Chapter 1 - The Locked DoorCaleb was supposed to be inside the family party.
He was supposed to be eating cake beside his cousins while music played through the Calloway mansion.
Instead, Margaret grabbed his wrist in the hallway.
“Come with me,” she said.
Caleb looked back toward the dining room. “My dad said I could have cake.”
“You can have it later.”
Her fingers tightened around his arm as she led him through the back door and across the dark yard. The storage room stood behind the pool house, cold and windowless.
“Grandma, why are we here?”
Margaret opened the metal door.
“Put your backpack inside.”
Caleb hesitated.
Inside were old boxes, gardening tools, and the smell of dust.
“Please,” he said. “I want to go back.”
Margaret’s expression did not change.
“You don’t share our blood,” she said. “You should learn not to expect a place at every table.”
Then she shoved him inside.
“Grandma!”
The door slammed.
The lock clicked.
Caleb hit the door with both hands.
“Please don’t lock me in!”
Outside, the party music grew louder.
No one heard him.
No one except Richard.
He had been standing near the patio doors when he heard a faint sound beneath the music.
A child crying.
“Caleb?” Richard called.
He followed the sound across the yard until he reached the storage room.
He pulled the handle.
Locked.
His face changed.
“Caleb, step away from the door.”
“Dad?”
Richard kicked the latch once. The lock snapped open.
Caleb ran into his father’s arms, shaking.
“She said I don’t belong.”
Richard held him tightly.
Then he looked into the storage room.
Caleb’s backpack lay open on the floor.
Beside it was an old photograph of Caleb’s mother, Elena.
And beneath the photo sat a silver locket Richard had never seen before.
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It was engraved with one word:
CALEB.
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