Page 23

With Eve in tow, Thomas returned to the kitchen. The rest of his family was planted around Eve’s dinner table acting like it was their own. Paige, Jenny, Newton, and Kai, all dressed in Sunday casual. They stared at Eve as if she was the one who didn’t belong.

Thomas lingered at the kitchen’s threshold. “Your auntie was in the foyer,” he explained, patting Eve on the back like a car salesman touting an obvious lemon. He pulled up a chair and motioned Eve to sit. She remained standing, anchored to the floor, still processing the absurd sight before her.

“Emma?” Thomas nudged.

Eveclenched her jaw, put on another smile. Play along. She wandered over and sat.

Thomas’s eyes flitted to his children, then back to Eve. “Did you want to tell the kids what happened?” He sat down next to Paige.

“I…” Eve surveyed the family’s faces. Just like Thomas, everyone was performing their roles perfectly, right down to the most minute details: Jenny blinking wide, her tiny hands gripped tightly around a plastic juice cup. Newton avoiding eye contact, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Kai, more impatient than afraid, tapping his fingernails against a plate, an aggravating ting-ting-ting… ting-ting-ting rhythm. And Paige? Paige was just about glaring into Eve’s very soul, as if she wanted to rip it out and cast it straight into the fires of hell. Stay focused, Eve. Play along. “I— I was just looking for some tools, to hang some paintings up,” Eve lied. Thomas gave a single nod: good enough. The kids nodded too, slightly calmer, but Paige kept glowering. She wasn’t buying it.

Right then, Shylo trotted in from the living room, not a care in the world. Eve’s heart skipped a beat, but…

The dog ignored her, went straight to Thomas’s side, sat, and stared up at him, eyes big, tail wagging. “Good girl.” He reached down and scratched “Shylo” behind the ears. Her tail wagged faster. He leaned back, the dog still gazing up, eyes locked on his plate of steak now. “Shylo,” he chided, “no begging.”

Fake Shylo barely turned away, eyes still glued to Thomas’s dinner.

“Go to your bed.” Thomas pointed into the living room. Reluctant, the dog started to slink away, but… upon noticing Eve, she froze, tensed up, and whined.

“Emma’s okay, Shylo,” Thomas hushed. “You know her…”

The dog slinked out of the room, tail between her legs.

Thomas looked to Eve. “She’ll warm up to you one of these days.”

Unblinking, Eve nodded. “Uh-huh…”

A sharp gust of wind slammed against the barred windows and the house lights flickered. Thomas looked outside, shaking his head. “These storms get worse every year.” He clicked his tongue, turned back. “Hopefully the power holds out.”

Paige wrapped her fingers around the handle of a serrated knife. “Your auntie will be moving out soon, kids.” She cut into her steak, red oozing from the veins of the undercooked meat.

Kai and Newton offered uninterested mumbles in response. Jenny just sat there, eyes on Eve, head tilted, as if she could sense something was off but couldn’t put a finger on it. Then, Jenny narrowed her gaze and said, “Uhm… Auntie Emma?”

Evewasn’t sure how much longer she could keep this charade going. PLAY ALONG, that nothing voice demanded.

“Yes, Jenny…?” Eve said.

Jenny scratched her nose. “What happened to your tattoo?”

“I’m sorry?” Eve had never had a tattoo in her life. Never even had a fleeting interest in getting one—she was far too indecisive to do something so… permanent.

Jenny pointed. “The—your wrist tattoo,” she said. “It’s gone.”

Eve looked down at her own wrist, bare skin.

“Jenny,” Thomas interjected, “your aunt never had a tattoo…”

Jenny furrowed her brow. “Oh?”

Thomas chuckled. “Looks like somebody’s got a case of the gets.” He went back to eating, unconcerned.

But Jenny kept her eyes on Eve’s wrist, still skeptical.

Kai, mouth full of food, interjected. “You’re going crazy, Jen-bug.” He poked her shoulder. “We’re gonna have to throw you in a looney bin, just like—”

“Kai,” Paige hissed, “enough.”

But Paige was too late. Jenny’s eyes were already wide with renewed fear. “I— I’m crazy?”

Newton, sounding slightly more confident than Eve remembered, swooped in to save the day. “You’re probably just getting mixed up with the time we went to the fair, Jenny.”

Jenny blinked at him. “What…?”

Newton pushed up his glasses with a thumb. “When we all got those wash-off tattoos.”

