Chapter Ten: Welcome Home
1466 Words
“Welcome home.”
Maya couldn’t breathe.
The voice came from inside the hatch.
Her voice.
But deeper somehow.
Older.
Her mother pulled Maya backward.
“Run.”
The thing inside the hatch laughed softly.
Maya’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“What is that?”
“Don’t ask questions!” her mother shouted. “Just run!”
For once, Maya listened.
They ran.
Down the hallway.
Past the cracked mirror.
Down the stairs.
Behind them came a scraping sound.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Something was climbing out of the hatch.
Maya reached the front door and grabbed the handle.
Locked.
She twisted it again.
Nothing.
“Mom!”
Her mother rushed toward the kitchen.
“The back door!”
They ran through the dark house.
The lights flickered above them.
Once.
Twice.
Then everything went black.
Maya stopped.
Her mother grabbed her hand.
“Keep moving.”
“But I can’t see!”
“You don’t need to.”
Something laughed upstairs.
Maya’s mother pulled her through the kitchen.
Maya’s hand found the back-door handle.
She turned it.
Locked.
“No.”
Her mother tried.
Nothing.
Then every lock in the house clicked at once.
Click.
The front door.
Click.
The back door.
Click.
The windows.
Maya slowly turned.
Her mother looked terrified.
“She locked us in.”
Maya swallowed.
“She?”
Her mother looked toward the ceiling.
“Yes.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Then another.
Slow footsteps crossed Maya’s bedroom.
Maya whispered:
“The thing from the lake.”
Her mother shook her head.
“No.”
“Then what?”
Her mother didn’t answer.
The footsteps stopped.
Directly above them.
Then Maya heard her own voice.
“Mom?”
Her mother went completely still.
The voice came again.
From upstairs.
“Mooooom?”
Maya’s mother closed her eyes.
Maya stared at her.
“What is happening?”
Her mother whispered:
“That voice doesn’t belong to you.”
The kitchen lights suddenly came on.
Maya flinched.
And in the reflection of the dark window—
someone was standing behind them.
Maya turned.
Nobody.
She looked back.
The reflection was still there.
A girl.
Seven years old.
Yellow raincoat.
Bare feet.
Maya’s younger self.
Only she was smiling.
Maya backed away from the window.
Her mother grabbed her arm.
“Don’t look.”
“It’s me.”
“No.”
Maya looked at her.
“What do you mean, no?”
Her mother’s eyes filled with tears.
“That isn’t you.”
The girl in the window lifted her hand.
And waved.
Then the glass shattered.
Maya screamed.
Her mother pulled her toward the hallway.
“Upstairs!”
“What?!”
“There’s another way out!”
They ran up the staircase.
Behind them, glass crunched beneath something’s footsteps.
Slow.
Wet.
Coming closer.
Maya reached the top of the stairs.
Her bedroom door stood open.
The closet hatch was gone.
The wall looked normal.
As if it had never existed.
Maya stared.
“No.”
Her mother rushed past her.
“To the attic.”
“We have an attic?”
“Not exactly.”
Maya followed her mother into the far bedroom.
Her mother pushed aside an old wardrobe.
Behind it was a narrow door.
Maya had never seen it before.
A small crescent moon was carved into the wood.
Maya stopped.
Her mother saw her expression.
“I didn’t want you to find this.”
“What is it?”
Her mother looked toward the staircase.
The footsteps had stopped.
Silence filled the house.
Then Maya heard breathing.
Someone was standing in the hallway.
Her mother unlocked the small door.
“Go.”
“Mom—”
“GO!”
Maya stepped through.
Her mother followed and slammed the door behind them.
Darkness.
Maya switched on her phone flashlight.
They were in a narrow room.
Dust covered the floor.
Old furniture had been stacked against the walls.
Maya slowly turned.
Photographs.
Everywhere.
Her mother froze.
“No.”
“What?”
“I burned these.”
Maya walked closer.
Photographs covered the walls.
Some showed Maya as a baby.
Some showed her at seven.
Others showed her standing beside Blackwater Lake.
Then Maya saw something that made her stop.
A photograph of two babies.
Her mother’s younger self stood in the hospital.
