Aaaaand Its Gone

Chapter 8 — The Loop in the Light

Ada and Sheriff Colter drove in silence for a long mile before either spoke.
“You’re sure you saw them?” he asked again.

“I saw a family in that window,” Ada said, eyes on the mirror. “And I saw them watching me.”

Colter didn’t answer. The wipers clicked rhythmically across the dry windshield. When the road curved, Ada frowned. The same crooked birch leaned over the ditch—the one they’d passed ten minutes earlier.

Then the same fallen fence. The same hollow in the field.
She turned in her seat. The lake glimmered behind them exactly as it had before.

“Sheriff,” she said slowly, “we never left.”

The radio clicked on by itself. A low hum, then static, then a few notes of that lullaby—the one she’d heard across the fields at night. The sound thinned until it was nothing but breath.
Colter stopped the truck, jaw tight. The road ahead vanished into fog. When he turned around, the farmhouse stood on the rise again, calm and waiting.

Thomas had been pacing. He’d wound the clock three times that morning, but the hands twitched and dropped back to the same position: 7:04. The sunlight from the east window never reached the west wall. It simply hung in the air, pale and suspended.

Margaret tried to pack another bag, though every time she turned back to the table the items inside were rearranged: her hairbrush where the matches had been, Josephine’s drawings folded neatly as if placed by a careful hand.

“Don’t you feel it?” she asked. “Like the air keeps starting over?”

Josephine stood by the window, watching the lake. In the reflection, the house behind her was brighter, newer, freshly painted. Smoke rose from the chimney. Someone’s laughter drifted faintly across the water—her own, but not from this time.

Outside, Ada and Colter approached the porch again. They meant to circle the property, yet each path bent back toward the front steps. The fog pressed in close, silencing even their footsteps.

Colter raised his hand to knock. Before his knuckles touched the wood, the door opened inward.

Margaret stood there.

For a heartbeat, Ada’s relief almost outweighed her fear. “Ma’am,” she said, “are you all right?”

Margaret nodded, but too slowly, as though catching up to the question. “You’ve come back already,” she said.

“Already?” Colter repeated. “We only left an hour ago.”

Thomas appeared in the hall behind her, his expression distant. The light from the open door spilled across the floor but didn’t reach him—it stopped halfway between them, like water meeting a glass wall.

Ada stepped forward. “Your daughter, is she—?”

“She’s upstairs,” Margaret said, and the words came twice: once from her mouth, once a beat later from somewhere above.

Josephine watched the strangers enter. In her eyes, they looked faintly transparent, their outlines blurred as if seen through running water. She lifted her hand in greeting, and Ada felt a cold wind pass through her arm.

The sheriff touched the doorframe. “This place isn’t right,” he murmured.
Margaret gave a small, weary smile. “It’s remembering,” she said.

A shiver ran through the house. The wallpaper rippled; the vines in the mural curled and straightened. The air drew itself in—a long, low breath that filled the hall. Then the light shifted.

Outside, the fog thinned to silver. Birds cried once, startled, and then silence returned.
Ada blinked hard, momentarily blinded by sudden brightness. When her eyes adjusted, she was standing at the gate again, Colter beside her, truck idling. The farmhouse was exactly as they had first seen it—still, untouched, porch swing motionless.

“Did we go up there?” Colter asked.
Ada looked down at her boots, damp with dew. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

Inside the house, the clock struck once and froze. Margaret set the last bag by the door. Thomas reached for the handle. The hands on the clock shifted backward.

The morning began again.