She was right there.

CHAPTER 2 《The Appointment》

(slow-burn, extended edition)

Luca arrived forty-three minutes early and pretended that was normal.

The waiting room on the ground floor of the Victorian brownstone smelled of wet wool and clary sage—so exact a match to Sera’s old oil mixture that his knees hesitated before each step. He chose the love-seat directly beneath the tarnished brass sconce, counted the floorboards between his boots and the door, then forgot the number and started again. Time passed in snow-flurries against the transom windows. He didn’t open the magazine on the coffee-table; instead he drew on the edge of his palm with an invisible charcoal, shaping the line of Elara’s cheek as she had leaned over the boy last night.

At 3:58 the receptionist—tiny woman, lavender glasses—smiled like she’d been trained to soften bad news. “She’ll buzz in a minute.”

Luca nodded. He had not told anyone he was coming here, not even Noah, who had asked over breakfast why the kitchen smelled like burned paper. Dad’s cleaning the stove, he’d lied, and the ease of it worried him.

A soft electronic chime. The inner door slid open and Elara stood in the gap, back-lit by the green-house glow of the glass dome beyond her. She wore charcoal linen, sleeves pushed to the elbows, the scar at her left eyebrow a pale comma. When their eyes met she didn’t look away; she simply stepped aside so he could choose whether to enter. That, too, felt like part of the evaluation.

The consulting room was warm enough to loosen his coat buttons without him noticing. Two chairs, one loveseat, no desk. A single skylight filtered winter light through vines that had lost most of their leaves; the shadows looked like fingerprints on the cream walls. She gestured to the loveseat and took the lower stool herself, angling her knees a few degrees away—an invitation without demand. Luca sat on the edge of the cushion, spine straight, hands clasped so the tremor in his right thumb wouldn’t show.

“Ground rules,” she said. Her voice was lower than he remembered, the kind of quiet that forced the world to lean in. “You speak only for yourself. I won’t confirm or deny anything until I’m sure it’s safe for both of us.”

He swallowed. “Understood.”

A pause expanded, filled by the radiator’s lazy hum. She let it stretch until the silence became a presence, then nodded once—an allowance that he could begin.

Luca pulled the envelope from inside his coat. Thirteen sketches, charcoal on newsprint, edges furred from handling. He laid them on the low table like solitaire cards, then hesitated. The top drawing showed Sera at thirty-four, asleep under the European yew, lashes casting shadows that looked like bruises. He had drawn it the week before she died, and the charcoal had smudged where his thumb had rested last night. He turned the page toward Elara but kept a fingertip on the corner—an unconscious anchor.

She didn’t pick it up immediately. Instead she studied his hand: the ink-stained cuticle, the half-moon scar at the base of his index finger, the slight tremor. Only then did she look at the portrait. Her expression gave away nothing, but her breathing paused an instant too long.

“Who is she to you?” she asked.

“Everything.” The word came out rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat. “She—Sera—pulled me out of a place I never told anyone about. Then she left. Not by choice. An aneurysm. Quick.”

Elara’s gaze flicked to the corner of the page where the date was scribbled. “You drew this two days before it happened.”

“I didn’t know it would be the last.” He heard the defensive edge and softened it. “I just…knew I had to capture her that afternoon. Light was perfect.”

She nodded, the kind of nod that kept the story moving without judgment. “Tell me what you noticed about me that matches this face.”

Luca exhaled slowly. “Scar through the brow—same angle, left eye. Cupid’s bow peaks at identical millimeters. The way your upper eyelid folds twice when you’re tired—last night, when you looked at the boy, it did that.” He paused, cheeks heating. “I sound like a stalker.”

“You sound like an artist who’s trained to see variance,” she corrected. “But those are surface data. What beneath the surface feels familiar?”

He opened his mouth, closed it. The radiator clicked. “The way you let silence sit,” he said finally. “Sera did that—never rushed to fill it. Said silence was the only honest mirror.”

Elara’s pupils dilated a millimeter; he wasn’t sure the observation helped or hurt. She lifted the next sketch: Sera laughing, head thrown back, the hollow of her throat exposed. Elara’s own throat moved as she swallowed.

“I was ten when I lost my memory,” she said, voice steady but quieter. “Retrograde amnesia from a car accident. I know my name from paperwork, not from recall. Anything before age eleven is a blank slate.” She tapped the edge of the drawing. “If I resemble her, it could be coincidence, or convergent genetics, or—” She stopped herself, considered. “—or something neither of us has language for yet.”

Luca’s pulse stumbled. “Would you consent to a side-by-side photo? Just for scale. I’ll delete it immediately if you ask.”

She studied him for a long moment, then pulled her phone from her pocket, opened the camera, and handed it over. “You take it. My hands are steadier that way.”

The simple trust of the gesture winded him. He angled the phone so her face filled the frame beside the sketch, captured the shot, then returned the device without looking at the image again. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She stood, moved to a small sink behind the taller plants, filled a glass of water. When she offered it to him their fingers brushed—cool skin, faint tremor in both of them. The contact lasted less than a second but settled somewhere under his sternum like warm coin.

Session time was nearly over. She glanced at the clock on the sill. “I can offer you the same slot next week. Ground rules expand: you bring whatever documentation you have of the seven weeks Sera was missing—photos, receipts, witness names. I’ll bring my medical files. We lay them out, see if patterns touch.”

He nodded, throat tight. “And if they do?”

“Then we decide what to do with the overlap.” She opened the door for him, pausing as he passed. “Luca—”

He turned. She was silhouetted against the green light, eyes darker than the glass above them.

“Whatever we find, it won’t bring her back. But it might bring you back. That’s the point of this.”

He wanted to say he wasn’t sure he deserved to come back, but the words jammed. Instead he managed a small smile, the first voluntary one in months, and left before the sound of her closing door could feel like loss.

Outside, snow had thickened to slow-motion curtains. He stood on the stoop, breathing sage and winter air, and realised the tremor in his hands had quieted. Not gone—just quiet. That, too, felt like a beginning.