Prologue: The Ghost in the Photograph

It began with a photograph—a grainy, sun-bleached image pulled from the microfilm archives of Floyd County, Indiana.

August 14th, 1986.

The rescue of three Dawson children from a collapsing farmhouse made headlines, but in the background, half-shadowed near the porch steps, stood a fourth child.

Barefoot, dirty blonde hair, her face turned toward the camera.

No one could identify her.

No records.

No name.

No follow-up.

Her image was cropped from the printed photo and forgotten.

Forty years later, May Dawson returned to the house she’d last seen at age eight.

She carried that photograph and a gnawing memory—a voice in the dark, a name she couldn’t place.

What she found beneath the porch would rewrite everything they thought they’d escaped.

 

Chapter 1: Return to Firebrush Lane

May’s rental car crunched up the gravel drive, tall grass swallowing the path as if the land itself remembered tragedy.

The house, sagging under the weight of rot and time, looked exactly as it should: haunted.

She parked under the rusted carport, the tin roof slumped like a broken spine.

She wore black slacks, a loose cotton shirt, and a messenger bag.

Inside: gloves, a flashlight, her phone, and the photograph.

The last time she stood here, social workers dragged her and her brother through a sea of beer bottles and newspapers.

She’d blocked most of it out, or so she thought.

Now, it all came rushing back.

May climbed the three front steps, pausing at the landing.

She pulled out the laminated photo—the one she’d printed from the county archives.

Three kids: May, her twin Mark, and baby sister Bethany.

But just over May’s shoulder, a fourth child.

A girl, maybe six or seven, long dirty blonde hair, no shoes, eyes caught mid-breath.

She wasn’t in the follow-up photos.

No name in any report.

May spent weeks combing case files.

Nothing.

Mark shrugged when shown the photo, “Probably a neighbor.” But May remembered something deeper—a tug, a name, a voice in the dark.

Standing on the porch again, she looked at the spot where the girl had stood.

Four decades later, the floorboards were warped, a long crack running down the center.

May crouched, fingers tracing the edge of a plank.

She felt a seam—a square, maybe three feet across.

A door.

Her heart thudded.

The trap door hadn’t been there in 1986, or perhaps it had been buried beneath garbage and silence.

She started a voice memo, documenting the moment, then slipped on gloves and pried at the wood with a crowbar.

Dry splinters cracked free.

It took three tries, but the board shifted, then lifted.

Beneath, a pitch-black square, five feet deep.

The scent of rotted fabric, mold, and metal hit her.

May gagged, shined her flashlight down.

Inside: tattered blankets, old dolls, plastic utensils, and a child’s shoe—a pink canvas Mary Jane with a star patch.

Dirt and hair clung to it.

In the dust, words scratched into the hatch: I am the fourth.

 

Chapter 2: The Trap Door and the Secret Below

May’s heart kicked in her chest.

She snapped a photo, hands shaking.

Her phone buzzed—Mark calling.

“You shouldn’t be there,” he said flatly.

“There’s a hatch under the porch, Mark.

Toys, clothes.

I think she was real.”

Mark paused.

“No,” but his voice was tight, hiding something.

“You’re lying,” May whispered.

For the first time in 38 years, she heard him breathe like someone remembering a nightmare.

“I didn’t think she’d still be there.”

Not *who*? Not *what are you talking about*? He knew.

May peered into the dark space.

The air was stale and sour.

She widened the opening, clicked her camera app, and began recording.

Narrating through her breath: evidence of a concealed compartment, found clothing items, a single child’s shoe, nesting materials, text etched into the side wall—*I am the fourth.* She lowered herself into the crawl space.

The space was narrow, claustrophobic.

Her head barely cleared the joists.

In the corner: a tiny plastic mirror, matted hairbrush, torn book pages—all faded, some shredded.

May picked up the mirror.

In its reflection, a faint outline on the wall—a drawing carved into the wood support beam: four stick figures, three with X’s, one circled, long hair.

A noise behind her—creaking.

May scrambled up, flashlight off, breath held.

Silence, then another noise, closer.

Before she could dial, a voice called from above: “Hello.

We’re with the sheriff’s department.

Step out onto the porch.”

 

Chapter 3: Official Eyes on Forgotten Evidence

Two deputies stood at the edge of the yard, hands resting on their belts.

“Miss Dawson?” one asked.

