Chapter 3 - THE SEALED ENVELOPEA few hours later, after the doctors assured me that Lucas and Lily were stable and receiving emergency intravenous fluids, local police officers arrived at the hospital following the frantic directions I had given them. They had driven out past the old mill, down the winding gravel road, and found our isolated house tucked away behind a dense wall of tall pines.
An officer named Detective Vance walked into the hospital waiting room holding a clear plastic evidence bag. His face was grim, stripped of all professional warmth. He sat down across from me, placing a sealed envelope on the small coffee table between us.
"Emma," Detective Vance said quietly. "We found our way to your house. The front door was unlocked, exactly as you left it. Your mother... she's still inside. But beside her hand, we found this."
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I stared down at the envelope. My name—Emma—was written across the front in a handwriting that looked jagged, rushed, and entirely unlike Mom's usual neat cursive.
Detective Vance explained that inside was a letter detailing why we had lived so far from civilization, why Mom never spoke about my father, and why she had spent years keeping our exact location a secret from the rest of the world. She hadn't been eccentric or reclusive out of choice. She had been hiding from a ghost that she knew would eventually catch up.