“Oh.” Jenny nodded. Somehow, that seemed to calm her down, if only a little. She went back to her food. As everyone carried on eating, Eve’s eyes locked onto a speck of dirt stuck to her place mat. All sound droned into white noise until—

“Emma?” Paige chimed.

Evelooked up.

Paige blinked at her, expecting an answer to yet another question Eve hadn’t heard. “You were going to explain your reasoning,” Paige prodded, “for moving out?”

“Oh…” Eve cleared her throat and turned to the kids. Silent, they awaited her answer. “I…” Eve struggled to come up with a lie. “I just think it’s time to… for me to be on my own, get out of the house. Feels like the right thing.”

“Well,” Thomas jumped in, “you’ll certainly be missed. But I think we can all agree: change is an opportunity in disguise.” He looked around the table, almost like he expected applause. Crickets. He went back to eating.

Paige, her tone apathetic, looked at Eve and recited, “We stand behind you, one hundred percent. You’ve already come so far.”

Eve managed to fake yet another smile. She didn’t know how many more she had left. Hell, at this point she was just about ready to flip the table and start breaking shit until they told her where Charlie was, showed her the nearest exit to this upside-down nightmare, and—

“So.” Paige took a sip of water, ice cubes clinking in the glass. “How goes the apartment search?”

Eve hesitated, then lied again. “It— It’s going okay…?”

“Well, that’s good,” Thomas remarked, as if the topic required no further discussion. He turned to his daughter and abruptly shifted the subject. “How was school this week?”

Jenny gave a little shrug, poked at her food. “I— I don’t know.”

“Wow, you don’t know? That’s a first,” Thomas teased.

Jenny smiled, sheepish.

Thomas leaned forward. “You gotta tell me one thing that happened,” he said. “Just one thing, that’s all I ask.”

Jenny laughed a bit. “Okay, um… There— There was this dog in class on Friday.”

“A dog?” said Thomas with exaggerated surprise. “What’s a dog doing in a school?”

“It— it was a Seeing Eye dog,” Jenny replied, bashful.

Thomas quirked an eyebrow and pretended he wasn’t familiar with the concept. “A Seeing Eye dog?”

“It’s a dog that… it helps blind people walk around.” Jenny beamed.

“Wow. A professional dog.”

Jenny tilted her head. “What’s that?” she asked.

“Professional?”

“Yup.”

“It’s when you get paid for your work.”

“Oh, I…” Jenny shook her head. “I don’t think the dog gets paid.”

“Well.” Thomas wiped his mouth with a napkin. “It should.”

“Maybe with treats?” said Jenny, sincere.

Thomas chuckled, glancing over at Eve—the way a proud parent did, his eyes filled with: Isn’t she cute?

For a moment, Eve almost forgot everything else that was going on. As if this bizarre facade was somehow just a typical family dinner, but then Paige cut in, killing the mirage. “Emma. What about your friend in the city?”

Evejolted back into the present. “What?”

Paige gulped down another mouthful of steak. “Your ex, Charlotte, does she still own that apartment in Portland?”

Of course Charlie’s name is Charlotte here.

Thomas cut in. “Paige, I don’t think they’re—”

“I’m just saying.” Paige threw up her hands, striking a martyr’s pose. “Maybe Charlotte would help Emma out… Considering their past.”

Thomas shook his head, holding back. “We can figure something else out.”

Paige bristled. “Heaven forbid I actually try to find a timely solution.”

Charlotte. My ex in the city. All right.

Thomas sprinkled salt over his steak. “I’m— We’re not doing this right now. If Emma can’t find a place, we’ll figure something out. And don’t feel rushed.” He looked at Eve. “You can always stay a bit longer if needed.”

Paige grumbled and got up from the table. Without saying a word, she strode to a nearby cupboard and grabbed a bottle of Eve’s favorite red wine. Perusing it for an extra moment, she snagged the corkscrew. Eyes fixed on Eve, she sat back down, twisting the corkscrew into the bottle as another blast of ruthless wind banged against the house. The lights sputtered, a quick succession of tiny blackouts rippling through the room, until—

Darkness. Power outage. If it weren’t for the orange glow of the living room fireplace, it would’ve been pitch black. Thomas released an exasperated sigh. “Great… I’ll get the candles.” He pushed himself up from the table and stalked out of the kitchen. His footsteps receded into the foyer, marched up the stairs.

