Chapter 45
Morning arrived after a restless night. Brielle was not convinced she had slept more than a few hours. Each time she closed her eyes, she found herself listening instead of drifting into dreams. The townhouse possessed its own quiet rhythm after dark: a floorboard settling somewhere overhead, water murmuring through old pipes, and Grandpa's unmistakable snore filtering up from the room below. None of it had frightened her. If anything, the ordinary sounds had seemed sharper than before, as though someone had adjusted the world by the smallest degree and left everything else unchanged. She dressed without hurrying and followed the familiar scent of coffee downstairs. Grandma stood at the stove turning slices of bread on the griddle while Grandpa sat at the kitchen table behind his morning
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