Sophie had been told twice that morning that her mother had changed her plans.

That was the part she could not understand.

Natalie sometimes arrived with coffee still in her hand, sometimes forgot where she had left her keys, and once drove halfway to preschool before remembering it was Saturday.

But she did not forget Sophie.

Near lunchtime, Sophie was sitting on the kitchen floor when something struck beneath her palm.

Three soft knocks.

A pause.

Two more.

Vanessa switched on the washing machine before Sophie could answer.

"Old houses make strange noises," she said.

Sophie kept staring at the floor.

Because pipes did not know the little knock her mother had used outside her bedroom since she was three years old.

And somewhere beneath the noise of the machine, it came again.

Three.

Then two.

By the time Owen Hale returned home that evening, his daughter had stopped asking whether her mother was coming back.

She was asking why someone had locked the basement door.

And Vanessa seemed far more afraid of that question than a stepmother should have been.

---

Why is that basement door locked — and why does Vanessa look so frightened?

Comment **"NEXT"** if you want Part 2.