Part One
I buried my daughter, Sylvie, two years ago. She was eleven when she passed.
People said the pain would dull with time. It didn’t. It just got quieter.
It just got quieter.
Gareth, my husband, handled everything back then. He said I shouldn’t see her on life support. He handled the hospital paperwork too, and the closed-casket funeral, and every decision I couldn’t make because my mind felt wrapped in fog. He told me she was brain-dead, that there wasn’t any hope left. I signed forms I barely read, because I couldn’t process anything past the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears.
We never had other children after her. I told him, more than once, that I couldn’t survive losing a second one.
Then last Thursday morning, something happened that sent my whole life into a tailspin.
The landline rang. We rarely used it anymore, so the sound startled me badly enough that I almost let it go.
“Ma’am?” a careful voice asked. “This is Mr. Dunmore, principal at the middle school your daughter used to attend. I’m sorry to disturb you, but we have a young girl here who came into the office asking to call her mother.”
“You must have the wrong person,” I said automatically. “My daughter is deceased.”
My daughter is deceased.
A pause on the line. “She says her name is Sylvie,” he continued. “And she looks remarkably similar to the photo still in our student database.”
My heart started pounding hard enough to hurt.
“That’s impossible.”
“She’s very upset. Please, just speak to her.”
Then I heard a small, trembling voice. “Mommy? Mommy, please come get me?”
The phone slipped out of my hand and hit the floor. It was her voice. I would have known it anywhere, in any lifetime.
Gareth walked into the kitchen holding his coffee mug and froze when he saw my face, and the phone lying on the tile.
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Sylvie,” I whispered. “She’s at her old school.”
I expected him to tell me I was imagining things. Instead he went pale. Truly, completely pale.
Truly, completely pale.
He picked up the phone and hung it up fast. “It’s a scam. AI voice cloning. People can fake anything now. Don’t go there.”
“But whoever it was knew her name. It sounded like her, Gareth.”
“Obituaries are public. Social media exists. Anyone could pull that information together.”
I grabbed my keys off the hook by the door. He stepped in front of me, panic flashing across his face. “You can’t go. Please.”
Please.
“Please what, Gareth?” My hands were shaking, but my voice wasn’t. “If she’s dead, why are you afraid of a ghost, unless she isn’t one?”
“Don’t do this,” he said quietly. “You won’t like what you find.”
I didn’t answer. I pushed past him and got in the car.
The drive was a blur. I don’t remember a single traffic light. When I reached the school, I ran inside. The receptionist looked startled to see me.
“She’s in the principal’s office,” she said softly.
I rushed down the hall and pushed the door open. A girl sat across from Mr. Dunmore — thirteen now, taller, thinner. But it was her.
It was her.
“Mom?” she whispered.
I crossed the room in two seconds and dropped to my knees in front of her chair. “My Sylvie,” I sobbed, pulling her into my arms.
She was warm. Solid. Real. My daughter wrapped her arms around me like she was afraid I might disappear the same way I’d apparently disappeared on her.
“Why did you never come for me?” she cried into my shoulder.
“I thought you were gone,” I choked out.
She pulled back just far enough to look at me, eyes red and scared. Before either of us could say anything else, someone stepped into the doorway behind us. Gareth. Breathing hard.
Sylvie turned slowly. “Dad?”
He stared at her like he was looking at something that shouldn’t have been possible.
Something that shouldn’t have been possible.
“You knew she was alive,” I said.
“No.” His voice had no conviction in it at all.
“Then why did you try to stop me from coming?”
“Adele.” He glanced at Mr. Dunmore. “We should talk privately.”
“No.” I stood and took Sylvie’s hand. “We’re leaving.”
Gareth followed us into the hallway. “You can’t just take her.”
“Watch me.”
Students and teachers stared as we walked past. I didn’t care about a single one of them.
Outside, I got Sylvie into the car and started driving, planning to take her home. Then I realized Gareth might go there too, and I no longer trusted him with anything.
“Please don’t leave me again,” Sylvie muttered beside me.
I no longer trusted him with anything.
“I won’t, baby,” I said firmly. “I’m taking you to your Aunt Harriet’s for a little while. I need to figure out what happened first.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You won’t be. You used to love staying with her. She let you stay up late and eat ice cream for dinner sometimes, remember?”
A small, uncertain smile finally broke through.
When we pulled into my sister’s driveway, my heart was still racing. Harriet opened the door, stared at us, and gasped.
Sylvie stepped forward. “Aunt Harriet?”
Harriet covered her mouth before pulling her into a tight hug. “It’s really you,” she cried, and we stepped inside together and shut the door behind us.
“I don’t know everything yet,” I told her. “But I think Gareth’s been lying to me for two years.”
Harriet’s whole expression changed. “Please keep her here,” I said. “He doesn’t know your address. Only the general area.”
Sylvie looked up at me, fear creeping back into her face. “Please don’t let them take me again.”
Them.
“No one’s taking you,” I promised. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
