Chapter 1 The Postcard

The postcard shouldn’t have been there.

It lay perfectly centered on my welcome mat, as if someone had knelt down and gently placed it there—not slid it, not dropped it, but placed it. Like a gift. Or a warning.

I froze in the doorway, morning air brushing my face, cool and sharp. The neighborhood was quiet: sprinklers hissing two houses down, a dog barking faintly in the distance, the faint hum of an early commuter.

But no footsteps.

No cars.

No retreating figure.

Just the postcard.

I bent down slowly, my fingers tingling as I picked it up. The cardstock was cold, faintly damp, as if it had been carried through fog or wrapped in someone’s palm.

The photo made my breath stop.

A playground.

Our playground.

Faded, blurred around the edges—but unmistakable.

The crooked slide. The rusted chain swing. The sagging fence behind the oak tree. Everything exactly as it had been before.

Before the police tape.

Before the search boats.

Before they said he never came back up.

A pulse beat at the base of my throat as I turned the card over.

And then the world tilted.

Did you miss me?

Two words.

A familiar handwriting.

A looping S, a crooked M, a question mark too sharp at the bottom.

My knees nearly buckled.

It looked like his writing—K’s, messy and rushed, like he was always in a hurry to get the thoughts out before they vanished. I’d memorized that handwriting as a child, tracing the notes he passed me during class. I’d seen it on the police posters, on the memorial board, on the birthday card his mother kept even after the funeral we never had.

He was dead.

He was dead.

“Mom?”

The voice behind me made me jump. I spun around, shoving the postcard behind my back.

Sophie stood halfway down the stairs in her unicorn pajamas, hair sticking up in every direction, eyes still heavy with sleep.

“You okay?” she asked softly.

I forced a smile. “Of course. I’m just… tired.”

She nodded, like she didn’t entirely believe me. “Can we have pancakes?”

“Sure,” I said, locking the door a little too fast. “Go wash your face.”

She padded upstairs. I walked into the kitchen, my hand shaking as I set the postcard face-down on the counter. It felt like a live wire—like the ink itself could sting me.

I cracked eggs, poured milk, measured flour, all on autopilot, because my brain was still back on that playground. The last time I saw K alive, he had waved at me from the top of the slide and said—

No.

Don’t go there.

“Mom?” Sophie appeared in the doorway again. “I heard something last night.”

My stomach clenched. “What kind of something?”

“A voice,” she whispered. “Outside my window.”

I nearly dropped the pan. “Probably a dream.”

“I don’t think so.” She tugged at the hem of her pajama top. “It said my name. Twice.”

The whisk slipped from my fingers and clattered in the bowl.

“Sweetie,” I said carefully, “sometimes our brains—”

“I wasn’t dreaming.” Her voice was small but certain. “I got up and looked outside. And there was a man across the road. He was just standing there.”

Cold washed over me.

“Did you see his face?” I asked.

“No. He was too far away.” She hesitated. “But he was staring at our house.”

I tried to smile. “Probably someone walking their dog.”

“He didn’t have a dog.”

Something inside me tightened.

I placed the bowl down slowly, deliberately, because if I didn’t, I might drop it. “Eat your pancakes,” I said, keeping my voice light. “You’ll feel better after breakfast.”

But she didn’t touch them. She kept glancing at the drawer where I’d hidden the postcard.

After she finished half her meal, she went upstairs to get dressed. Only when I heard her bedroom door close did I pull the postcard out.

Did you miss me?

My hands trembled.

K had vanished at fourteen. He’d fallen into the lake. One second he was laughing, the next he was gone. They never found his body. They told me to accept it.

I never did.

A faint tap sounded from the living room.

I froze.

Another tap.

Soft. Deliberate.

Slowly, I moved toward the window.

Through the thin curtain I saw a figure.

A man.

Standing across the road. Exactly where Sophie said she saw someone last night.

Tall.

Still.

Facing directly toward the house.

My heart slammed against my ribs. He didn’t move. Not even when a car drove past. It was like he was carved from stone, rooted to the concrete.

I stepped back carefully, afraid to breathe.

Then his head tilted—just slightly, just enough to see the motion.

As if he was listening.

No.

No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be him. The mind plays tricks. Trauma reshapes shadows. I blinked—

And he vanished.

Just gone.

Like he’d been erased.

A chill crawled up my neck. I pressed a hand to my chest to steady my breathing.

“Mom? Can we go now?” Sophie called from upstairs.

“Yeah,” I said, voice shaky. “Grab your backpack.”

We walked to the bus stop together. I kept checking behind us, scanning every corner, every parked car, every stretch of sidewalk. Nothing. Silence pressed in on both sides of the street, thick and suffocating.

When the bus arrived, Sophie hesitated on the steps.

“Mom… what if he comes back?”

My throat tightened. “He won’t.”

“He was looking at us,” she whispered.

That cold dread settled deeper.

The bus doors closed. She gave me one last worried glance before the bus drove off.

When the bus turned the corner, I exhaled shakily and walked back toward the house.

The moment I stepped inside, the air felt wrong again.

Heavier.

I went into the kitchen, trying to gather myself. The drawer with the postcard seemed to hum with its own pulse. I opened it, staring once more at the familiar handwriting.

And then I froze.

Something new lay beside it.

A small scrap of paper.

Not there before.

Not possible.

My heart stuttered.

I picked it up with shaking fingers.

Same handwriting. Identical.

The loops.

The slant.

The sharp question mark.

A new message:

I saw you too.