Mara did not remember falling.

One moment she was standing in the hallway, staring at the silver bracelet on the pale wrist.

The next, she was sitting on the floor.

The house was completely dark.

Rain hammered against the windows, and thunder rolled somewhere beyond the hills.

“Mara…”

Her mother’s voice came again.

This time it was quieter.

Almost frightened.

Mara reached for her phone and turned on the flashlight.

The beam shook in her hand.

The hidden door was still open.

Beyond it was a narrow passage disappearing into darkness.

The pale hand was gone.

So was the voice.

Mara remained frozen for several seconds.

Then she forced herself to stand.

She should leave.

That was the sensible thing.

She could run outside, reach the village, find a police station, and tell someone what had happened.

But her mother’s bracelet was still visible on the floor.

Mara picked it up.

It was real.

Cold metal pressed against her palm.

A tiny moon-shaped charm hung from its chain.

Mara remembered that charm.

When she was eight, her mother used to touch it whenever she was nervous.

“You know why I wear this?” her mother had once asked.

Mara had shaken her head.

“Because the moon remembers things people forget.”

At the time, Mara had laughed.

Now she didn’t.

She slipped the bracelet into her pocket.

Then she looked into the passage.

The darkness seemed to be waiting.

Mara grabbed the fireplace poker again.

“Five minutes,” she whispered to herself. “I look for the room. Then I leave.”

She stepped through the doorway.

The temperature dropped immediately.

The passage was much larger than it should have been.

From the outside, the wall was barely a foot thick.

Inside, however, the corridor stretched deep beneath the house.

Old stone walls surrounded her.

The ceiling was low.

Water dripped somewhere in the darkness.

Mara moved slowly.

Her shoes made soft sounds against the stone floor.

She kept her flashlight pointed ahead.

The passage seemed to go downward.

One step.

Then another.

At the end of the corridor, she found a wooden staircase.

It descended into complete darkness.

Mara swallowed.

“This wasn’t in the house plans.”

She remembered seeing the original blueprints when her aunt had renovated the property.

There had been no basement beneath this section.

No hidden corridor.

No staircase.

Nothing.

Yet the staircase was here.

She started down.

The wooden steps creaked beneath her weight.

Five.

Ten.

Fifteen.

At the twentieth step, she heard something above her.

Mara stopped.

A soft sound.

Footsteps.

Someone was walking through the passage behind her.

She turned.

Her flashlight revealed nothing.

“Mara.”

Her mother’s voice.

She nearly dropped the phone.

“Mom?”

No answer.

Mara climbed back up three steps.

Then she heard breathing.

Not hers.

Someone was standing behind the wall.

She turned the flashlight toward the passage.

Nothing.

The footsteps stopped.

Mara waited.

Then she heard a whisper.

“Don’t trust the room.”

Her blood went cold.

“What room?”

Silence.

Mara slowly turned toward the stairs again.

At the bottom was a door.

Unlike the hidden door upstairs, this one was made of black metal.

A small silver plate had been attached to it.

There was writing on the plate.

ROOM 17

Mara stared.

She had no idea what it meant.

She reached for the handle.

Before she could touch it, something slid beneath the door.

A photograph.

Mara crouched down and picked it up.

The picture was old.

Black and white.

It showed the house.

But it wasn’t the house as Mara knew it.

There was another building attached to the back.

A tower.

She turned the photograph over.

Someone had written a date.

October 14, 2006.

Mara’s hands began shaking.

Her mother disappeared on October 14, 2006.

Mara stared at the photograph.

There was another detail.

Three people stood in front of the house.

A man.

A woman.

And a little girl.

The girl was Mara.

She recognized her red coat.

She recognized the ribbon in her hair.

But she didn’t recognize the adults.

One of them was her mother.

The other was a tall man with a scar across his face.

Mara had never seen him before.

At least, she didn’t think she had.

She brought the photograph closer to the flashlight.

There was writing beneath the three figures.

SUBJECT 17 — FAMILY UNIT CONFIRMED.

Mara’s stomach tightened.

“Subject?”

She turned the photograph over again.

There was something written in tiny letters at the bottom.

Observation begins at midnight.

A sound came from behind the metal door.

Three knocks.

Mara stepped backward.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The door handle moved.

Mara raised the fireplace poker.

“Who’s there?”

Nothing.

The handle moved again.

Slowly.

The door opened.

Mara expected darkness.

Instead, she saw a room filled with photographs.

Hundreds of them.

They covered every wall.

Some were pinned to boards.

Others hung from wires.

Some were so old that their edges had turned yellow.

Mara stepped inside.

Her flashlight moved across the room.

And she stopped.

Every photograph showed her.

As a child.

At school.

In the garden.

Sleeping.

Eating breakfast.

Walking beside her mother.

Playing in the snow.

Mara stared in horror.

Someone had been watching her.

For years.

Decades.

She moved closer to one wall.

There were photographs of her at age eight.

Then nine.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

Twenty-five.

The most recent photograph had been taken three days earlier.

Mara was standing outside the village grocery store.

She remembered that moment.

She had been alone.

Or so she had thought.

Her hands became numb.

Someone had been following her.

She turned toward the center of the room.

A large wooden table stood there.

On it were dozens of files.

One file had her name written across it.

MARA VALE

She opened it.

The first page contained her birth information.

Her parents’ names.

Her school records.

Her medical history.

Then she reached the final page.

There was only one sentence.

Memory suppression successful.

Mara stared at the words.

“What does that mean?”

A voice answered from behind her.

“It means you were never supposed to remember.”

Mara spun around.

A man stood in the doorway.

He was tall.

Older.

His face was pale.

And a long scar crossed his left cheek.

The same man from the photograph.

Mara raised the poker.

“Who are you?”

The man didn’t move.

“My name is Elias.”

“What is this place?”

“You shouldn’t have opened the door.”

“You were watching me.”

Elias looked toward the photographs.

“We were protecting you.”

“From what?”

He looked directly into her eyes.

“From your mother.”

Mara’s grip tightened around the poker.

“That’s a lie.”

“I wish it were.”

“You know my mother?”

“I knew her better than anyone.”

“Where is she?”

Elias hesitated.

Then he said the words Mara had spent twenty years waiting to hear.

“She’s alive.”

The room seemed to spin.

Mara’s eyes filled with tears.

“Where?”

Elias pointed toward another door at the back of the room.

Mara hadn’t noticed it before.

It was smaller than the others.

There was a silver moon carved into its surface.

“She’s behind that door.”

Mara took a step forward.

Elias grabbed her arm.

“Don’t.”

She pulled away.

“You said she’s alive.”

“She is.”

“Then I’m going to her.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then explain!”

Elias looked terrified.

Not of Mara.

Of the door.

“Your mother isn’t trapped behind that door,” he whispered.

Mara stared at him.

“Then what is?”

Elias looked at the moon symbol.

“Something that learned how to sound like her.”

A deep knock came from behind the small door.

Everyone in the room froze.

Knock.

Another.

Knock.

Then a third.

Knock.

Mara heard her mother’s voice.

But this time, the voice wasn’t pleading.

It was smiling.

“Mara…”

The door began to open.

Elias stepped backward.

“Whatever you do,” he whispered, “don’t let it see your face.”

The door opened another inch.

And from the darkness came a familiar whisper.

“I’ve been waiting twenty years for you.”

Mara raised her flashlight.

The beam entered the room.

And she saw a woman standing inside.

She looked exactly like Mara’s mother.

Exactly as she had looked on the night she disappeared.

But there was one impossible difference.

Her eyes were completely black.

End of Chapter 2