10. Dangerous Curiosity
942 Words
Clara didn’t sleep that night.
She sat on the edge of her bed, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, staring at the rain streaking against her window. The hooded man’s voice still echoed inside her head, replaying in a loop she couldn’t escape.
Evelyn.
It wasn’t her name, and yet—something about the way it had been whispered, the way it had struck her so deeply, unsettled her more than she could admit. It wasn’t just random. It couldn’t be.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. She flinched before reaching for it.
Daniel: Don’t go anywhere alone tomorrow. Promise me.
Her fingers hovered over the screen, hesitation clouding her thoughts. She wanted to demand answers, to scream at him for keeping secrets—but instead, she typed:
Clara: Why does he think my name is Evelyn?
The typing dots appeared. Then vanished. Appeared again. Then stopped.
No answer came.
Clara dropped the phone onto the mattress and buried her face in her hands. She hated this—hated being left in the dark while everyone else seemed to know the truth. She wasn’t a child. She wasn’t fragile. She had a right to know.
But curiosity was dangerous. And yet, it was all she had.
The next morning, she took the long way to work, weaving through side streets she rarely used. Every sound—the rumble of a bus, the shuffle of footsteps behind her—made her spine stiffen.
Daniel hadn’t shown up. She half expected him to be waiting at the corner, shadowing her the way he always seemed to, but he wasn’t there.
That should have been a relief. Instead, it terrified her.
She ducked into a small bookstore on the edge of town, hoping the smell of paper and ink might steady her nerves. The shop was quiet, the kind of place where time moved slower. She traced her fingers along the spines of old novels, trying to calm her racing thoughts.
“Looking for something in particular?” the shopkeeper asked.
Clara shook her head with a polite smile. “Just browsing.”
But even as she said it, her eyes caught on a dusty shelf at the back of the store—one labeled Local Histories.
Something pulled her toward it. She didn’t know why.
Her gaze skimmed over titles until she found an old leather-bound volume: The Lost Families of Grayford.
Her stomach flipped. Grayford. The name of her neighborhood.
Clara pulled it down, the weight of it heavy in her hands. She carried it to the nearest table and opened it carefully, the pages yellowed with age.
Names. Dates. Old photographs. Generations of families who had lived in the city.
And then—her breath caught.
A photograph. Black and white. A woman standing on the steps of a grand house, her eyes sharp, her smile hauntingly familiar.
Clara.
It looked like her.
But the caption read: Evelyn Hart, 1952.
Her hand shook as she touched the image. Her face. Her eyes. But decades too old to be possible.
“Find something interesting?”
Clara gasped and slammed the book shut. Daniel stood across the table, his expression unreadable, his dark eyes fixed on her.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I told you not to go anywhere alone,” he said, ignoring her question. His gaze shifted to the book. “You shouldn’t be reading that.”
Her anger boiled over. “Stop telling me what I shouldn’t do! I saw her, Daniel. I saw me. She looked exactly like me, and her name was Evelyn.”
His jaw tightened, his silence screaming louder than denial.
“Who was she?” Clara pressed, desperation cracking her voice. “Why does she look like me? Why won’t you tell me what’s happening?”
Daniel’s hand curled into a fist at his side. For a moment, it looked like he might actually answer—but then his eyes flicked past her, to the window.
Clara turned just in time to see the reflection of a figure standing outside the shop. The hooded man. Watching. Waiting.
Her pulse spiked. She spun back to Daniel, but his expression was no longer calm. It was fierce, urgent.
“They’ve found you,” he said, voice low and clipped.
“Who’s they?” Clara demanded, panic lacing her words.
Daniel reached across the table, grabbing her wrist. “We have to go. Now.”
“But—”
“No, Clara. No more questions. If you stay, you won’t get the chance to ask them later.”
Her chest heaved as fear pressed against her ribs. The hooded man was still there, his figure unmoving in the gray daylight.
She looked at Daniel, her mind spinning. Could she trust him? Or was she running straight into more lies?
But then he whispered, almost like a plea, “Please, Clara. Just trust me this once.”
Her legs trembled as he pulled her toward the back exit of the shop. The weight of the old book still lingered in her hands, the photograph of Evelyn burned into her mind.
She didn’t know who Evelyn was.
She didn’t know who Daniel truly was.
But she knew one thing—curiosity had already led her too far to turn back.
And as the door slammed shut behind them, she realized something else—
The hooded man wasn’t alone anymore.
Cliffhanger:
Clara has just discovered a woman from 1952 who looks exactly like her, named Evelyn. But before she can demand the truth, Daniel drags her away as the hooded man—and others—close in.
- Writer
