Chapter 3 - Two White Rabbits
"Daddy, where are you going?"
Ethan was already pulling on his raincoat.
Margaret blocked the door.
"Absolutely not."
"Move."
"The current could kill you."
"There's a child across the street."
"We don't know who she is."
"Exactly."
Lily grabbed Ethan's sleeve.
"I want to come."
"No."
"But—"
"No, Lily."
The firmness in his voice made her retreat.
Ethan immediately softened.
He knelt.
"Stay with Margaret. Don't open any doors."
"Bring the girl back."
Ethan looked through the window.
The porch was empty again.
"I'll try."
He stepped outside.
Rain struck his face like gravel.
Floodwater reached above his knees before he made it to the sidewalk.
He tied a rescue rope around his waist and secured the other end to the porch railing.
Every step toward his childhood home felt like walking backward through time.
He remembered bicycles.
Summer evenings.
Sophie following him everywhere.
Then the memories changed.
His father's temper.
His mother's fear.
That blue blanket.
Ethan reached the old porch.
The front door was ajar.
"Hello?"
No answer.
He entered.
The smell hit him first.
Damp wood.
Dust.
Decay.
But beneath it was something strangely familiar.
Lavender.
His mother had used lavender soap.
"Ethan."
He spun around.
Nobody.
Only rain.
He moved deeper into the house.
The living room remained recognizable despite decades of neglect.
A fireplace.
A staircase.
Marks on the doorframe where his mother had measured their height.
Ethan touched one.
Sophie – age 6.
His throat tightened.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
"Hello?"
Footsteps.
Small ones.
He climbed.
At the end of the hallway, Sophie's bedroom door stood open.
The girl was inside.
She faced away from him.
"Hey."
She turned.
Ethan's heart stopped.
Up close, the resemblance was even stronger.
Not identical.
But enough.
Those eyes.
The shape of her mouth.
"What's your name?"
The child hugged her rabbit.
"Emma."
"Emma what?"
"Mercer."
Ethan gripped the doorframe.
"Who brought you here?"
"My grandma."
"Where is she?"
"She told me to wait."
"What's your grandmother's name?"
The girl hesitated.
"Anna."
The secondhand-shop owner.
Ethan's pulse hammered.
"Anna Mercer?"
Emma nodded.
"Where is she?"
"Downstairs."
A sound came from below.
Ethan rushed down.
The cellar door was open.
"Anna?"
A weak voice answered.
"Help."
He descended.
A woman lay near the bottom of the stairs.
Late fifties.
Gray threaded through dark hair.
Blood marked her forehead.
She had apparently fallen.
Ethan knelt.
"Don't move."
The woman opened her eyes.
She stared at him.
And began crying.
"Ethan."
He froze.
"How do you know my name?"
Her hand rose shakily toward his face.
"You look like Dad."
Ethan's entire body went cold.
"Who are you?"
The woman closed her eyes.
"Don't make me say it here."
"Say what?"
Emma appeared at the top of the steps.
"Grandma?"
The woman looked toward her.
Then back at Ethan.
"My name isn't Anna."
Ethan stopped breathing.
She swallowed.
"My name is Sophie."
The world seemed to become silent.
Even the storm disappeared.
"No."
"Ethan—"
"No."
"I'm your sister."
He stood abruptly.
"My sister was six."
"Twenty-five years ago."
"My sister died."
"No."
"Prove it."
Tears rolled down the woman's cheeks.
"You broke your left wrist when you were seven because you jumped from the garage roof wearing Dad's red bath towel as a cape."
Ethan stared.
"You told everyone you slipped."
His hand unconsciously moved toward his wrist.
Sophie continued.
"When thunderstorms scared me, you knocked three times on the wall between our rooms. I knocked twice back."
Ethan couldn't move.
"Stop."
"You called me Mouse."
"Stop."
"And the night I disappeared, you gave me half of your peanut butter sandwich because Dad sent me upstairs without dinner."
Ethan's eyes burned.
Nobody knew that.
Nobody.
He sank onto the cellar step.
"Sophie?"
The woman sobbed.
Ethan covered his mouth.
Twenty-five years collapsed into one impossible second.
Then another question struck him.
"Why didn't you come home?"
Sophie's expression changed.
Fear replaced relief.
"Because I was told you were dead."
Ethan stared at her.
"What?"
"Mom found me years later. She told me Dad had taken you away and that there had been an accident."
"Mom found you?"
"Yes."
"Where is she?"
Sophie looked toward the cellar wall.
"That's why I came back."
She reached into her coat and produced a small brass key.
"Mom died six months ago."
Ethan's face fell.
"But before she died, she told me there was something hidden in this house."
"What?"
"The truth."
She pointed toward the far wall.
"Behind the bricks."
Ethan remembered his father going downstairs.
The blue blanket.
The secret his childhood mind had buried.
Together, he and Sophie moved several loose bricks.
Behind them sat a rusted metal box.
Ethan inserted the key.
Inside were letters.
Photographs.
Police reports.
And a cassette tape.
On top was an envelope bearing Ethan's name.
His mother's handwriting.
He opened it.
The first sentence made him stop.
My dear Ethan, if you are reading this, then Sophie found her way back to you.
Ethan looked at the woman beside him.
His sister.
Alive.
But the letter's next sentence destroyed any sense of relief.
Before you forgive me, you need to know that your father was not the person who took Sophie.
Ethan slowly raised his eyes.
If Richard hadn't taken her, someone else had.
May you like
And according to the final line on the page, that person had been inside their family all along.
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