Chapter 1 of Echoes In The Walls

The silence was the first thing that struck Jett Vale.

Not the silence that followed applause, or the kind found backstage after a blown amp. This was the silence of absence. Of something — or someone — once constant, now missing.

He stood in the middle of his cavernous living room, barefoot on cold stone tile, coffee cooling in one hand. The afternoon sun slanted through the oversized windows, casting gold across the empty furniture and dust that swirled in slow spirals. No voices. No footsteps. No heels clicking against the marble floors. Just the low mechanical hum of the refrigerator three rooms away, and the occasional sigh of the house settling on its own foundation.

It had been three weeks since Sierra left. No note, no public announcement. Just a suitcase, a car engine early in the morning, and the sudden absence of her toothbrush.

He didn’t blame her, exactly. Not anymore.

She’d told him, more than once, that he wasn’t all there. Not in the emotional sense — she’d given up on that long ago — but in a different, heavier way. Like parts of him were drifting. Like she’d talk to him and he wouldn’t remember they’d had the same conversation the day before. Or he’d tell the same story twice in one dinner. Or confuse her name with his first wife’s. Once, even with his bandmate’s.

The thing was, Jett didn’t feel like he was forgetting. He still knew every lyric to Midnight Voltage, still remembered the way the light hit the stage during that show in Rio. He just . . . lost track sometimes. No pun intended. He got caught in loops.

So now, it was just him. And the house.

He set the coffee on a table cluttered with unopened mail and guitar strings that hadn’t found a guitar. Then, with the careful slowness of a man who used to move fast, he dropped onto the couch. His knees cracked like old vinyl. Then he settled in, trying to maintain his breathing to something less than panting.

A faint shuffle echoed overhead.

He froze.

The house was big — six bedrooms, eight baths, and a recording studio that hadn’t seen use in two years. His second wife had wanted more space than she needed, and Jett, deep into his I’ll-do-anything-for-you phase, bought it without a blink. Now it just loomed, like a castle for one.

The sound came again. A soft step. Upstairs.

“Maria?” he called out.

No answer.

“Is that you?”

Still nothing.

He sat there, straining. The noise didn’t return. Just the rustle of leaves outside, dry wind slipping through the gaps in the old windows. Of course, it could be his not-so-young hearing. But he heard it. Twice.

Jett slowly got to his feet and made his way to the intercom panel on the wall. He pressed the kitchen button.

A click. Then: “Sí?”

“You up here, Maria?”

“No. Keetchen.”

He released the button, heart thumping harder than it should’ve. Probably the house settling. Again. Or some old ductwork expanding in the heat. He told himself that once, a couple of times.

But still.

The creak had sounded too much like a person taking a step.

_____

The next morning, Jett sat across from Avery in the sunroom, what there was of the manuscript open on the table. Avery — early 30s, glasses always sliding down her nose — was flipping through pages, red pen in hand. She worked like a graduate student grading a term paper, though Jett couldn’t remember if she’d ever said where she studied.

“You wrote about the band’s first label deal twice,” she said gently. “Once in chapter four, then again in seven, word for word.”

Jett blinked. “Did I?”

“Verbatim.”

He rubbed his jaw, stubble scratching beneath his fingertips. “Good eye. We can just cut the second one. Or combine it.”

“Sure.” She hesitated. “You okay today?”

He didn’t look at her. “Fine.”

They sat in silence a beat longer than comfort allowed. She returned her attention to the book.

Then he said, almost offhanded: “Heard something upstairs last night.”

Avery looked up. “Like what?”

He shrugged. “Steps. A door. I don’t know. Might’ve been the house.”

Avery didn’t respond immediately. He couldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t know what to say either.

“Maybe Kenneth should sweep the place again?”

Phrased as a question.

Jett shook his head. “I’m not crazy.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

The tension lingered. Then she moved on, reading aloud a sentence he’d written six months earlier: “The first time we sold out Madison Square Garden, I didn’t hear the crowd — I felt them, tasted them. Like blood in my teeth.”

“Still like that line,” she said.

He allowed a smile. “So do I.”

_____

That night, the sound returned.

It came at 2:13 a.m., according to the green digits on the alarm clock beside his bed. Jett had been half-dreaming, some hazy vision of a tour bus and a desert highway, when the creak of a floorboard pierced the quiet.

This time, it wasn’t overhead.

It was outside his room.

He sat up.

No footsteps now. No voices. Just the pressure of something out there — like a presence holding its breath.

He got out of bed, crossed the room quietly, and cracked open the door.

The hallway was empty.

He stood there for a long time, peering into the shadows.

Nothing moved.

But something had been there. He was sure of it.

_____

(c) Secret Agent Man
info@secretagentman.net