The wardrobe arrived with a certificate explaining that its wood had been rescued from the sea.
Iris liked that. Their new flat was full of cheap things pretending to be older things. Here was something with a history, sanded and oiled until it smelled faintly of oranges.
She put the certificate in the kitchen drawer. The delivery men refused tea and left before her husband came home.
That night, a sleeve dripped onto her shoes.
She thought a pipe had burst. But the wall behind the wardrobe was dry, and the water tasted of salt when she wiped it from her lip. Joel checked the ceiling, then the apartment above. Nothing.
By morning the wardrobe was dry.
The seller said sea wood sometimes retained moisture. He suggested leaving the doors open during the day.
On the second night, Iris heard knocking.
It came from the back panel, below the coats. Three knocks, a pause, then three more. She moved the wardrobe away from the wall. The knocking continued inside the wood.
"There's something in it," she told Joel.
He removed the coats. Their daughter Cleo stood in the bedroom doorway holding a glass of water.
"It does that when you're at work," she said.
Iris looked at her.
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"The lady said you knew."
Joel put the coats on the bed. He took a screwdriver to the back panel. The screws were decorative; beneath them, the wood continued without a joint.
Iris called the seller again. Voicemail. She left a message with the wardrobe's stock number, then called Joel's sister and asked whether they could come over. She was half an hour away and said she was coming to fetch them.
Joel pushed a chest of drawers against the wardrobe doors. While he packed a bag, Iris sat with Cleo on the living-room sofa, searching the seller's name. She kept one arm around her daughter.
Other accounts appeared under slightly different names. Restored maritime timber. Exclusive salvage. A photograph of their wardrobe in another apartment, with a review praising how well it suited a child's room.
The seller's return form promised collection within five working days. Iris submitted it anyway. Cleo's glass of water was still on the table; she watched its surface for movement, then closed the page and checked how far away the car was.
At half past two, Cleo began talking in her sleep.
"You have to push it. It opens this way."
Iris woke her. Cleo cried because she had nearly helped the woman get out.
In the bedroom, the chest of drawers scraped across the floor.
Joel shouted. Iris reached the doorway as the wardrobe opened. There was no back panel now. Beyond the hanging rail, water stood vertically in the darkness, held in place like glass. Shapes moved on the other side.
A woman's hand pressed against the surface.
Joel put his shoulder against one door. Iris took the other. Together they pushed until the gap narrowed. The hand followed, squeezing between the doors, fingers searching for the handle.
Cleo came down the hall before either of them could get back to her.
"She can't breathe," she said.
The woman in the water opened her mouth. Iris saw other mouths behind it, pale ovals stretching into the dark. Their feet hung beneath them. There was no floor.
Cleo stepped forward and reached for the hand.
Iris let go of the door to catch her. The opening widened, and the water came through with the force of a breaking window.
The hand caught Cleo's wrist and pulled her against the escaping water, lifting her off her feet.
Iris caught her pajama collar. She felt it tear in her fist. Joel grabbed the child's arm, but Iris had already gone through the opening after her, one leg disappearing into water that had no room to exist.
Hands closed around Iris's ankle.
She pushed Cleo toward Joel. For a moment she could see the bedroom through a wavering rectangle: their cheap lamp, the abandoned coats, her husband pulling their daughter onto the bed.
Then the hands pulled her farther in.
She couldn't find the hanging rail. She couldn't find anything solid. The people around her were opening their mouths against her face, trying to take the breath she was holding.
Through the doorway Joel reached for her. Their fingers touched once, and slipped.
Water was crossing the bedroom toward the living room. Cleo lay coughing on the bed. Joel looked at her, then at Iris.
Iris saw him understand what closing the doors would do.
She put both palms against the water and tried to push herself through. Someone gripped her hair from behind.
Joel closed the wardrobe.
The water on the floor remained. He waded through it to his daughter and called an ambulance. He told the operator his wife was trapped inside a wardrobe. The operator asked him to repeat the address.
By daylight the rescue crew had cut the furniture apart. Behind the back panel was the bedroom wall. They found no hidden space and no body. The wet boards lay across the pavement while a police officer took photographs.
Joel kept one of the doors. He'd put all his weight against it while Iris was on the other side.
That night, Cleo heard her mother knocking from the hall cupboard where he'd put it. Joel sent her to stay with her aunt.
Alone in the flat, he tried to speak to Iris through the wood. The voice used her old nickname for Cleo and asked him to bring the girl closer.
