"Hello, Isla."
Her mother’s voice—soft, calm, utterly composed—cut through the suffocating silence of the room.
Isla froze.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
Because this?
This was impossible.
Her mother—**Catherine Calloway—**had been dead for twenty years.
Her car had gone off a bridge.
Her body had never been found.
And yet—
She was standing here.
Alive.
Isla staggered back, her pulse roaring in her ears.
"This… this isn’t real," she whispered.
Catherine’s expression didn’t change.
"You always were sharp," she murmured, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. "I suppose it was foolish of me to think you wouldn’t question the official story."
Isla’s fingers clenched into fists. "You expect me to believe you faked your own death and never looked back?"
A pause