All the while, Paige, aglow in the fire’s distant light, kept cranking on that corkscrew, glaring at Eve. Then, with a hollow thwop, she popped the cork. Still staring at Eve, she poured until her glass was nearly full. Right to the brim. Eve, horrified at the thought of a drunken Paige, opened her mouth to say something, but… that was when she finally noticed, around Paige’s neck, a brass necklace, adorned with an oval locket.

Charlie’s necklace?

Eve reached into her own pocket. Charlie’s locket was gone. She checked her other pocket. GONE. Her eyes snapped back to Paige—that was Charlie’s necklace. There was no mistaking it. A flash flood of emotions followed: Confusion. Sorrow. Fear. Rage. The rage started in her temples and spread like fire, setting ablaze her arms, legs, every single extremity. “W-where’d you get that?” The words slipped out in a whisper, Eve’s voice shaking like a pot about to boil over.

“Hmm?” Paige looked toward her.

“The necklace.” Eve gritted her teeth. “Where’d you find it?”

Paige gave a slow, bovine blink. “Oh… an antique store.” Paige held it up and flicked it open—empty. “Haven’t decided what to put in it yet.” She clasped it shut and took a sip of wine. “Why do you ask?”

Without thinking, Eve shot to her feet. The table rattled, and the room plunged into silence. Paige frowned, confused. The kids froze, gaping up at Eve, eyes wide.

“Emma?” Paige set down her wine. “Is something wrong?”

Eve said nothing.

“Emma,” Paige continued, her words careful, like she was attempting to defuse a volatile bomb. “If I— If I said something that upset you, it wasn’t my intention, I…” Paige kept blathering on, but Eve wasn’t there anymore. She was in the past—memories playing out in her head. Those strange, little moments that stood out more and more as time went on. The way Charlie snorted when she laughed sometimes, then laughed even harder out of embarrassment. The way Charlie’s face lit up every time she saw a dog stick its head out a car window. The way she wrapped her arms around Eve from behind and nuzzled her chin into her neck as they fell asleep. All these memories played out like they were happening right now, and then…

Before Eve knew what she was doing, she’d marched over and grabbed Paige with one hand, the corkscrew with the other. Arm wrapped around Paige’s collarbone, Eve yanked back, the chair falling with a brittle crash.

Time slowed to a standstill. Eve held the corkscrew to the side of Paige’s throat. The children screamed. The fireplace crackled. The wind outside howled. But Paige was silent. For the first time since she walked into the house, she didn’t have a fucking thing to say. Only quick, terrified little breaths.

“Whoa, hold on…” Thomas trod into the kitchen, his face a mask of stupefied shock, hands raised in a placating gesture.

Eve whirled Paige around to face him. “Stay right there.” Eve had no clue what her plan was, but—

“We’re okay.” Thomas slowed to a tenuous stop. “Everything’s okay…”

Eve, still holding the corkscrew to Paige’s neck, hissed, “Where’s Charlie?”

“Kids,” Thomas said, lowering his voice, “go to your rooms. Lock the doors.”

But his children didn’t respond—they just sat there, paralyzed. Eyes wide with terror as Eve held their mother hostage.

“NOW,” he boomed. In a flurry, they sprang from their chairs, scrambled through the living room. Their footsteps faded as they hurried upstairs, doors slamming shut behind them. Thomas took a small step closer, trying to keep his voice steady. “Emma, can we just—”

“My name is EVE.”

“W-what?”

“My FUCKING name is EVE.”

“Okay, okay, Eve…” Thomas’s eyes flickered to that corkscrew, still pricked against his wife’s neck. Paige whimpered. Thomas looked back up to Eve. “Just—let her go, and we can talk about—”

“What the FUCK happened to Charlie?”

“To Ch-Charlotte?”

“CHARLIE.”

Thomas patted the air like a zookeeper calming an escaped lion. “You and Charlotte, you broke up a few years ago—you… Can you please let Paige—”

“Shut the FUCK up,” Eve hissed, still having no idea what her plan was here. “Just, just tell me what’s going on, or—”

“Emma, this isn’t—”

“T-Thomas.” Paige’s voice quivered, petrified. “Please…”

He met his wife’s terrified gaze. “Emma’s not going to do anything,” he insisted. “Emma, listen to me—Charlotte, Charlie, she’s okay, we can call her right now, she can talk to you, and…” He started to pull out his phone, but—

“Put that down,” Eve snapped. Visions of padded cells, straitjackets—Thomas was going to call the ward. “Put it down, NOW.”

He ignored her demand, started dialing a number, and—

“DROP IT.”

