63

Sierra’s POV

Grandma’s house was quiet. Too quiet. At home, there were always little sounds. The hum of the fridge. The creak of the floor. Here, there was just… nothing. It made my ears ring.

Katie liked it at first. Grandma Vivienne had a whole room of old toys from when Louis was a kid. Wooden blocks. A tin robot. Katie thought they were cool and weird.

But at night, she got scared. The wind off the ocean made a howling noise around the big old house. She climbed into my big canopy bed.

“Mommy, I want to go home,” she whispered.

“Me too, baby,” I whispered back. “Just a few more days.”

I didn’t sleep. I stared at the fancy patterns on the ceiling. I thought about Louis. Alone in our house. Was he sleeping? Was he eating? Or was he just sitting in the dark, staring at screens, waiting for a shadow to move?

My phone buzzed. A text from Louis. It was just a photo. A blurry picture of our basement wall. Then another text: **Found it.**

My heart jumped. I typed back: **Found what?**

**The way in. A old coal chute. From when the house was first built. Sealed up in the 50s. Someone reopened it from the outside. Very small. But big enough.**

A coal chute. Like for shoveling coal into a basement a hundred years ago. A secret door no one remembered.

**Did you see him?** I texted.

**No. But I know how he’s getting in now. I’ve sealed it from the inside. With metal. He won’t use it again.**

That was good. It was one door closed. But it didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel worse. He knew about a door in our house that *we* didn’t know about. How? Did he study old blueprints? Did he just… know?

The next day was long. Vivienne tried to be nice. She made pancakes. She asked Katie about school. But her eyes kept flicking to me. She was worried. I could tell.

In the afternoon, my phone rang. It was Louis.

“Hey,” I said, walking out to the big stone terrace for privacy.

“Hey.” He sounded tired. Really tired. “The house is clean. I’ve been through every inch. No more bugs. No more secret doors. The coal chute was the only one.”

“So he’s locked out?”

“From that way, yes.” He paused. “Sierra… I found something else. In the basement. Behind the water heater.”

“What?” My throat felt tight.

“A little camp. A blanket. A bottle of water. An empty chip bag. And a notebook.”

A camp. He wasn’t just visiting. He was *living* down there. Sometimes.

“What was in the notebook?” I asked.

“Pictures. Drawings. Of the house. Of the garden. Notes about our schedule. When the garbage goes out. When the security change shifts.” Louis’s voice got lower. “And there were older notes. About me. About my habits from… years ago.”

“What do you mean?”

“He knows things. Personal things. What brand of coffee I used to drink in my old office. The license plate of my first car. It’s… it’s not just about watching us now. This is about me. From a long time ago.”

A seagull cried over the ocean. The sound was lonely.

“Who is he, Louis?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded frustrated. “But he’s not a stranger. He can’t be.”

We were quiet. The wind blew my hair around.

“Come get us,” I said. “Please. If the house is clean, come get us. I don’t want to be here. I want to be home. With you.”

“Is it safe?” he asked.

“Is anywhere safe? At least we’ll be together.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Okay. Tonight after dark. I’ll have Martin bring you back. But we have to be careful. The story is that we’re still fighting. So you come home, but we keep pretending. No one can see us together.”

“Okay,” I said. I didn’t care about pretending anymore. I just wanted to be under the same roof.

I told Vivienne we were going home. That Louis was coming back from his trip early and we needed to be there.

She just looked at me with her sharp eyes. “You’re going back to the battlefield.”

“It’s my battlefield,” I said. “I have to be there.”

She didn’t argue. She just hugged me. It was a quick, stiff hug, but it was real. “Then fight well.”

The drive home in the dark felt like going back into a cave. Katie slept the whole way. I just watched the city lights get closer.

We pulled into the garage. The house was dark and quiet. We went inside. It felt different. Empty and full at the same time.

I put Katie to bed in her own room. She was so happy to be in her own bed she fell asleep in two minutes.

I walked out into the hallway. And there he was. Louis. Leaning against the wall, waiting. He looked older. He had shadows under his eyes.

We didn’t say anything. We just hugged. I buried my face in his shirt. He smelled like home. Like coffee and his soap. I didn’t let go for a long time.

“I sealed the chute,” he whispered into my hair. “I set up new sensors. Nothing is getting in unseen now.”

“Good,” I mumbled.

We finally let go. He took my hand and led me to the kitchen. He made tea. We sat at the island.

“Show me the notebook,” I said.

He got it. It was a small, black notebook. The pages were filled with messy writing and little sketches. I saw my name. I saw Katie’s name. I saw times written down. *S. leaves for school run – 7:45am. Gardener arrives – Tuesday 10am.*

It was our life, written down by a stranger.

Then I flipped to an older page. The writing was different. Neater. It had a list.

*– Black coffee, two sugars (like the old days)*

*– Drives the black Audi (sentimental)*

*– Still wears the silver watch (gift from father)*

*– Checks the west gate lock last (habit since ’08)*

I looked up at Louis. “This is you. From a long time ago.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “The silver watch… my father gave it to me the day I took over the company. I only wore it for a few years. How would a stranger know that?”

“A stranger wouldn’t,” I said.

The word hung in the air. *Not a stranger.*

The ghost was someone from Louis’s past. Someone who knew him when he wore that watch. Someone who knew about a coal chute in a house built a century ago.

“We have to find out who,” I said. “Before he writes the ending to his play.”

Louis nodded. He looked at the notebook like it was a poisonous thing. “We will. Now that you’re home, we will.”

We went to bed. Together. In our own room. Louis held me so tight it was almost hard to breathe. But I didn’t mind. For the first time in days, I felt my body start to relax. My eyes got heavy.

Just as I was drifting off, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. Once. Twice.

Louis felt me tense. “Don’t look at it,” he murmured.

“I have to,” I whispered.

I reached for it. It was a text. From another new number.

**Welcome home, Sierra. Did you have a nice visit? Tell Louis I said hello. And tell him… the watch is still ticking.**

I showed Louis. In the glow of the phone, his face went pale.

He wasn’t outside the house.

He was inside. With us. Right now.