The Wrong Knock

The house was unusually quiet that evening, the air thick with a kind of nervous anticipation. Tessa had spent the entire afternoon pacing the polished tiles of the grand sitting room, every sound magnified. The tick of the antique clock on the wall, the distant hum of traffic from the boulevard, the occasional clatter of pots from the kitchen where Ayisha was busy.

The house itself was no small house. Its wide, glass paneled windows looked out over trimmed hedges and a stone ...