Chapter 4

That night, the pattern repeated itself, a horrifying echo of my father' s death.

Mark, who never sleepwalked, got out of bed.

I had been restless, unable to sleep, the reporters' questions echoing in my mind.

I' d warned Mark' s parents earlier, a vague warning about being careful, about my mother' s... unsettling history. They lived in the apartment below his.

I heard a noise from his living room.

I found him on his balcony, climbing the railing.

His eyes were open, but vacant, like he was in a trance.

"Mark!" I screamed.

He didn' t respond.

I rushed forward, but his parents, alerted by my scream or some premonition of their own, were already bursting through his apartment door.

Mr. Henderson grabbed Mark just as he was about to go over.

They wrestled him back, Mark thrashing, muttering incoherently.

He was hospitalized, sedated, deeply shaken.

The doctors said it was a severe somnambulistic episode, likely triggered by stress.

The same explanation they gave for my father.

Two days later, my phone rang. An unknown number, staticky, distant.

"Sarah?"

It was Mom' s voice, raw, desperate. Her third utterance.

"Sarah, listen to me. You have to get away. Stay away from Blackwood Creek. Forget the past, forget everything. It' s not what you think."

Her voice broke. "Mama loves you."

Then, a thud, a sharp crackle, and the line went dead.

My heart pounded. She sounded terrified, not manipulative.

Before I could even process her words, my newsfeed lit up.

Evelyn Hayes had invited the press to Blackwood Creek, promised a midnight revelation about the prophecy, about everything.

Then, another update, an hour later.

Evelyn Hayes found dead in Blackwood Creek.

Apparent suicide.

A blurry, disturbing image of the scene flashed on a news site before it was taken down.

A rope. A tree. The old town hall in the background.

It couldn' t be. She was warning me. Why would she then...?