Chapter 10 - The Mirror Doesn't LieI dropped the phone, my legs moving on pure instinct as I rushed to the large picture window overlooking the front lawn.
The autumn wind whipped through the oak trees, scattering dry leaves across the driveway. Standing by the iron security gate, illuminated by the amber glow of the streetlamp, was a woman wearing a heavy trench coat with the hood pulled low.
As I watched, she slowly reached up and pulled back the hood.
My breath caught in my throat. The world stopped spinning.
It was Elena.
Older, perhaps, with faint lines of exhaustion around her eyes and a small scar across her left temple that hadn't been there two years ago, but unmistakably, undeniably Elena. The woman whose funeral I had attended. The woman whose framed photograph sat on Maisie’s bedside table.
She looked up at my window, her dark eyes locking onto mine with an expression of profound sorrow and desperate warning.
Downstairs, a soft pair of small footsteps padded across the hardwood hallway.
"Daddy?" Maisie’s sleepy voice called out from the doorway. "Who are you talking to?"
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I turned away from the window, scooped my daughter up into my arms, and buried my face in her hair, inhaling her familiar scent. Downstairs, the basement door—the one leading to the workbench—clicked open with a heavy, hollow thud in the dark.
And as I held my daughter tight against my chest, I realized the nightmare wasn't ending. It was only just beginning.
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