The Chair That Wasn’t Empty at Midnight

The second pendant was identical to mine.

Before I could take in what that meant, my phone went dark. The cold had drained its last charge.

The greenhouse vanished into blackness.

A sharp breath escaped me. I let the journal fall and retreated through the soil, my pulse battering my chest.

Then came a sound from beyond the glass.

Crush. Crush.

Someone crossed the frozen lawn.

I stopped moving, scarcely daring to draw breath. The steps halted at the greenhouse entrance.

A narrow figure appeared behind the misted panes, its outline faint in the moonlight.

Evelyn.

She stood motionless. I stayed still, hoping she hadn’t noticed the broken ground, hoping she blamed the mess on some animal.

Her hand rose toward the door.

Metal scraped as she slid the bar into its brackets from the outside.

A lock snapped shut.

She hadn’t come to investigate. She knew I was trapped inside.

“You’ve always been as curious as Clara, Sarah,” she said through the glass. Her voice was even, almost gentle.

I rushed at the door and struck it with both hands. “Open it! Evelyn, let me out!”

“Keep warm, dear.” Her footsteps faded across the grass toward the house.

The lock held fast, and the greenhouse sealed me in.

I didn’t waste breath shouting after her. I knew she wouldn’t return to release me—not after what I’d learned. The temperature was falling. Moist earth chilled beneath my knees, and the cold seemed to creep through my clothes toward the bone. If I remained here until morning, I might not survive. Evelyn could tell my father she’d found me frozen.

I lowered myself and swept my hands across the dirt, searching blindly. My fingertips finally closed around the wooden grip of the iron trowel.

I crawled to the bottom corner of the wall, where the pane I’d loosened earlier sat crooked in its frame. The old seal had split along the edge.

I forced the trowel’s blade into the opening. After drawing in a breath, I planted my shoulder against the frame and hauled down on the handle with all my weight.

The glass burst apart in a ringing crash.

Fragments scattered across the grass and over my legs. There was no point worrying about the noise now. I knocked away the sharp pieces still clinging to the frame with the trowel, making an uneven opening wide enough to crawl through.

I pushed into the winter air. A shard caught my forearm, cutting through my sleeve and into my skin. I barely registered it; fear and urgency drowned out the sting.

I got upright and ran toward the house across the silvered lawn. I could think of only one thing: reaching Leo.

The back entrance gave way, and I slipped into the kitchen. Silence filled the house. I kept my muddy boots on and hurried up the rear stairs, trying not to wake anyone with a creaking board.

My old bedroom door remained shut. I turned its handle and eased it inward.

Leo was awake, sitting upright beneath the quilt. His eyes found me in the dark, and his gaze fixed on my bleeding arm.

“Mommy,” he whispered. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m all right, sweetheart.” I went straight to him, grabbed his little coat from the chair, and helped him into it. I left his shoes behind, then lifted him and wrapped the quilt snugly around him. “We’re going to play the quiet game. Don’t make a sound until we’re in my car, okay?”

He nodded and pressed his face against my uninjured shoulder.

I reached for the car keys on the nightstand. My shaking hand made them clatter against the wood, so I closed my fist around them to hush the noise. Then I stepped into the hallway with Leo in my arms.

At the opposite end, the master bedroom stood open. No one was inside.

A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. Both of them were awake.

I carried Leo down the main stairs, watching the foyer’s dark corners as I went. The front entrance waited ahead. It was only a short distance. Once outside, I could start the car and drive straight to the police station. I moved toward it.

“Evelyn’s searching for you out back.”

I stopped dead at the front of the house, Leo held tight against me. Robert’s voice had come from the living room.