Chapter 11 - The Woman Outside the Door
The storm erased the street beyond the windows, but Mara Ellison could still see the woman standing beneath the porch light.
She wore a silver raincoat and held no umbrella.
Beside Mara, her husband Theo tightened his grip on the fireplace poker. Their six-year-old daughter June stood halfway down the staircase, clutching the wooden moth that had mysteriously appeared beneath her pillow.
The woman knocked three times.
Not loudly.
Almost politely.
“I know you can hear me, Mara,” she called through the locked door. “The device behind your ear is awake.”
Mara touched the small scar beneath her hair.
The green light under her skin flashed.
Every screen in the house turned on simultaneously. Instead of security footage, they displayed a single sentence:
WELCOME BACK, ARCHITECT.
“I’ve never seen you before,” Mara shouted.
The woman smiled through the rain.
“That’s because you asked us to remove me.”
Theo stepped closer to the door.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Dr. Evelyn Rook.”
She looked past him, directly toward June.
“And your daughter has just opened the first gate.”
May you like
The wooden moth in June’s hand unfolded its glass wings.
Somewhere beneath the house, a machine began to move.
