“No one is supposed to go in there, Camila,” Damián warned in his hollow voice, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses. “Those are personal documents and memories of Mr. Montenegro. Just dust. Don’t touch anything.”
The east wing was a maze of shadows. Heavy velvet curtains blocked out the sunlight, leaving the rooms dim and airless. Each of Camila’s footsteps echoed against the parquet floors, disturbing a silence that felt decades old.
At the center of the largest room—the so-called storage chamber—stood a pile of objects draped in white sheets, like motionless ghosts.
Camila worked quietly for nearly an hour, moving carefully, methodically.
Then she saw it.
Not a ghost—but something solid and unmistakably real.
A massive wooden trunk, dark and heavy, reinforced with bands of wrought iron. It was enormous, nearly the size of a small coffin.
As she wiped dust from the cold metal, she froze.
A sound.
At first, it was so faint she dismissed it. Old pipes, maybe. The house settling.
Then it came again.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Rhythmic. Deliberate.
Too intentional to be the wind.
Panic rose in her chest. Was it an animal trapped inside? A large rat?