31/07/2026
The Neighborhood Tea Presents
The Monday Morning Letters
Episode 10: The Voice Upstairs
The footsteps stopped.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
The five women stood frozen in Grace Holloway's hidden room, their flashlights cutting thin beams through the darkness.
Above them...
The old library floor creaked.
Once.
Then again.
Whoever was upstairs...
Wasn't walking anymore.
They were standing still.
Listening.
Mattie slowly lowered her flashlight.
In the silence, they could hear it.
Breathing.
Very faint.
Very slow.
Willie Mae whispered,
"Lord... whoever that is knows we're down here."
Evelyn's face lost its color.
"They've found the room."
Then...
A voice.
Soft.
Calm.
Almost impossible to hear.
It floated through the old floorboards.
"You're asking the wrong questions."
Every woman looked up.
Mattie called out.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
Only silence.
Then...
Three slow knocks echoed from directly above them.
Knock...
Knock...
Knock...
Bernice gripped Mattie's arm.
"That's not somebody trying to get in."
Mattie looked up.
"They're letting us know..."
"...they know exactly where we are."
Without warning...
The old cassette recorder crackled back to life.
No one touched it.
Grace's voice filled the room once more.
"If you're hearing this..."
"...don't answer the voice."
The women stared at one another.
The recorder clicked off.
The silence returned.
Then the voice upstairs laughed.
Not loudly.
Just enough for every one of them to hear.
A quiet...
Almost familiar...
Laugh.
Willie Mae closed her eyes.
"I've heard that laugh before."
Everyone turned toward her.
"You have?"
She nodded slowly.
"I just can't remember where."
Mattie walked to the staircase.
One careful step.
Then another.
The others followed close behind.
When they reached the top...
The library was empty.
The front door was still locked.
Every window remained nailed shut.
No one could have left.
And yet...
No one was there.
Doris suddenly pointed toward the front desk.
"Look..."
Resting neatly on the dusty checkout counter was another cream-colored envelope.
It hadn't been there before.
Mattie picked it up.
Across the front, written in the same elegant handwriting, were the words:
"You finally found Grace."
Her hands trembled as she opened it.
Inside...
There wasn't a letter.
There was a map.
An old hand-drawn map of Magnolia Oaks.
Every house was marked.
Every street carefully labeled.
But one location had been circled in red.
Not the library.
Not Grace's house.
Not the church.
It was...
The Magnolia Oaks Cemetery.
Across the bottom of the map, Grace had written seven chilling words.
"The truth was never buried in the library."
To Be Continued...
As the women quietly left the library...
None of them noticed the upstairs balcony.
Hidden behind the shelves...
A figure stood perfectly still.
Watching them.
Waiting.
As the last woman stepped outside...
The figure whispered into the empty library:
"They're finally close."
The library lights went dark.
One by one.
Until only the moonlight remained.
