The Neighbor At Number 13

Now the house was painted green.

Not the soft green of gardens, but the deep color of bottle glass. Fresh paint gleamed along the passage wall, still shining under the rain.

The woman looked at the jar in Mara’s hand. “That belongs to us.”

Mara glanced down. A white label clung to the glass. The writing had blurred, but a black number remained visible.

13.

“I found it on the ground,” Mara said.

“You were following it,” the bearded man replied.

His voice was low. The passage seemed to shrink around it.

Mara’s grip tightened. “It fell through the gate.”

The girl’s gaze flicked toward the parcel sleeve behind Mara. “Then hand it over.”

Mara looked past them. The open gate revealed a strip of Number 13’s back garden. A van sat beneath a canvas cover, its rear doors open. Several parcels were stacked inside, all wrapped in brown paper. One had fallen near the gate.

She had been watching the house from her bedroom window for weeks, waiting to see what this family carried in and out. Tonight, when the parcel had dropped, she had slipped through the side door before she could talk herself out of it.

She needed to know what had changed this time.

Not just the faces. The house had been empty for four days while workmen replaced the windows. Then, yesterday, this family appeared. New clothes. New car. New name on the mailbox.

Mara had seen the old nameplate lying in the gutter.

Vale.

The thought struck hard enough to make her look toward the street.

Nora Vale’s house stood three doors away, dark behind its untrimmed hedge. Nora had disappeared six days ago. Her bicycle remained chained to the porch. Her mug still sat in the kitchen window. The police had searched once, spoken to the neighbors, and left with careful expressions that meant they had found nothing.

Mara had wanted to ask about it. She had wanted to knock on Nora’s door, but the yellow notice taped across it had stopped her.

Now the woman from Number 13 stepped closer.

“Give me the jar,” she said.

Mara noticed a thin red mark around the woman’s wrist, as if something tight had been fastened there. The girl beside her wore the same mark.

“What’s in it?” Mara asked.

The bearded man moved forward. “This is private property.”

“So is the passage.”

“It isn’t yours.”

“It’s shared,” Mara said. “My dad pays for the wall repairs.”

The lie came out quickly. Her father had complained about the wall repairs, but he had never paid for them.

The girl smiled without warmth. “You should go home.”

Mara heard a door slam somewhere inside Number 13. Then came the soft buzz of an intercom.

The woman’s face changed. Not much. A slight tightening around the mouth. Her eyes shifted toward the house.

Mara lowered the jar, pretending to surrender it. The woman reached out.

Mara dropped it.

The jar hit the stones and bounced once. The woman flinched. Mara shoved past the girl, seized the parcel sleeve, and ran toward the open gate.

A hand caught the back of her coat.

The fabric pulled tight against her throat. Mara twisted, kicked backward, and felt her heel strike someone’s shin. The grip released.

She stumbled into the garden.

Rain tapped against the van’s canvas cover. The air smelled of wet soil and fresh paint. Behind her, the girl hissed, “Stop her.”

Mara grabbed the nearest parcel and threw it at the gate.

It struck the metal bars, knocking them wide. Brown paper split. A stack of envelopes slid across the stones.

The woman shouted something in a language Mara didn’t recognize.

Mara dropped to her knees.

The envelopes were addressed in different hands, but one name appeared again and again in thick black letters.

NORA VALE.

For a second, Mara forgot the rain.

Nora Vale, who had vanished without taking her coat. Nora Vale, whose garden gate was still open. Nora Vale, whose neighbors had begun lowering their voices whenever her name came up.

Mara snatched one envelope from the stones.

The woman seized her wrist.

Her fingers were cold and strong. “Give it back.”

Mara looked up at her. The woman’s blond hair had shifted across her cheek, revealing a small dark birthmark beneath her left eye.

Mara had seen that mark before.

Not on this woman.

On the gray-haired man who had lived in Number 13 last winter.

The realization moved through her like a spark along a wire.