He obeyed, releasing the phone like it was scorching hot. It crashed to the hardwood. “Emma,” he said, “this isn’t you. The medications. I know you’ve been missing your doses. That’s what’s happening here—your mind is going through withdrawal, playing tricks with your memories and—”

“THOMAS.” Eve yelled so loud it shook silverware on the table. She lowered her voice. “Thomas. I need you to listen to me. Listen carefully. If you don’t tell me where Charlie, my Charlie, is, something really, REALLY bad is going to happen.”

Paige winced as the corkscrew pricked her skin. “T-Thomas,” she stammered, her body riddled with cold fear. “Just, say, say something.”

Thomas managed, “She, Charlie, moved back to the city, she’s with—”

Fake Shylo growled into the room, back ridged, tail straight. She barked bloody murder, the sound cracking through the air like gunshots. Thomas ignored this, and took another cautious step toward Eve, tried something different. “Emma, listen to me,” he said. “I need you to ground yourself. Focus on your senses. Focus on—”

Sight: Paige’s blond hair. Thomas’s terrified face. The flickering glow of the fireplace.

Sound: “Shylo” barking. Panicked breath. Howling wind.

Smell: Red wine. Floral perfume.

Touch: The cold handle of the corkscrew and—

A jolt of biting pain shot through Eve’s right thigh. Her body tensed up in a spasm, and she reeled backward, letting go of Paige. She looked down and…

Paige had stabbed a steak knife right into her thigh. It was still lodged there, surrounded by a warm blot of spreading red. The sharp pain gave way to a dull, throbbing ache.

The dog stopped barking and fled the room.

Everything fell silent—slowed into timeless nothing. Eve looked up. Paige was standing in a strange way, like a bowling pin about to lose balance. What happened? That’s when Eve realized: the corkscrew was gone; her hands were empty. Paige, slow, timberous, toppled forward and hit the ground with a thunderous WHAM—choking, gargling.

Eve’s eyes darted, searching for an answer, until finally she saw—

The corkscrew… lodged into Paige’s throat.

Eve shook her head. I— I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…

A thin line of dark blood trailed down Paige’s neck. It snaked onto the hardwood, forming a pool that reflected the fire at a crooked angle. Paige’s mouth slowly opened and closed, opened and closed. Like a fish on land. Like she was trying to speak. To breathe.

“I…” Thomas let out an unbelieving whisper. “Paige?” Breaking from his trance, he collapsed to the floor over his wife. He held her neck, trying to stop the bleeding. “Paige.” His voice cracked. Hands clasped around the wound, he stared into her eyes, but she didn’t stare back. Her empty gaze just flicked side to side—left, right, left, right, left. Thomas, desperation growing, pressed harder, but the red seeped out from between his fingers.

Eve, with the knife still lodged in her thigh, stumbled backward. Head spinning, leg throbbing, she limped out of the kitchen and into the hallway. This isn’t real, she told herself. Paige isn’t real. None of this is. But it felt real, more real than anything she’d ever experienced. Every memory she ever had, good or bad, it didn’t matter—it all drowned in the suffocating present.

Focus.

As Eve shambled down the darkened hall, she thoughtlessly yanked the knife from her leg and tossed it. That wasn’t a good idea, a small voice told her. Uncaring, running on pure adrenaline, she staggered to the cherrywood side table, snatched up the hammer Thomas had left there. She glanced back and caught one last glimpse of him, still hunched over Paige. One hand pressed to her wound, the other clutching a phone to his ear. “Y-yes,” he said, “she’s hurt, I, she’s bleeding. What? I don’t know, 3710 Heritage Lane, yes, I—”

3710?

Wasting no more time, Eve bombed to the front door and tried the handle—still locked from the outside. She wedged the claw end of the hammer into the frame and wrenched back. Wood splintered and strained. She kept prying, kept pulling, but the door didn’t budge. It seemed hopeless, it—

Thomas screamed. Animalistic, steeped with unimaginable grief. Rage. And Eve knew exactly what it meant:

Paige was dead.

“No… no… NO…” His voice dwindled into a strange guttural moan. His fist slammed into the floor—an impact so heavy the hardwood audibly cracked. More screaming, thrashing. He was breaking things, tearing apart the kitchen. Wrathful.

Eve pried on the door, harder and harder, but it remained steadfast. “EMMA,” Thomas boomed, his voice filled with murder. Fuck the door. She tore the hammer free and scrambled upstairs. Thomas stormed into the foyer just in time to see her disappear at the top of the steps. Eve pushed off a wall and dragged herself down the hallway, the hammer’s weight still in her grasp. Behind, footsteps thundered up the stairs, a quick-rising war drum.