“Neighbor said someone was breaking into the house.”

May exhaled, adrenaline catching up.

“I own the house.

My aunt left it to me.

I have the documents.”

They weren’t convinced, but she gestured to the hatch.

“You’ll want to see this.”

The next 30 minutes moved fast.

She showed them the hatch, the shoe, the etchings.

Soon, Detective Howerin arrived—mid-50s, sun-weathered face, pale gray blazer.

He knelt by the trap door.

“You just found this today?” May nodded.

She handed him the photo.

Howerin studied it, face tightening.

“This is from the 1986 rescue, isn’t it?” May nodded again.

“She’s not listed,” he muttered, tapping the girl’s image.

“No name, no record of a fourth child.

You’re sure this isn’t a neighbor kid?”

May looked him square in the eye.

“No.

She lived here.

Someone made sure she was forgotten.”

Howerin looked back at the house, glowing amber in late afternoon light.

“We’re going to secure the site.

Forensics will need to go over every inch.

If there’s truth to this…” He didn’t finish.

They both knew what it meant.

The story they were told in 1986 was a lie.

 

Chapter 4: Memories Unlocked

That evening, May sat in her motel room, the photo in her hands.

Her phone buzzed—a message from an unknown number: *Stop digging.

There was no fourth child.*

May’s hands went cold.

She looked back at the photo, at the barefoot girl half-shadowed by the porch.

Forgotten by time, erased from the record.

Her eyes stared right through the lens.

Then why did May remember her name?

 

Chapter 5: The Name in the Shadows

May 4th, 2024.

Floyd County Sheriff’s Office.

The same linoleum floors, coffee-stained furniture, cracked bulletin board with missing posters curling at the edges.

May remembered being here—but more the feeling, a thick, sour dread.

Detective Howerin led her into a small interview room.

He pressed record.

“Detective John Howerin, Floyd County Sheriff’s Office, May 4th, 2024.

Interview with May Dawson regarding the 1986 rescue and newly discovered evidence of a potential fourth minor.”

He asked how she found the photo.

“County archive,” May said.

“I saw the cropped version online.

Just me, Mark, Bethany.

But the full version… it felt wrong, like something had been erased.

When I looked closer, I saw her—the fourth kid.”

Had she seen her before? “Yes,” May said quietly.

“I think I remembered her.

Not clearly.

But when I saw the photo, I knew her face.

I knew the name, even if I couldn’t say it right away.”

Howerin leaned forward.

“Can you say it now?”

May stared at the table.

Whispered, “Kala.”

 

Chapter 6: Echoes from the Crawl Space

May described the crawl space: the pink shoe, dolls, mirror, writing—*I am the fourth,* drawing of four stick figures, three X’d, one circled.

Forensics combed the house.

The crawl space had been occupied—how long, no one knew.

May exhaled.

“So, I’m not crazy.”

“No,” Howerin said.

“You’re not.

And you may have just reopened a forgotten case.”

 

Chapter 7: The Index Card and the Chain

May found an index card in the trailer behind the house, labeled: unnamed, bright hair, unregistered.

Her blood ran cold.

They had cataloged her like property.

Never gave her a name.

The next morning, forensics widened the trap door.

Beneath the porch, the crawl space extended further than May realized—an L-shaped bend under the stairs.

Dugout pit, a child’s mattress, molded and discolored.

The walls: deep scratch marks, groups of four, desperate.

Above the pit, nailed into the joist: a wooden sign, hand-carved, burned at the edges.

*Princess Pit.*

Beside the mattress: tangled rope, pink plastic chain links, a ripped nightgown with faded unicorns, a ceramic dish with a shriveled bouquet of dandelions—a child’s attempt at a gift.

A ventilation grill embedded in the wall’s support beam, a narrow chute wide enough to pass objects through.

Inside: a scrap of paper, childlike handwriting in red crayon.

*Dear May, you knocked back.

Thank you.

I’m still waiting.

I’m still here.

I’m not scared anymore.*

May remembered the knocking, the rhythm.

She used to call it the wall game.

Four taps, then three, then one.

She thought it was Mark, but it was Kala.

 

Chapter 8: Conditioning and Control

Back at the sheriff’s office, evidence laid out: dish, doll fragments, shoe, gown, crayon note, carved beam.

May’s parents were arrested for neglect, not abuse.

They claimed three children.

No records of a fourth.

