Chapter 2 - The House Ethan Never Spoke About
"What did you say?"
Ethan's voice sounded unfamiliar even to himself.
Margaret stepped away from the window.
Lily remained beside him, clutching Clover.
"I shouldn't have said anything."
"You just told me my sister didn't die."
"I said she didn't die in the house."
"Then where?"
Margaret's eyes dropped.
"I don't know."
Ethan laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
"You don't know?"
"No."
"My father told me she was dead."
"I know."
"He told everyone there had been an accident."
"I know."
"Then tell me what you know."
Margaret looked at Lily.
"Maybe she shouldn't hear this."
Ethan knelt.
"Lily, sweetheart, go into the kitchen for a minute."
She shook her head immediately.
"No."
"Lily."
"The girl is scared."
"So am I," Ethan almost said.
Instead, he kissed her forehead.
"Please."
Margaret led Lily toward the kitchen.
Before leaving, Lily looked back at the abandoned house.
The mysterious girl was gone.
That somehow frightened Ethan more.
When Margaret returned, Ethan was standing at the window.
"Start talking."
Margaret sat slowly.
"Your parents weren't doing well before Sophie disappeared."
"I remember them fighting."
"They fought constantly."
Ethan remembered doors slamming at night.
His mother's crying.
His father's voice.
Money had been tight. His father, Richard Cole, drank heavily.
"But Sophie—"
"Your mother wanted to leave."
Ethan turned.
"Leave my father?"
Margaret nodded.
"She told me she was afraid of him."
Ethan's jaw tightened.
His father had died eleven years earlier.
For most of Ethan's adulthood, he had carried a complicated mixture of anger and loyalty toward the man.
Richard had been cold.
Strict.
Sometimes cruel.
But Ethan had never thought—
"Did he hurt her?"
Margaret hesitated.
"Your mother?"
"Yes."
"I saw bruises."
Ethan closed his eyes.
Something inside him rearranged itself.
Memories he had dismissed suddenly acquired different meanings.
His mother's long sleeves during summer.
A broken plate.
Sophie crying beneath Ethan's bed.
Their father shouting that everyone needed to stop lying.
"What does this have to do with Sophie?"
"Your mother planned to take both of you away."
"Both?"
"You and Sophie."
"But she didn't."
"No."
"Why?"
Margaret's eyes filled.
"Because the night before she planned to leave, Sophie disappeared."
Ethan stared.
"No. There was a fire."
"A small one."
"My father said—"
"Your father lied."
Ethan went silent.
Margaret continued.
"There was a fire in the storage shed behind the house. Your father claimed Sophie had gone inside and that the structure collapsed before he could reach her."
"I remember fire trucks."
"Yes."
"I remember police."
"Yes."
"I remember—"
He stopped.
A terrible detail surfaced.
No coffin.
There had been a memorial.
Flowers.
A photograph.
But Ethan couldn't remember a funeral.
"Was there a body?"
Margaret shook her head.
"No."
His knees weakened.
"Why didn't anyone question that?"
"They did."
"And?"
"Your father insisted the fire destroyed everything. Investigators weren't convinced, but the building was old, and there wasn't enough evidence to prove what happened."
Ethan stared across the room.
"Where was my mother?"
"Hospital."
"Why?"
Margaret hesitated.
"Your father said she had suffered a breakdown."
Ethan remembered visiting his mother in a white room.
She had gripped his hands and repeatedly whispered one sentence.
I didn't leave her.
As a child, Ethan thought she meant she hadn't abandoned Sophie's body in the fire.
Now—
"What did my mother tell you?"
Margaret's eyes filled with regret.
"She said Sophie had been taken."
"By whom?"
"She didn't know."
Ethan's pulse quickened.
"Did police investigate?"
"Your father convinced them your mother was unstable."
"Was she?"
"She was traumatized."
"That's not what I asked."
"No," Margaret said firmly. "Before Sophie vanished, your mother was frightened, exhausted, but she knew exactly what she was saying."
Ethan paced.
"Then why did she disappear from my life?"
"Because your father obtained custody."
Ethan remembered being told his mother had abandoned him.
He had believed that for twenty-five years.
"Where is she?"
Margaret looked down.
"I don't know."
A sound came from the kitchen.
"Lily?"
No response.
Ethan hurried in.
The room was empty.
His stomach dropped.
"Lily!"
The back door stood closed.
Then he saw her near the side window.
She was staring outside.
"Daddy."
Ethan rushed over.
"Don't walk away like that."
"The girl moved."
"What?"
Lily pointed.
The mysterious child was no longer upstairs.
She was downstairs now.
Standing behind the abandoned house's front window.
"She's showing me something."
The girl lifted her stuffed rabbit.
Then pointed toward its belly.
Lily looked at Clover.
"She keeps doing this."
Ethan crouched.
"Doing what?"
"Touching the bunny here."
Lily pressed the rabbit's stomach.
Something crinkled.
Ethan froze.
"What was that?"
Lily shrugged.
"It always does that."
Ethan took Clover.
There was a seam beneath the fur.
Not factory stitching.
Hand stitching.
He fetched scissors.
"What are you doing?" Lily protested.
"I won't hurt him."
"Her."
"Her."
He carefully opened three stitches.
His fingers touched something hard.
Ethan pulled out a tiny plastic sleeve.
Inside was an old photograph.
Margaret gasped.
Ethan unfolded it.
Two children stood outside the abandoned house.
One was Ethan at eight.
The other was Sophie.
She held a white stuffed rabbit.
On the back, written in faded blue ink, were six words:
For Ethan. Remember what you saw.
His hands began trembling.
"I never put this in there."
Margaret leaned closer.
"That handwriting..."
"You recognize it?"
"Your mother's."
Ethan stared at Clover.
He had purchased it randomly.
Or thought he had.
"Where did you buy this rabbit?" Margaret asked.
"Secondhand store in Riverton."
"When?"
"Three months ago."
Margaret's expression changed.
"What?"
"The owner of that shop."
"What about her?"
"Her name is Anna Mercer."
"So?"
"Mercer was your mother's maiden name."
Ethan stopped breathing.
A crash sounded outside.
They turned.
The floodwater had knocked over a trash container.
Then Lily screamed.
The mysterious girl was no longer behind the window.
She was outside.
Standing on the abandoned porch.
Rain soaked her hair.
Water surged around the steps.
She clutched the rabbit.
And she was staring directly at Ethan.
Not Lily.
Ethan.
Then the girl lifted one hand and pointed toward the side of the old house.
Toward a cellar door Ethan had not opened since childhood.
And suddenly he remembered something.
The night Sophie disappeared, he had seen his father carrying something down those cellar steps.
Something wrapped in a blue blanket.
May you like
And Ethan had spent twenty-five years convincing himself it had only been a dream.
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