The faces changed. The mark did not.

Mara yanked hard. Pain flashed through her wrist, but the envelope stayed in her hand. She drove her shoulder into the woman’s chest and broke free.

The girl blocked the passage.

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“Then explain it.”

The girl’s eyes dropped to the envelope. “Nora was never supposed to send anything here.”

“Where is she?”

The girl said nothing.

The bearded man appeared behind Mara, filling the garden entrance. His red beard was wet now, darkened almost black. “You need to leave.”

Mara backed away. Her heel struck the open van door.

Inside, parcels rose in uneven stacks. A clipboard lay on the floor beneath them. At the top of the page, written in blue ink, was a list of names and dates.

Nora Vale’s name appeared beside today’s date.

Mara reached for the clipboard.

The man lunged.

She grabbed the edge and tore it free. Papers scattered under her shoes. The van’s interior light flickered, showing a second row of shelves behind the parcels. On one shelf sat a collection of identity cards, each tucked into a clear plastic sleeve.

Mara saw a photograph of the older gray-haired man.

The same birthmark sat beneath his left eye.

Then the man’s hand closed around her shoulder.

Mara screamed and drove her elbow backward. It caught him beneath the ribs. His grip loosened enough for her to twist away.

She ran.

The envelope was still in her fist. The clipboard had fallen, but a single label clung to the sleeve of her coat. She didn’t stop to see what it said.

The girl followed her into the passage. “Mara!”

Mara stumbled to a halt.

She had never told the girl her name.

The rain ticked against the metal fence. Somewhere beyond the houses, a siren wailed and faded.

The girl stood beneath the open gate, her pale face unreadable. “Nora Vale made a mistake,” she said. “Don’t make the same one.”

Mara backed toward her own side door.

“What mistake?”

The woman appeared behind the girl. Her cream coat was torn at the shoulder where Mara had struck her. The birthmark showed clearly now.

The girl’s mouth tightened. “Looking too closely.”

Mara reached for the doorknob.

The woman took one step forward.

Mara turned the knob and slipped inside, slamming the door between them. The lock clicked. A second later, something struck the other side hard enough to rattle the glass.

Mara ran through the kitchen without turning on the lights. Her wrist throbbed. Mud streaked the floor. She climbed the stairs two at a time and shut herself in her bedroom.

Only then did she look at the envelope.

It was damp, creased, and sealed with clear tape. The name on the front had been written in Nora’s narrow handwriting.

Mara knew it because Nora had once left a note in the neighborhood mailbox, asking everyone to keep their bins off the pavement. The letters had leaned forward as if hurrying.

NORA VALE 13 BLACKBIRD LANE

The address was wrong.

Nora lived at Number 9.

Mara turned the envelope over. A parcel label had been stuck beneath the tape, partly hidden by the fold. She peeled it back with a fingernail.

The return address read:

N. VALE NUMBER 13 BLACKBIRD LANE

Mara stared at the words until they blurred.

A vehicle rolled slowly along the street outside. Its headlights swept across her ceiling. She crouched beside the window and lifted the curtain by one corner.

Number 13’s gate was closed again.

The family had disappeared from the passage. The green house stood silent behind its fence, all its windows dark except one on the upper floor.

A figure watched from it.

Mara could not see the face, only the outline of a person standing behind the glass. Then lightning flashed over the rooftops, and the face appeared for one sharp instant.

It was Nora Vale.

Mara dropped the curtain.

The envelope slipped from her hand and landed on the carpet. Through the paper, something hard pressed against the surface. She knelt and tore it open.

Inside was a brass key.

A strip of red thread was tied around its bow, and beneath it, folded twice, was a note in Nora’s handwriting.

Mara read the first line.

DO NOT LET THEM KNOW YOU HAVE THIS.

Across the narrow passage, Number 13’s upstairs light went out.

Then Mara heard the side door of her own house begin to open.

End of chapter one. 7 more chapters in the full book.