Chapter 2 - The Echoes of a Past Life
On the second evening, while the girls were quietly drawing pictures with crayons Arthur had bought at the corner pharmacy, Arthur sat at his mahogany desk, pulling out a heavy leather-bound ledger.
He was a historian. He spent thirty years tracing lost lineages, forgotten treaties, and buried archives across Europe and New England. If there was a story behind these two little girls, there would be a paper trail. Or, at the very least, a digital one.
He booted up his dusty desktop computer—a bulky machine that took three minutes just to connect to the internet.
While the screen flickered to life, he looked over his shoulder. Nell was drawing a house with a very large chimney; Nora was carefully coloring a tree bright blue.
"Arthur?" Nell’s voice cut through the hum of the computer tower.
"Yes, Nell?"
"Are you going to send us back?"
Arthur’s hand froze on the mouse. He turned around, meeting her solemn, piercing gaze. "Back where?"
"To the dark place. With the men who wear black coats."
The air in the room suddenly felt thin. Men in black coats.
"No," Arthur said, his voice dropping an octave, steady and absolute. "Nobody is sending you anywhere. I promise you that."
Nell studied his face for a long, agonizing moment, searching for any sign of deception. Seeming to find what she was looking for, she nodded slowly and went back to her drawing.
Arthur turned back to the screen. He typed local missing children reports for Denver and the surrounding counties over the past week. Nothing. He checked national databases for unidentified children matching twin descriptions. Nothing. It was as if Nell and Nora had simply dropped out of the sky into that cardboard box behind the lamppost.
Then, he decided to search local classifieds and real estate archives out of sheer intuition. Their clothes, though thin and worn, were made of expensive wool—designer brands, tailored down. Their speech patterns, though guarded, lacked the vernacular of poverty. These weren't children from the streets.
And then, his phone rang.
The shrill, sudden chime tore through the silence of the house like a gunshot.
Both girls flinched instantly, dropping their crayons, their eyes locking onto the telephone on the kitchen wall with expressions of pure, unadulterated terror.
Arthur’s heart hammered against his ribs. He stood up quickly, walked over to the wall, and snatched the receiver off the hook.
"Hello?" he snapped.
"Arthur Whitmore?" a cold, metallic, completely unfamiliar voice asked on the other end.
"Who is this?"
"You have something that belongs to the Sterling estate, Professor. Keep the children warm. We’ll be there to collect them shortly."
Click.
The dial tone buzzed in Arthur’s ear.
He stood frozen in the kitchen, the receiver shaking in his hand. Sterling estate. The name struck him like a physical blow. The Sterling name was legendary in Denver—shipping magnates, real estate titans, and old-money billionaires whose wealth spanned generations.
He turned slowly toward the living room. Nell and Nora were standing close together, holding hands, staring at him with tears silently pooling in their eyes.
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"They know we're here, don't they?" Nell whispered.
Arthur didn't answer. He didn't have to. The peaceful silence he had known for forty-two years was officially over.