Eve tried the first door. Locked. The next one. Locked. Her eyes shot to the end of the hall: Alison’s bedroom. Somehow, its light was on. Without hesitation, she hurtled inside, and slammed the door shut behind. With her back pressed against it, she scanned the room, again searching for somewhere to hide, something to—

Alison. She was standing in the far corner—a brightly glowing gas lantern at her feet. She wore a blood-spattered nightgown. Her head was slumped and her left hand clutched a green fountain pen. She was shaking. Sobbing. “I didn’t know—I didn’t know—I’m sorry—I’m sorry—”

Without warning, the door burst open, and Thomas slammed into Eve like a freight train. He thrust her against a barred window and jammed a broad forearm across her throat, crushing her windpipe. He stared into her eyes, silent, possessed by rage.

As Eve struggled to breathe, she looked to the far corner: empty. Alison was gone. Had she even been there to begin with? Eve’s blurring vision flicked back to Thomas—

“We TRUSTED you,” he snarled, cold spit spraying her face. With his free hand, he clutched her by the hair, jerked her head forward, and smashed it back into the bars. “We ACCEPTED you into our HOME.” He slammed her head again, harder this time. Pounding pain. Again, again, each impact heavier than the last. Vision fading. Heart lurching. This was it. Eve was going to die. This was—

Fight. Back.

With one last burst of strength, she kneed him in the stomach, a sharp jut. He wheezed, stumbled backward, and crumpled to his knees. Winded.

Eve caught her balance, gasped in air, barely conscious—

Thomas looked up, readied himself to attack, and—

Eve swung the hammer—claw end first—into the side of his face. It lodged into his jaw with a deafening CRACK.

Still on his knees, Thomas stared up at her in disbelief, the hammer still stuck in his face, Eve still grasping its handle. He hadn’t thought she was capable of this—neither had she. Their eyes locked for a strange, soundless moment, and then… she planted her foot onto his chest, and—with both arms, all her strength, wrenched back. The hammer tore open his cheek with a sickening, wet squelch. His perfect teeth ripped out and clattered to the floor in a bloody mess. He crumpled over. Blood leaking down his jaw, over his neck—the torn flap of his cheek hanging open—dangling. Horrific. But…

Eve wasn’t finished. Slowly, she raised the hammer, tensed up, and…

Thomas began to sob. Pitiful, lilting whimpers poured from his mouth and filled the room like a noxious cloud. He was grasping at his face now, as if trying to put himself back together. Red surged through his fingers, branching paths trailing down his forearm. His whimpering grew more panicked, more desperate. He sputtered, hardly legible, drooling ropes of blood onto the floor. “Please, please don’t… Emma, please…”

And all the while, Eve just stood there, hammer raised. Readying herself to finish the job—This is the only way to escape, right?—yet she faltered. Despite all her fear, all her determination, she couldn’t bring herself to do it… Paige was an accident. Eve was no killer. And the man writhing beneath, begging for his life, was no eldritch monster; he was just a man, flesh and bone, terrified and breakable. Eve lowered her arm, the blood-soaked hammer slipping to the floor with a dull clink.

Get out of here.

She staggered back to the hallway, stepped out and started to pull the door shut, as if that flimsy barrier might keep the horrors within at bay. But at the last second—

Thomas’s eyes snapped up. “Where are you going, Eve?” His mouth twisted into a mangled grin.

Eve yanked the door shut and held it. Why the FUCK did he call me that?

Dreadful silence. Only the muted hiss of the gas lantern.

Focus. Get out of here.Eve’s mind raced. She backed away from the door and—

The attic. The square window. Maybe, just maybe. Get to the roof, find a way down.She turned on her heel, ankled down the hallway, pulled down the attic stairs, and climbed. Pain clawed at her wounded thigh with every limping step. All the while, the door to Alison’s bedroom remained shut. Not even a footstep on the other side. Did Thomas pass out?

Eve hoisted herself up and hauled toward that narrow passage. The attic, she faintly realized, was mostly empty now, sparse clutter receded to the flanks. Keep moving. Ignore the pain. Lightheaded, she stumbled into the corner room, and thank the Lord above, the window wasn’t barred. She unlatched it, shimmied herself up and through. A tight fit. Cold winter air. Snow-covered shingles. Twisting her way out, she—

A hand clutched her by the ankle and heaved her back inside. Her body dragged across the splinter-ridden floor, chin-first. She spun around just in time to see the moonlight glisten off Thomas’s torn-open face. He lunged onto her, wrapped his powerful hands around her throat, constricted.

