Chapter 1 - The Girl in the Window
By the time Lily Morgan saw the child in the upstairs window, the water was already above her knees.
Rain hammered the neighborhood so violently that the houses across Willow Street looked like faded photographs behind a moving curtain of gray. Water rushed between abandoned cars, carried trash cans down the street, and slapped against porches that had stood dry for nearly a century.
Lily tightened both arms around the small white stuffed rabbit pressed against her chest.
“Ethan,” she said.
He didn’t hear her.
He was several feet ahead, fighting against the current as he tried to reach the higher ground near the intersection.
“Ethan.”
Something in her voice made him turn.
She pointed.
At first, Ethan saw only the old house.
Two stories. White wooden siding almost entirely stripped of paint. Black shutters hanging crooked beside several windows. Thick ivy crawling across the porch columns.
The house had been empty for years.
Everyone in town knew that.
Then Ethan followed Lily’s finger toward the second floor.
A little girl was standing behind the glass.
She couldn’t have been older than seven.
Her face was pale.
Her long damp-looking hair hung around her shoulders.
And she was staring directly at them.
Ethan stopped moving.
Lily swallowed.
“There’s a kid in there.”
“That house is abandoned.”
“I can see her.”
Another flash of lightning illuminated the street.
For half a second, the girl became perfectly clear.
She wore a faded dress.
She held something against her chest.
A stuffed animal.
Lily’s fingers tightened around the rabbit in her arms.
“No.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What?”
Lily raised her own rabbit.
The toy was old. One ear sagged lower than the other. Its fur had once been white but had turned cream from age. A small blue thread had been stitched beneath its left eye.
The rabbit the child held had the same crooked ear.
The same shape.
And even from across the flooded street, Lily could see the tiny blue mark beneath its eye.
Her breath caught.
“She has the same rabbit.”
Ethan stared at the window.
The little girl lifted the toy slightly.
Almost as though she had heard Lily.
Rainwater streamed from Ethan’s hair and down his face.
Then he looked at the house itself.
His expression changed.
Lily had known Ethan for almost four years. She knew the way his face looked when he was worried, angry, exhausted, frightened.
She had never seen this expression.
It was recognition mixed with terror.
“You know this house,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“Ethan.”
His eyes remained fixed on the porch.
“I grew up there.”
Lily blinked.
“What?”
“That was my house.”
She stared from him to the decaying building.
“You told me you grew up north of town.”
“I did. After we moved.”
“When?”
Ethan looked as though every word hurt.
“When I was nine.”
The girl remained at the window.
Lily looked at Ethan.
“You never mentioned this place.”
“I don’t talk about it.”
“Why?”
His jaw tightened.
Thunder rolled overhead.
The current pushed hard against Lily’s legs.
“We need to get out of the water first,” Ethan said.
“There’s a child trapped inside.”
“The first floor could already be flooded.”
“Exactly.”
Lily started toward the house.
Ethan grabbed her arm.
“Wait.”
She turned.
His eyes were locked on the rabbit.
Not hers.
The other one.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
“My rabbit?”
“Yes.”
“You know where. My grandmother gave it to me.”
“No.” His voice became sharper. “Where did she get it?”
Lily frowned.
“I don’t know.”
Ethan looked back toward the child.
Another lightning flash.
This time he saw her face clearly.
A small nose.
Wide gray-green eyes.
A heart-shaped face framed by wet hair.
Ethan went completely still.
The floodwater moved around him, but he might as well have become stone.
Lily saw the color leave his face.
“Ethan?”
His mouth opened.
No sound came out.
“What is it?”
He whispered a single word.
“Anna.”
Lily leaned closer.
“What?”
Ethan stared at the child as though the world had stopped.
“My sister.”
Lily felt a chill that had nothing to do with the rain.
“You have a sister?”
“Had.”
The little girl pressed one hand against the window.
Ethan’s breathing became shallow.
“She died when I was eight.”
Lily looked at the child.
Then at Ethan.
“That girl isn’t your sister. She’s seven.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you call her Anna?”
Ethan slowly shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
But that wasn’t true.
Lily could see it.
He knew something.
Something he had hidden for years.
“What happened to your sister?”
Ethan closed his eyes briefly.
“There was a storm.”
Lily stared at the water surrounding them.
“Like this?”
His eyes opened.
“Exactly like this.”
The words sat between them.
Rain.
Floodwater.
An abandoned childhood home.
And a girl standing in the same upstairs window.
Lily’s skin prickled.
“What happened that night?”
“My parents said she disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“She was six. The river overflowed. Part of the neighborhood flooded. They told everyone she wandered outside.”
“And?”
“They never found her.”
Lily looked back at the window.
“But you just said she died.”
“That’s what everyone believed.”
The little girl suddenly stepped backward.
“No,” Lily said.
The child vanished into darkness.
Ethan moved instantly.
“Anna!”
He splashed toward the porch.
Lily followed.
“Ethan!”
The water grew deeper as they crossed the yard.
Halfway there, Ethan stopped again.
Something had struck him.
A memory.
Lily saw it in his eyes.
“What?”
He turned toward her rabbit.
“When I was eight, my mother bought two of those.”
Lily stared at him.
“One for Anna.”
Rain drummed against the hood of Lily’s coat.
“And the other?”
Ethan looked toward the upstairs window.
“For another girl.”
Lily’s stomach tightened.
“What other girl?”
He looked directly at her.
“I don’t remember.”
The front door of the abandoned house suddenly swung open.
Not slowly.
Not because of the wind.
It opened as if someone inside had pulled it.
Lily and Ethan froze.
A small figure stood at the end of the dark hallway.
The girl.
Rabbit in her arms.
She stared at Ethan.
Then she whispered something.
The storm nearly swallowed the words.
Nearly.
Ethan heard them.
And his entire expression collapsed.
“Ethan?” Lily asked.
He didn’t answer.
“What did she say?”
His voice barely worked.
“She said…”
He stared into the house.
May you like
“She said, ‘You came back.’”
And somewhere deep inside the abandoned home, something heavy fell to the floor.
