Chapter Eighty-Eight:  The Breathing

Walls

POV: Clara

The house wasn’t breathing when I fell

asleep.

But it was when I woke.

The first sound I heard wasn’t rain or

wind—it was the slow, rhythmic pulse of air moving through wood and stone. The

walls expanded and contracted like lungs. The floorboards rose with every

inhale, exhaled dust with every sigh. The air tasted of iron and heat, ...