Holding one baby.
Maya.
But another baby lay in a crib beside her.
Maya’s mouth went dry.
“Mom.”
Her mother didn’t move.
“Who is that?”
No answer.
Maya stepped closer.
The photograph had a date written beneath it.
SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO.
Maya looked at the two babies.
Same skin tone.
Same dark curls.
Same tiny crescent-shaped birthmark near their eyebrows.
Maya’s heart pounded.
“That’s me.”
Her mother whispered:
“Yes.”
“And that’s…”
Her mother began crying.
Maya stared at her.
“I had a sister.”
Her mother shook her head.
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Maya…”
“Tell me!”
Her mother covered her mouth.
Then she whispered:
“There were two of you.”
Maya felt the room tilt.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You told me I didn’t have a sister.”
“I told you what I had to.”
“What happened to her?”
Her mother looked toward the photograph.
“She disappeared.”
Maya stared.
“When?”
“Before you were even a year old.”
Maya couldn’t understand.
“How?”
“We don’t know.”
“Did Dad know?”
Her mother looked down.
“Your father spent years trying to find answers.”
Maya went still.
“My father?”
Her mother nodded.
“He found something.”
Maya’s chest tightened.
“What?”
“A door.”
Silence.
Maya slowly looked toward the small door they had entered through.
Her mother whispered:
“Not the door under the library.”
Maya felt cold.
“Not the lake?”
Her mother shook her head.
“The first door.”
Maya stared.
Her mother looked at the wall of photographs.
“There were never only two.”
Before Maya could ask another question—
BANG.
Something slammed against the small door.
Maya jumped.
Her mother grabbed her.
“It found us.”
Another slam.
BANG.
The wood splintered.
Maya’s phone buzzed.
She looked down.
Ethan.
DON’T LET IT SEE THE PHOTOGRAPH.
Maya looked around.
“Which photograph?”
Her phone buzzed again.
THE ONE WITH BOTH OF YOU.
Maya’s mother saw the message.
Her face changed.
“Ethan knows.”
Maya stared at her.
“You know he’s alive?”
Her mother nodded slowly.
“Alive isn’t the word I’d use.”
BANG.
The door cracked.
Maya grabbed the photograph of the two babies.
“What do I do?”
Her mother looked terrified.
“Hide it.”
“Where?”
The lights on Maya’s phone flickered.
Then a voice whispered from behind the wall.
“Maya…”
Her mother grabbed her hand.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“Maya!”
“You’ve lied to me for ten years!”
“I was trying to protect both of you!”
Maya froze.
Both.
Not just her.
The second baby.
The girl.
The voice.
Maya looked down at the photograph.
“She’s alive.”
Her mother said nothing.
Maya looked up.
“She’s alive, isn’t she?”
The door exploded inward.
Maya screamed.
The room went dark.
Her phone hit the floor.
For one second, the flashlight illuminated the doorway.
A girl stood there.
Seventeen years old.
Dark, soaking curls hanging around her face.
The same eyes as Maya.
The same scar above her eyebrow.
But now Maya understood something she hadn’t before.
The girl wasn’t an imitation.
She wasn’t a shadow.
She wasn’t something pretending to be Maya.
She was real.
The girl stepped into the room.
Maya’s mother whispered her name.
The girl smiled.
Maya’s stomach dropped.
“What’s her name?”
Her mother began crying.
The girl answered for her.
“My name is Mara.”
Maya stared.
Mara.
The girl stepped closer.
“You finally remembered me.”
Maya held the photograph tightly.
“You’re my sister.”
Mara’s smile faded.
“That’s what she wanted you to believe.”
Maya’s mother stepped in front of Maya.
“Don’t listen to her.”
Mara looked hurt.
“Still lying?”
“What do you mean?” Maya whispered.
Mara’s eyes locked onto hers.
“I wasn’t the baby who disappeared.”
The room became completely silent.
Maya looked at her mother.
Then back at Mara.
Mara pointed at Maya.
“You were.”
Maya’s phone lit up on the floor.
One final message from Ethan appeared across the screen.
MAYA, SHE’S TELLING THE TRUTH.
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