshold disappeared.

That night, he dreamed of Trevor standing in the hallway with a matchbook and a broken mirror, mouthing words that Eli couldn’t hear.

When he woke, he noticed fingertip-length scratches on the inside of the door, forming five fresh lines.

* * * * * *

Eli didn’t go to breakfast. He stayed in bed, facing the wall and listening to the house around him. He heard pipes groaning, a chair dragging across the kitchen tile, and Miss Julia’s voice rising and falling again, the usual rhythm. Yet beneath that, he sensed something was wrong.

He could feel her presence even before the door opened. She no longer bothered waiting for an invitation. The handle turned slowly, followed by the sound of her bare feet on the floor.

“Eli,” she said gently, “you haven’t looked at me today.”

He remained still.

“I know what’s wrong. You’re scared, but that’s just part of healing.”

He sat up. She stood a few feet away in the center of the room, holding something—his mother’s locket. The edges were now smudged and darkened, as if someone had buried it in damp soil.

“You said I called you,” he whispered.

She smiled. “You did.”

“I said her name. I wanted her back.”

“And here I am.”

“No,” he replied. “You’re not her. You’re a liar.”

Something flickered in her face for a moment, a slight twitch under the skin, as if another form were trying to escape.

“You brought me into this house. You gave me things she loved and let me in.” Her voice was calm, yet something low and rumbling lingered beneath it.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he argued.

“That doesn’t change anything,” she replied.

She stepped toward him, and he backed up, feeling the wall press against him.

“I’ve done so much for you, Eli. I’ve stayed and watched over you,” she continued. “No one else has done that. Not her. Not anyone. I’m all you’ve got left.”

He opened the drawer beside his bed, finding the lighter still there, untouched since the ritual. She noticed.

“I wouldn’t do that,” she warned.

The hallway door creaked behind her.

Trevor stood there, his hands shaking. In one hand, he held a lit candle, and in the other, a jagged shard of mirror, the length of a bookmark.

At first, Eli didn’t understand. That is, until Trevor tilted the mirror, angling it toward her, and the woman flinched.

Her smile remained, but her body recoiled slightly, one shoulder jerking back as if the reflection burned.

“Stop,” she said, still smiling.

Trevor took another step forward.

Eli noticed the candle’s reflection flickering inside the mirror, catching her face at an unexpected angle. In the glass, her expression cracked. Her lips split at the corners, and her eyes widened. Her face became a mask-like shell, devoid of depth. She opened her mouth, and the smile broke. There were far too many teeth, layer upon layer of them, causing Eli to recall Trevor’s drawings immediately.

Eli shuddered as Trevor stepped forward and pushed the mirror closer. The woman screamed, the unnatural shriek scraping against the walls and rattling the old glass in the windows. Eli dropped to the floor, covering his ears.

She lurched backward into the hallway, her limbs moving awkwardly and out of sync, as though a marionette’s strings had become tangled. The wallpaper peeled away as she passed, and the carpet smoldered beneath her feet. She slammed against the far wall and shrank, her shoulders hunching as her body compressed inward, folding into a shape too thin to support itself.

Trevor tossed the mirror fragment onto the floor. “Eli,” he said, his voice hoarse from disuse, “call her name again.”

Eli blinked up at him in confusion. “What?”

“The name of your mother. The real one,” Trevor insisted. “Just once. While you still can.”

Understanding washed over Eli, and he nodded, feeling his heart thudding in his chest as he said it again. “Danielle Carver!”

The hallway pulsed around them. For a brief moment, he felt her presence—his mother’s warmth, a soft touch, the curve of her shoulder as she crouched beside him—whole and undistorted.

The woman in the hallway howled as her face crumpled, her eyes collapsing into hollows of writhing darkness. Her limbs split along the joints; her fingers cracked and shattered. And then, just like that, she was gone. The candle extinguished with her, the hallway dimmed, and silence fell again.

Trevor knelt beside Eli, breathing hard and staring at the spot where she had stood.

“It never blinks,” he muttered, his voice raw. “That’s how you know. It watches, but it doesn’t see.”

Eli wiped his face with his sleeve, his hands trembling. The hallway appeared normal again, more or less, but it felt as if something had been peeled away. He turned to Trevor, questions swirling in his mind.

