Clara stared at her father.
“Dad… what does he mean?”
Her father didn’t answer.
For the first time in Clara’s life, she saw something she had never seen in him before.
Fear.
The boy wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
“My mom told me not to come here.”
“Then why did you?” Clara asked.
He looked at her.
“Because she knew you deserved to know.”
Her father stepped forward.
“Don’t listen to him.”
The boy shook his head.
“She told me everything before she died.”
Clara’s face went pale.
“Your mother is dead?”
The boy nodded.
“She worked here when you were little.”
He looked at Clara’s father.
“She said you weren’t born unable to walk.”
Clara’s father closed his eyes.
The boy continued.
“When you were three, you could run through this garden.”
Clara stared at her father.
“Is that true?”
Still no answer.
Then the boy pulled the red scarf from his wrist.
Hidden beneath it was a small silver key.
“My mother gave me this.”
Her father suddenly stepped backward.
“Where did you get that?”
“She said it opens the room you locked after the accident.”
Clara’s eyes widened.
“What accident?”
Her father finally looked at his daughter.
And his voice broke.
“You were never supposed to remember.”
Clara tightened her grip around her crutches.
“What happened to me?”
The boy stepped closer.
“My mom said someone caused the accident.”
The garden became completely silent.
Clara looked at her father.
Then at the key.
Then back at her father.
“Who?”
Her father couldn’t speak.
The boy answered for him.
“Your father knows.”
And then, from inside the mansion, an old alarm suddenly began ringing.
Everyone turned toward the house.
The locked room had just been opened.
And whatever was inside was about to reveal who had really destroyed Clara’s childhood.
