“That’s your tapping,” he continued, matter‑of‑fact. “Draft comes through cracks in the aged timber. This chain—or whatever’s on it—swings against the door. Temperature drops at night, wood contracts just enough. Creates that rhythm you heard. No ghosts. Just physics in a forgotten space.”
Lucy nodded slowly, picturing it: cold air seeping through warped boards, nudging the chain, metal kissing wood in measured time. The sound she’d dreaded for weeks reduced to a simple mechanical echo of a room that had waited decades to breathe freely again.