Under the Cradle – Kobo eBook

Mariam Keene knows the sound of her grandmothers cradle. One runner lands softly. The other knocks twice. She made that repair as a teenager, and even now she could recognise the rhythm from another room.

She and her brother Adam are clearing the house before handing over the keys when Mariam finds a snake beneath the cradle. They back away, close the sewing-room door and keep watch through the glass. The cradle is still on the ground floor when Mariam hears it rocking directly above her.

The buyer is waiting. Their grandmothers belongings are almost gone. As the siblings try to make sense of what is happening, Mariam discovers that the house can carry a sound far from whatever made it. Someone who hears a familiar rhythm may go looking in exactly the wrong place. And every room they clear gives them one less reason to expect movement where they hear it next.

Adam remembers things about the house that Mariam has forgotten. Mariam can read a repair in a piece of wood as clearly as a date on a receipt. Neither knows enough to go back alone. As the handover approaches, they have to decide what to tell the people who are about to take their place inside.

Under the Cradle is a supernatural horror novel about the last days in a family home, the noise a beloved object makes in the dark, and the distance between hearing something familiar and knowing what is there.