“I am not going in there, lady,” the locksmith said, backing out of our bedroom so fast his metal toolbox slammed against the doorframe.

I stood there in the middle of our brand new master bedroom, my hands covered in white plaster dust, just staring at him. He didn’t even wait for his payment. He just scribbled a receipt on the wall, took his $180 cash, and practically ran down our creaky wooden stairs.

My husband, Dan, looked at me, then back at the gaping hole in our wall. We had just bought this house. It was an old foreclosure in a quiet, heavily wooded area of Vermont, right outside of Rutland. We got it for $275,000, which felt like an absolute steal.

We spent every single penny of our life savings to buy this place. We wanted a quiet life, away from the noise of Boston. Dan had been working in construction for twenty years, and his back was starting to give out. We just wanted to settle down, grow some vegetables, and fix up an old house together.

Our realtor, Brenda, had been a godsend. Or at least, that is what we thought at the time. She was a warm, middle-aged woman who always wore bright yellow scarves and smelled like lavender and vanilla. She met us at the Bluebird Diner on Route 7 and told us she had the perfect property.

“It has good bones,” Brenda had told us, smiling over her coffee mug. “The bank just wants it off their books. You two can turn this into a paradise. Trust me.”

We did trust her. She was so sweet. She brought us apple cider from the local orchard and even helped us find a local plumber. When we asked about the previous owner, she waved her hand dismissively. She said it was an old man who had vanished after falling behind on his taxes. She said it was sad, but very common in these parts.

So, we signed the papers. We moved in during a cold, wet week in October. The leaves were turning brown, and the wind had a sharp, damp bite to it. We started renovations immediately.

We started in the master bedroom closet. It was an unusually large walk-in closet, but the layout was incredibly awkward. One of the back walls felt solid and cold, completely different from the rest of the plaster. Dan, being the stubborn man he is, decided he wanted to tear it down to make built-in cedar shelving.

I remember sitting on the floor, sorting through our winter coats, when Dan took the first swing with his sledgehammer. The sound was incredibly loud in the small closet. But instead of the soft crunch of drywall, there was a dull, metallic clang.