Chapter 13 - The Second Voice
That evening, the storm finally broke over the valley. Torrential rain lashed against the bedroom windows, drumming a deafening rhythm against the glass.
Derek was already asleep, his face relaxed in the amber glow of the bedside lamp. Sarah lay awake, staring at the ceiling, the heavy brass key burning in the pocket of her jeans folded on the chair. She listened to the cadence of Derek's breathing—steady, rhythmic, the breath of a man who believed the storm had passed.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Sarah slipped out of bed instantly. She padded down the darkened corridor toward Mia’s bedroom. The door was half-open. The nightlight cast soft blue shadows across the small bed.
It was empty.
Panic surged through Sarah’s veins like liquid fire. "Mia?" she whispered.
She turned toward the living room. Mia was standing in the center of the dark room, facing the sliding glass door that opened to the black backyard. Water was streaming down the outside of the glass, distorting the reflections of the trees into writhing monsters. Mia was barefoot, wearing her favorite flannel nightgown, completely motionless.
"Mia, baby," Sarah breathed, kneeling softly beside her. "Why are you out of bed?"
Mia didn't turn. Her tiny hand rose, her finger tracing a circle on the glass where condensation had formed.
"The man under the floor has cold hands," Mia murmured. Her voice wasn't sleepy; it was flat, vacant, chillingly clear.
Sarah’s breath froze in her throat. "What did you say, sweetheart?"
"At the lake. Before I went to sleep in the green water," Mia whispered, her eyes fixed on the darkness outside. "Daddy told me to look at the pretty fish. And then the cold hands pulled my ankles down so Daddy wouldn't drop me."
A shadow fell over them both.
May you like
Sarah whipped around. Derek was standing in the archway of the living room, clad only in gray sweatpants. His face was drenched in shadow, his eyes wide and hollow. In his right hand, he was holding the photograph Sarah had hidden inside her locked jewelry box.
"You weren't supposed to see this, Sarah," Derek whispered, his voice cracking with an unbearable, suffocating grief. "You were never supposed to know who Mia really is."
