6 Alexandra View -

Eliza pushed the creaking gate open. The key was still under the third frog statue, just as her mother had described. The lock turned with a reluctant clunk .

Eliza’s blood turned to ice. The house plans she’d found in the county archives flashed through her mind. There was no attic. The roof was a flat, decorative cap. Yet the footsteps grew louder, coming down… down… toward the locked room door. 6 alexandra view

The mirror began to ripple, its surface turning from glass to liquid mercury. And through it, Eliza saw a narrow hallway lit by gaslight—a hallway that did not belong to 6 Alexandra View. At the end of it stood Arthur, not dead, not kind, his military posture rigid. He was holding a second patent leather shoe. Eliza pushed the creaking gate open

But it was the framed photograph above the fireplace that drew Eliza in: Lydia, beaming, her arm around a man with a kind face and a military posture. Her great-uncle, Arthur. The one who had died six months before Lydia vanished. The one whose bedroom—a locked room at the end of the upstairs hall—Eliza had never been allowed to enter. Eliza’s blood turned to ice

As the footsteps arrived at the door, the last thing Eliza saw was her reflection splitting in two: one version screaming, the other smiling, holding the door open for Arthur.

Tonight, she was going to open it.

Her aunt, Lydia, had vanished from this very porch. No note. No struggle. Just a dropped watering can and a single, patent leather shoe.