“The note,” Eli accused. “You knew what would happen.”

Trevor said nothing, his gaze fixed on the melted candle wax pooled on the carpet.

“You gave me the rules anyway,” Eli continued. “Why?”

Trevor looked down, his voice quiet. “It was the only way to stop it from following me.”

Eli’s stare deepened, disbelief creeping in.

“It doesn’t leave unless someone calls it again,” Trevor explained. “If no one ever finishes the ritual, it lingers. It attached itself to me. I thought maybe it would change focus, if someone else…” He swallowed hard, unable to finish the thought.

Eli leaned back slightly, his eyes burning with a mix of fear and anger. “You wanted it to come after me instead.”

“I’m sorry, Eli.”

The words hung between them—honest yet useless.

Eli turned away, unsure whether he wanted to cry or scream. Then Trevor added, “I stayed close, planning to help. I had to.” At least that part had been true.

“How did you know about the mirror?” Eli asked. “And about saying my mother’s name again?”

“This has been going on longer than you know,” Trevor said. “Just be glad it’s over.”

“You’re sure she’s gone?” Eli asked. “Forever?”

“I hope so.”

* * * * * *

The next morning, Miss Julia found both boys asleep in the hallway. At first, she said nothing. She crouched beside them in her robe and bare feet, brushing hair from Eli’s face. Her eyes flicked toward the scorch marks on the carpet, the melted wax, and the cracked scrap of mirror, and she sighed.

“Get up,” she said gently. “Both of you.”

They followed her into the kitchen, where she poured three cups of tea and then locked the door, drawing the curtain. “You’re not the first,” she said. “And God help me, you probably won’t be the last. But you will be the last on my watch.”

Her gaze moved from Trevor to Eli, devoid of anger but filled with the weary finality of someone who’d seen too much and held it in for too long. “I’ll clean the hallway myself, file it under fire damage, and call it an accident. But I need to hear you say it—promise you’ll never speak of this again. Not to the others. Not to each other. Not to anyone.”

Neither boy moved.

“I mean it,” she insisted. “This thing survives because people whisper. If you want out, promise me you’ll leave this behind you.”

Trevor nodded, and Eli did too, both understanding the weight of her words.

Miss Julia stood resolute. “I’ll expedite your placement, and I’ll make sure you end up in the same house. I know people.” She pointed a finger at them. “Give me a month, and you’ll be out of here. But this…” She gestured toward the hallway. “This never happened.”

She didn’t need to say more. Without another word, she left the kitchen and began scrubbing wax from the carpet before the others woke up.

* * * * * *

Miss Julia never brought up the incident again, but both Eli and Trevor noticed the change in her demeanor, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders overnight. From then on, and every day thereafter, she made more time for the kids, laughed more often, and started baking on the weekends for fun, for the first time in years. She didn’t take things as seriously, and sometimes, when it suited her, she even admitted she was wrong.

One afternoon, a few weeks later, a couple came by with the caseworker—a pair of soft-spoken people who didn’t flinch at Trevor’s silence or rush Eli through the interview questions. They brought puzzles and sketchbooks, and asked what the boys liked. They listened closely, laughing easily, and they came back, again and again.

Miss Julia signed the placement papers herself. As they were preparing for their departure, she handed each boy a sealed envelope containing a short note—nothing dramatic, just a single line handwritten in clean cursive: “You deserve peace. Make the best of it. I love you both.”

By spring, Trevor and Eli were packing side by side, preparing, as Miss Julia had promised, to move into a new home together with their adoptive family. Two suitcases, one framed photo, a sketchpad with new drawings, and a promise, shared in the backseat of a slow-moving car as the group home shrank behind them, that they would never dig up the past again. Though they would never forget their birth parents and would always miss them, they made a commitment to move on.

Neither boy looked back, and in time, they grew not only to love and care for their new family but also one another.

Behind them, in a place filled with memories that seemed more dreamlike with the passage of time, the hallway of their former foster home remained forever quiet. Of those remaining in the home, just one person remained who knew the rules of the Hallway Game.

And Miss Julia never said another word.

Yes, she’d acknowledged, she’d make a lot of mistakes over the years.

But she’d made sure this one ended with her.