Welcome to case closed. You're listening to The Shadow House by Anna Downs, narrated by Natasha Beaumont and the author. Let's pick up where we left off last week.

Alex, Chapter 7.

Kara woke up from her nap, grouchy and miserable.

I held her close and sang her favorite songs,

but she wouldn't stop grisling.

Oh, poor baby, I crooned.

Those teeth are really giving you grief, eh?

She snuggled into me, whimpering.

I nuzzled her back, thinking of the boy on the bike and the note in my mailbox.

I remembered making up stories like that when I was a kid.

There'd been an old fungus-covered tree stump in our primary school playground,

and we'd all believed for years that if you touch the tree, you'd catch the fungus like a disease.

I'd had nightmares of mushrooms bulging under my skin like boils.

But something the kid said had spooked me.

She brings things, he'd said.

Something dead.

It made me think of the box I found on the doorstep, the bird

corpse inside. Of course I had enough worries without buying into a children's

story. While I breastfed Kara I watched Oll children's story.

While I breastfed Kara, I watched Ollie's video again.

Then I Googled Dark Web Mystery Box.

The results showed a surprising number of recent news reports,

...