Chapter 40: The Bright Horizon (teaser)
The house had grown quieter, somehow. Not in sadness—but in preparation. As though it, too, knew something was changing.
Eva was three now. Not quite tall enough to reach the table without climbing, but more articulate than most adults could dream of being at that age. She understood silence and the meaning that clung to it. She understood waiting. And, more than anything, she understood that something inside her was beginning to stir.
It wasn't sudden. It had come gently—like the soft blooming of a flower in late spring. There was no flash of light, no crack in the sky. Just a quiet longing.
For more.
More than the sprawling estate with its maze of rooms. More than the stories Vivienne told by candlelight, or the puzzles Evelyn left half-finished on purpose for Eva to solve. Even the garden, with its polished stones and whispering trees, had begun to feel too small for the breadth of Eva's wonder.
She didn't know where the feeling came from. Only that it was rising—like the sun, slow and bright—behind her ribs.
On a chilly morning touched with silver mist, Eva stood by the tall window in her room. Her hands were folded neatly behind her back. Her face was calm. But her eyes—those deep, ancient eyes—were watching the horizon as if waiting for it to move.
"Soon," she whispered to no one.
And somewhere, far beyond the walls of the house, something ancient shifted.
Something had heard her.