“Evelyn PATRICIA Palmer,” he boomed like a mad apostle, blood slobbering onto her face. “We gave you LIFE.” Eve reached up, grabbed his wrists, tried to pull them away, but it was no use, his grip was too strong. He squeezed tighter. A lump formed in her throat, swelling, threatening to burst.

“We were here when the light of DAY was BORN.”

She couldn’t breathe. Again, she was fading. Shadows crawling from the corners of her eyes. Everything becoming nothing.

Thomas lowered his voice to a spitting whisper. “We sowed the forest.”

Right then, a shiny glint caught the corner of her eye. She looked over: universal tire chains. She reached, stretched, wrapped the tips of her fingers around the cold metal, and—

“We BUILT the FOUNDATIONS of the—”

She swung. The chains CRACKED into his temple, his head twisting to the side. A red curtain of blood whipped onto the floor, the wall.

Slowly, he turned back to her, and now—his gaze was empty. Vacant. Blood trailed from his cracked temple, into his twitching eye, and dripped onto Eve’s cheek.

His grip loosened. “We were—we built—when the…” He trailed into more disjointed mumbles.

Chains still in hand, Eve shoved him off and pushed up to standing. Thomas tried to do the same, but his limbs betrayed him. He fell back to his knees and looked up at her, half-conscious. He kept trying to talk, only to mutter incoherent nonsense: “We, the house, I didn’t, the labyrinth.” He kept trying to stand, only to fall back down.

Eve circled to get behind him. Between heaving breaths, she demanded, “Where… is… Charlie…”

But Thomas only responded with more meaningless mumbles: “I, we, I didn’t mean, my name isn’t—”

Enough. Eve breathed in and, on the exhale, wrapped the chains around his neck. She pulled back. He reached up, pawing, trying to tear the chains away. Futile. She pulled tighter, pressed her knee into his back. He gasped. Choking. Wheezing. She yanked back even harder. He coughed a spatter of blood. His efforts to fight fading with each passing second until, finally—

“LET HIM GO.”

Eve looked up.

A young cop stood in the doorway, her hands shaking as she aimed her gun. Behind her, another cop stepped into view, tall and barrel-chested, the same one who’d pulled Eve over before. “NOW,” he commanded, unclicking the safety on his firearm.

The tire chains slipped from Eve’s grip, rattled to the floor. Thomas fell forward, wheezing, and before Eve could put her hands up, she was tackled to the ground. Forced onto her stomach, splinters gashing her skin like paper cuts. Cold handcuffs clasped around her wrists. The cops hoisted her upright. She didn’t even speak; she just stared ahead blankly as they led her through the attic—blood loss and exhaustion blurring her awareness.

As they dragged her down the upstairs hallway, two paramedics rushed past. The cops shoved Eve around a corner. Her fading vision landed on a cracked-open bedroom door—from behind it, Jenny peered out, her green eyes awash with profound dread.

The cops, oblivious to the girl, steered Eve down the staircase, into the foyer. Above, a deer antler chandelier was now hanging, framed by a grand stained glass window. They ushered her out the front door, onto the porch.

The storm had settled again. The snow was already melting. A gray sun crept up over distant mountains—the sky split down the middle, half night, half day. On the ground, commotion everywhere. Cop cars. An ambulance. Red and blue light dancing over the frosted lawn, the surrounding trees. A handful of neighbors were gathered in the driveway, Heather and her supposedly deceased husband, Michael, among them. Cops shouted at them, told them to back up, put away their phones. Eve’s gaze swept the onlookers, searching for her Charlie, her Shylo, but they were nowhere to be seen.

As the cops continued guiding Eve across the yard, she saw, standing off at the edge of the forest—Alison. Still draped in her off-white hospital gown, but aside from that, she was transformed. Her once-skeletal face now radiated life, vitality, and… remorse?

Alison withdrew into the woods—away from the flashing lights, the chaos, the house. Finally, the gravity of it all came crashing down. Words tumbled out of Eve’s mouth in a stammering panic. “There’s a woman, she’s, there, she’s right there.” Eve pointed. “Thomas, he isn’t, I, I didn’t, I didn’t mean to, I—”

Apathetic, the officers thrust her into the back of a police van and unceremoniously slammed the door shut.

Darkness.