Following Mara’s orders with a frantic, blind obedience, I moved through my own home like a ghost. I switched off the dim hallway night-light, then plunged the kitchen into blackness. I crossed the living room and switched off the small lamp Caleb always, without fail, left on for me, a little beacon he said was to “guide you back to me.” The gesture had always felt so loving. Tonight, it felt sinister. My hands were trembling so badly I nearly dropped my phone. Mara stayed on the line, her presence a silent, tense weight punctuated only by the sound of her sharp, controlled breathing.
I reached the narrow door to the attic stairs at the end of the hall. It was a part of the house we rarely used, a repository for Christmas decorations and forgotten memories.
As my hand touched the cool brass knob, Mara’s voice came through the phone again, a low, urgent whisper. “Do not hang up. Keep the line open no matter what.”
I pulled the door open, revealing a steep, narrow flight of wooden stairs ascending into darkness. I climbed slowly, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my sternum. Each step creaked a loud protest beneath my bare feet, a symphony of betrayal announcing my every move. The air in the attic was thick and stale, a cloying mix of dust, aging wood, and the faint, sweet scent of insulation. It smelled like the past.
I pulled the heavy door shut behind me, the click of the latch echoing in the small, oppressive space. I slid the small, rusty iron latch into its housing. It felt flimsy, like a child’s toy against an unknown threat.
“Lock it,” Mara’s voice commanded from the phone.
“I did,” I breathed back, my voice barely audible.
“Good. Now get away from the window. Stay low and stay quiet.”
And then the call dropped. The line went dead.
Silence. A profound, terrifying silence that was worse than any noise. I was alone in the dark, clutching a dead phone, my mind a whirlwind of confusion and fear. I crouched on the dusty floorboards, my body coiled like a spring, every nerve ending alight. For one long, awful, stretching minute, nothing happened. The only sounds were the rain on the roof and the frantic thumping of my own blood in my ears.
Then I heard Caleb’s voice from downstairs.
It was not the sleepy, gentle murmur of my husband. It was a voice I had never heard before. It was awake. It was alert.
And it was utterly, terrifyingly calm.
“Lights are off,” he said.
A second voice, deeper and unfamiliar, answered from *inside my house*.
“Then she knows.”
A strangled gasp escaped my lips, and my hand flew to my mouth to stifle it. My world, the safe, predictable world I had built for six years, tilted on its axis and shattered into a million unrecognizable pieces.
Through a narrow gap between two attic floorboards, I could see a sliver of the hallway below, illuminated by a faint, ghostly light from a source I couldn’t identify. **Caleb** stood there. He was dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, just as he’d been when he went to bed. But under one arm, he had my laptop—the one I used for my freelance bookkeeping.
And beside him stood a stranger. A tall man in a long, black raincoat, droplets of water glistening on his shoulders. He was an invading darkness in the sanctuary of my home.
The stranger handed Caleb a small, hard-shelled case.
