The Ones Who Look Like Us

For one second, relief loosened Eli’s chest. Then he noticed the way she stood. Too straight. Too still. Her hands rested at her sides, fingers slightly curled, as if she had been waiting in that exact position for hours.

“Mom,” Mara said. “We’ve been calling.”

“I know.” Their mother’s eyes moved over them one by one. “You called after school yesterday, remember? Mara wanted to tell me about the girl in her English class. Jonah had broken the latch on the shed. June was upset because Eli wouldn’t let her sleep in his room.”

June’s grip tightened.

“That never happened,” Mara said.

Their mother laughed softly. “Of course it did.”

Eli stepped onto the porch. The boards gave a familiar groan beneath his weight. “Where’s Dad?”

The smile remained, but something behind it seemed to empty.

“Inside,” she said.

Mara opened her journal. “He disappeared three days ago.”

Their mother blinked.

Not together. Her left eye closed, then her right, with a tiny pause between them.

June looked up at Eli. “Wrong time.”

“What?” their mother asked.

“Nothing,” Eli said quickly. He moved closer to the doorway. “We’re coming in.”

Their mother shifted aside.

The hallway looked almost unchanged. The wallpaper still peeled near the coat closet. The brass umbrella stand still leaned against the wall. But the family photographs were gone from the staircase.

Eli stopped.

“Where are the pictures?”

“What pictures?”

“The ones of us.”

Their mother glanced toward the stairs. “You always hated those.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did,” she said. “You cried when your father made you wear that sailor suit.”

Eli remembered the suit. He remembered refusing to wear it. He remembered his father laughing while taking the photograph.

He also remembered the photograph itself, framed in blue glass.

“Where is Dad?” he asked again.

Their mother turned toward the kitchen. “He’s resting.”

Jonah slipped past Eli. “Can I see him?”

“No.”

The answer came too fast.

Jonah stopped. “Why not?”

“Because he’s tired.”

“From what?”

Their mother’s expression tightened. “You children have driven all this way. You must be exhausted.”

Eli stepped between her and Jonah. “We’re not leaving until we see him.”

For the first time, their mother looked directly at him. Her eyes were the right color, the same gray-green he had seen in every birthday photograph. But they did not seem to settle on his face. They rested just beside it, as though she were watching something over his shoulder.

“Your father is fine,” she said.

The house creaked behind her.

Mara’s pen moved across the page.

Their mother noticed. “Still writing everything down?”

“Only things that happen,” Mara said.

A silence opened between them.

Then the kitchen clock chimed.

Eli flinched. It was seven o’clock, though the sky outside had already gone black. The clock’s hands were stopped at twelve.

Their mother walked toward the kitchen. “Dinner is ready.”

“No,” Eli said.

She paused.

“We’re checking the house first.”

Her mouth curved again. “You always were suspicious.”

He led them down the hall. The living room was cold enough to raise gooseflesh on his arms. Their father’s chair sat beside the fireplace, empty except for a folded newspaper. Eli picked it up.

The date was three days old.

“Dad?” Jonah called toward the stairs.

No answer.

Eli checked the downstairs bathroom, the pantry, the laundry room. Every door stood open. In the pantry, jars of peaches lined the shelves, their labels facing outward with unnatural precision. In the laundry room, the washing machine turned slowly though its lid was open.

Mara stood near the staircase, staring at the wall.

“Eli.”

He joined her.

Four pale rectangles marked the wallpaper where photographs had hung. Dust outlined the frames. One rectangle was smaller than the others, low enough for June to have reached.

“Mom took them down,” Eli said.

“Why?”

He had no answer.

From the kitchen came the sound of a plate breaking.

They ran.

Their mother stood beside the table. A ceramic plate lay shattered at her feet. She looked down at it without surprise.

“Mom, are you hurt?” Eli asked.

“No.”

“Where’s Dad?”

She lifted her gaze. “He went to the hardware store.”

“When?”

“This afternoon.”

Mara went still. “He disappeared three days ago.”

Their mother’s face changed. Not fear. Not confusion. Something smoother, like a smile being pressed into wet clay.

“You’ve been worried for nothing,” she said.

Eli reached for his phone and opened the family group chat. The last message from their father remained on the screen.

