Chapter 8 - WHAT CAME OUT OF THE RIVER

Mara grabbed Ezra’s coat.

“You tell me exactly what you mean.”

Ezra did not resist.

“Your sister heard the Echoes years before you did.”

“She was nine.”

“They don’t care.”

He explained that the abandoned mine connected to underground water channels feeding the river.

The miners had disturbed something buried beneath the ridge.

A network.

The small creatures were pieces of it.

“Like nerves,” Ezra said. “They enter through the ear, learn voices, memories, fears. Then they call to the next person.”

“Lena?”

“She was infected.”

“You’re lying.”

“I found her three days after the river took her.”

Mara released him.

“Where?”

“Here.”

The tunnel seemed to shrink.

Ezra continued.

“She walked out of the lower mine soaking wet. She knew your name. Your parents. Your birthday.”

“Then she was Lena.”

“No.”

His voice broke.

“She didn’t know pain.”

Mara frowned.

“She cut her hand on broken glass and watched it bleed like she’d never seen blood before. She knew memories, but she didn’t understand being human.”

Caleb whispered, “An imitation.”

Ezra nodded.

“I tried to take her to town. She attacked me when we reached sunlight.”

Mara stepped back.

“No.”

“I locked her below. I thought I could cure her.”

“Where is she?”

Ezra looked toward the darkness.

“Still down there.”

Mara’s entire body went cold.

The voice from the tunnel changed.

“Mara.”

Lena.

Perfect.

“I waited for you.”

Mara moved forward.

Caleb caught her.

“No.”

“That could be her.”

“It isn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

Ezra’s voice sharpened.

“I do.”

The lantern light flickered.

A small figure appeared at the far end of the tunnel.

A woman now.

Not a child.

She looked exactly as Lena might have looked at twenty-seven.

Same eyes.

Same dark hair.

Same crooked smile.

Mara stopped breathing.

Lena smiled.

“You got old.”

Mara began to cry.

Caleb whispered, “Mara, don’t.”

Lena tilted her head.

Then she looked at Caleb.

May you like

My Son Sat There While His Wife Slapped My 4-Year-Old Granddaughter Hold...

MY SON WATCHED HIS WIFE HIT MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD GRANDDAUGHTER—BUT WHAT LILY WHISPERED NEXT MADE MY BLOOD RUN COLD.My four-year-old gr...

**My Wife Secretly Unplugged the Nursery Camera, Then Approached My 6-Mo...

My Wife Secretly Unplugged the Nursery Camera—Then I Saw Her Standing Over My 6-Month-Old Son With a Red-Hot Iron. But What She Sa...

I Came Home Early and Found My 5-Year-Old Daughter Eating Scraps Beside...

I thought I was coming home to an ordinary dinner.Instead, I found my five-year-old daughter sitting on the kitchen floor beside t...

Her smile widened.

“You brought me a door.”