Chapter 1 - The Year She Refused to Believe
“And you haven’t aged a—”
Margaret stopped herself.
Too late.
Evelyn had heard enough.
Her fingers tightened around Ethan’s hand.
The young woman’s face changed from panic to something sharper.
Recognition.
Not of Ethan.
Of Margaret.
“You were there.”
Margaret’s lips trembled.
Helen immediately gripped her arm.
“Margaret.”
But Evelyn stepped forward.
“You were there.”
Ethan looked from one woman to the other.
“That’s impossible.”
Margaret was seventy-four.
Evelyn looked twenty-five.
If Evelyn truly came from 1896, Margaret could not possibly have witnessed anything.
Evelyn stared at Margaret’s face.
“The green ribbon.”
Margaret went white.
“What ribbon?”
“You had a green ribbon in your hair.”
Helen whispered:
“Stop.”
Evelyn pointed at Margaret.
“You were standing behind the glass.”
Ethan tightened his grip around Evelyn’s hand.
“Evelyn, what glass?”
She began breathing faster.
“I don’t know.”
Her other hand pressed against her temple.
“There was a room.”
The foyer disappeared from her eyes.
She was seeing somewhere else.
“A room with brass walls.”
Margaret shut her eyes.
Evelyn continued.
“And people shouting.”
Ethan noticed Helen’s expression.
She knew this too.
“What room?” he asked.
Neither elderly woman answered.
Evelyn’s voice cracked.
“My father was there.”
“Who was your father?”
“Dr. Elias Mercer.”
Margaret made a small sound.
Not surprise.
Confirmation.
Ethan knew the name.
Every child in the Mercer family did.
Elias Mercer had built the original mansion in 1888.
Inventor.
Industrialist.
Founder of Mercer Electrical Works.
And according to every family history Ethan had ever heard, Elias’s only daughter Evelyn Mercer died in 1896 after falling through river ice.
There were portraits of her upstairs.
Ethan had grown up beneath them.
He turned slowly toward Evelyn.
Same pale eyes.
Same face shape.
Same unusual dimple in the left cheek.
Not similar.
Identical.
Ethan had always assumed portrait artist romanticized her.
Now he realized the portrait had simply been accurate.
Margaret whispered:
“Ethan... don’t ask her any more questions yet.”
“Why?”
“Because the last time she remembered too much, she disappeared again.”
Silence.
Evelyn stared.
“The last time?”
Ethan stepped toward Margaret.
“You said you watched her disappear.”
Margaret looked at him.
“I did.”
“When?”
She swallowed.
“1974.”
That was first answer.
Not 1896.
Margaret had not witnessed Evelyn’s original disappearance.
She had witnessed a second one.
At seventeen years old.
Inside this mansion.
And according to Margaret, Evelyn had looked exactly the same then too.
Twenty-five.
No older.
No younger.
Then Ethan asked the question none of them could avoid.
“If she vanished in 1896... how was she here in 1974?”
Margaret looked at the freshly broken wall.
“At the time, we thought she had been hidden in this house for seventy-eight years.”
“And now?”
May you like
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“Now I think the house was hiding something much worse.”