What if they hid her before CPS arrived? What if she was never supposed to be found?

That night, another message: *Do not dig the garden.

She was never planted.

She was discarded.*

May’s fingers shook.

Someone was watching.

Someone who knew the house, who used the same language as back then: discarded, unregistered, bright hair.

She stared into the mirror.

For the first time in 38 years, she remembered a lullaby sung through the slats at night:

*Fourth is not a name to say.

Fourth will be the one to stay.

One for food and two for light, three for sleep, and four for night.*

Kala was the fourth.

She was never meant to leave.

 

Chapter 9: The Conditioning Room

May found a tunnel beneath the hall rug—a man-made shaft, wood-paneled, soundproof foam, camera mount.

Inside: a metal chair bolted to concrete, tray of vintage My Little Pony toys, a cracked mirror etched in red crayon:

*I am the fourth.

They said I failed.

I hate pink.

I am not bad.*

This was where they broke her.

Mark called.

“She never passed their test.

They called her defective, disobedient, said she couldn’t be reformed like we were.”

“We were children,” May said, voice cracking.

“Why didn’t you tell me she existed?”

“Because I didn’t know until they took her away.

They erased her, May, like she was a mistake.

I was seven.

I didn’t understand.

But I remember the day she stopped singing through the wall.

They told me it was a dream.”

“She was real.”

“I know,” Mark whispered.

“Now I remember.”

 

Chapter 10: The Furnace Room and the Doll

May pried open the furnace room—sealed shut by layers of paint, as if the house tried to bury it.

Inside, a porcelain doll, scorched, cracked, one eye missing.

Across the hemline in faded red marker: *Kala.*

Her mother had forbidden porcelain dolls.

“Eyes like spies,” she used to say.

“They watch you.

Whisper things at night.” So who gave this one a name?

May handed the doll to Howerin.

“I think they burned her things.

One at a time.

After she was taken.”

“We’re checking all missing children reports from 1980 to 1986,” Howerin said.

“But if she was never documented, she’ll never be found in a system.”

“Unless we find her,” May replied.

Howerin handed her an old floor plan, drawn in pencil, labeled rooms.

In the center: *my room, but not allowed.* Stick figures behind bars, one circled.

“It was hers,” May whispered.

“Kala’s room.

Not allowed.”

 

Chapter 11: The Confession

May visited her mother in long-term care.

Dileia Dawson, age 81, diagnosed with dementia, post-stroke aphasia.

May placed the photo on the table—cropped and original.

“Who is she?” May asked.

Dileia blinked, eyes on the window.

Soft as breath: “Four was too loud.

Four tried to bite.

Four didn’t sleep.

Four didn’t listen.

So four had to be quiet.”

“What happened to her?”

“He buried her where the light doesn’t go.”

 

Chapter 12: The Buried Room

May and Howerin found another tunnel beneath the living room.

The tunnel led to a buried room—child-sized rocking chair, bed frame, princess blanket, plastic sheeting.

Inside: bones, small, curled in a fetal position, clutching a ceramic butterfly.

May whispered, “I gave her that.

I dropped it through the grate.

When she cried at night, I gave it to her.”

On the wall behind the bed, etched with fingernail or broken shard: *I was the fourth.

My name was Kala.

Please don’t forget me.*

The remains were sent to the county coroner.

DNA testing would follow, but everyone already knew who it was.

Howerin asked, “Do you want to testify if this goes to trial?”

May shook her head.

“I want to bury her.

I want to give her a name.

I want to put a stone in the ground and mark it with her real name—not a number, not a failure.

Kala.”

 

Chapter 13: The Notebook and the Others

In her childhood bedroom, May found a notebook sewn into a stuffed rabbit.

Inside, child’s handwriting: *If I’m not here, I’m still here.

Find the butterflies.

I am Calla.

I was loved once.*

Pages filled with drawings: butterflies, spirals, stars.

Beneath each, a name.

Not hers, not Mark’s, not Bethany’s, but others: Angela, Tessa, Meera, Eve, Calla.

Each drawing led to a place: beneath the stairs, inside the trailer, behind the wall, in the furnace room.

May pointed to a drawing: *mirror trailer next to the fan.* Forensics found more index cards: subject number five, Tessa, too small, relocated.

Subject number seven, Meera, defective, quiet room.

Subject number eight, Angela, compliant, transferred.

May stared at the word *relocated* and felt her stomach turn.

