The rain over the Derbyshire moors had a way of making the ordinary feel ominous. It fell in steady, silver sheets, blurring the lone figure standing at the gate of “6 Alexandra View.”
A child. Standing behind her. A small girl in a white nightgown, her face indistinct, holding a patent leather shoe. 6 alexandra view
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. The rain over the Derbyshire moors had a
Tonight, she was going to open it.
Eliza tried to run, but her feet were rooted. The girl in the mirror reached out a cold, small hand. And for the first time, Eliza recognized the child’s face. It was her own—from a photograph taken at age six. The year before she’d developed a sudden, inexplicable fear of mirrors. A small girl in a white nightgown, her
Outside, the rain stopped. A neighbor, walking her dog, noticed that for the first time in twenty-two years, the light was on in the turret room of 6 Alexandra View. And in the window, two figures stood side by side—one tall, one small—waving.