This wasn’t just abuse.

It was a system—a selection process.

Her parents hadn’t been the only ones involved.

 

Chapter 14: The Wall Girl

May found another face in the rescue photo—a sliver of a second face, blurred, camouflaged by the siding.

Not Kala, not May.

Another girl.

Forensics uncovered a hidden hatch in the west wall.

Inside: broken slats, a flattened pillow, tattered bedding, plastic Hello Kitty cup.

A name scratched into the wood: *Elise.*

Hundreds of tally marks etched, some crossed, some circled.

Not seen, not chosen, not pretty, not loud.

Still here, still me.

A torn photograph on the shelf: three girls, all strangers.

One wore a tag: number nine.

On the back: *They took the ones who listened.*

 

Chapter 15: The Recordings

A forensic tech found a tiny magnetic microphone behind the furnace room floor vent.

Old tech, but it would have picked up everything.

In Elise’s hidden space, a cracked tape recorder labeled: *I am still here.*

May and Howerin listened.

The tape hissed, then a small voice: “My name is Elise.

I live in the wall.

I am not supposed to speak, but if you’re hearing this, I’m still here.”

She described being put behind the furnace, crying too loud, moved to the crawl space, counting spiders.

When she learned to stop crying, they gave her the wall.

She was quiet, so they let her listen.

“The other kids didn’t last long.

Some ran, some got sick.

One girl stopped eating.

Calla was the one who hummed.

I liked her.”

She was a watcher, a recorder.

If she was still enough, she’d get to stay.

The others were failures.

She was functioning static.

“They made me record what the others did, what they said.

I had a button.

If they disobeyed, I was supposed to press it.

Sometimes I did.

Sometimes I didn’t.

When Kala disappeared, I stopped pressing it.”

Her last tape: “If they find it, I’ll be gone.

But maybe you’ll hear me.

Maybe you’ll remember me.

Because if I disappear and no one remembers me, then maybe I really wasn’t ever real.”

 

Chapter 16: The System Exposed

May laid out the butterfly codes.

Each symbol led to a place, each place had once hidden something or someone.

She traced Calla’s entry: *Me, Blue Butterfly, alone.*

There was one more: *There was one more, but I never saw her face.

I think she lived in the wall.*

May whispered, “You weren’t alone.”

Howerin called in a forensic crew.

The trailer yielded more index cards, each documenting another child—relocated, transferred, defective, compliant.

May realized this wasn’t just about her family.

It was a system.

Children selected, cataloged, moved, erased.

 

Chapter 17: The Forgotten Graves

The investigation expanded.

Forensic crews excavated every spot listed in Kala’s notebook.

The shed, the trailer, the furnace room.

Each location yielded evidence—fragments of lives, names, symbols, and, sometimes, remains.

May attended each site, refusing to leave.

She wanted to give each child a name, a stone, a place in the world.

Not a number.

Not a failure.

The county coroner matched DNA samples.

Some children were identified, others remained Jane Does.

But they were no longer forgotten.

 

Epilogue: Remembering Kala

May stood at the edge of the yard, the house taped off, crime scene crews crawling through the shadows of her childhood.

She held the ceramic butterfly, cracked but bright.

She’d made it in first grade, a Mother’s Day gift.

Her mother never took it, so she gave it to the girl in the wall.

She whispered, “She remembered me.”

Her phone buzzed—unknown number: *You dug too deep.

Now the others will come.*

May turned the phone off, flushed the SIM card, and sat in silence.

Somewhere, in the echo of bones unearthed, she heard the old knock again.

Four taps, then three, then one.

She returned to her childhood bedroom, found a notebook sewn into a stuffed rabbit.

Inside, Kala’s handwriting: *If I’m not here, I’m still here.

Find the butterflies.

I am Calla.

I was loved once.*

May traced her fingers across the entry: *Me, Blue Butterfly, alone.*

“You weren’t alone,” she whispered.

And for the first time, she said Kala’s name aloud—not in fear, not in confusion, but in defiance.

The wind answered like a whisper behind the boards.

 

The Forgotten Fourth: A Name Restored

The truth of the Dawson House was buried beneath decades of silence, denial, and rot.

But May Dawson unearthed it, piece by piece.

She gave Kala a name, a story, and a grave.

No longer a number, no longer a failure.

She was the fourth.

She was Kala.

And she was loved.

 

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