I’ll be home before dark.

It had been sent three days earlier.

He turned the phone toward her. “This was the last thing Dad sent.”

Their mother read it. Her eyes did not move across the words.

“He sends things like that all the time.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“You forget.”

Mara’s pen scratched faster. “I don’t.”

Their mother looked at her. “You forget more than you think.”

June had moved beside the window. She lifted the curtain a fraction and peered outside.

“June,” Eli said. “Step away from there.”

“There’s someone in the yard.”

He crossed the room and pulled her back. Across the street, beneath the dead streetlamp, a man stood facing the house.

Eli recognized Mr. Vale from next door. He had lived there since before Eli was born. The man wore a dark coat despite the mild night. His arms hung at his sides.

“Why is he standing there?” Jonah asked.

“Maybe he saw us arrive,” their mother said.

Mr. Vale did not wave.

Eli lowered the curtain. “Everyone upstairs.”

Their mother’s voice sharpened. “You’ll stay here.”

He turned. “We’re going to check Dad’s room.”

“You don’t need to.”

“That’s why we’re checking it.”

For a moment, nobody moved. Then their mother stepped toward him.

June whispered, “She blinked again.”

Their mother stopped.

“What did you say?” she asked.

June’s face disappeared against Eli’s side.

“Nothing,” Eli said.

He took the stairs two at a time, with the others close behind. Mara kept one hand on the railing and the other on her journal. Jonah glanced over his shoulder once.

Their mother remained below.

At the top of the stairs, Eli pushed open his parents’ bedroom door.

The room was dark. He found the lamp and switched it on.

The bed was made. His father’s slippers sat beneath it, toes pointed toward the doorway. His wallet rested on the dresser beside a glass of water filmed with dust.

Mara entered behind him. “If he went to the hardware store, why are his shoes here?”

Eli opened the closet. His father’s coats hung in a neat row. The blue work jacket was missing.

“Maybe he left in a hurry,” Jonah said.

“Without his wallet?” Mara asked.

Eli pulled open the dresser drawers. Socks. Shirts. Receipts. Nothing.

Then Mara made a small sound.

She had found a photograph tucked beneath the edge of the mirror.

Eli took it from her.

It showed their father standing beside the mailbox, one hand raised against the sun. The date stamp in the corner read three days earlier. Behind him, the front door stood open.

Their mother was visible in the doorway.

So was another figure.

A dark shape stood behind her, too tall and narrow to be anyone in the family.

Eli leaned closer.

The figure’s face was turned toward the camera. Its eyes reflected the flash as two dull, blank marks.

“Who is that?” Jonah asked.

Mara snatched the photograph and wrote the date in her journal.

A floorboard creaked in the hallway.

Eli shoved the photograph into his pocket. He motioned for the others to get behind him.

Their mother stood outside the bedroom.

“You shouldn’t go through our things,” she said.

“Where’s Dad?”

Her expression was gentle now. Almost convincing.

“He’s fine.”

“Stop saying that.”

She tilted her head. “You’re frightening June.”

“Good,” Eli said. “Maybe she’ll stay away from the windows.”

His mother’s smile vanished.

The hallway light flickered. In the brief dark between flashes, Eli saw her reflection in the bedroom mirror.

It moved a fraction after she did.

He grabbed Mara’s wrist. “Downstairs. Now.”

They ran.

Their mother did not follow immediately. That was worse. Eli heard no footsteps behind them, only the faint scrape of something dragging across the floor above.

He shoved the siblings into the living room and locked the front door. The deadbolt clicked into place.

“We’re leaving,” Jonah said.

Eli looked through the window.

Mr. Vale still stood across the street.

Now there were three more figures beside him. Mrs. Vale. The man from the blue house. A woman Eli recognized from the corner store. All of them faced the Mercer home.

None of them moved.

Behind Eli, their mother descended the stairs.

“Why did you lock the door?” she asked.

Eli turned the key again, though it was already locked. “Because we’re staying together.”

Her eyes settled on June.

June stared back.

“She knows,” June whispered.

Their mother’s face remained calm, but her reflection in the dark window smiled a moment too late.

Outside, the neighbors stood in the road beneath the dead streetlamp, watching the house as if waiting for it to answer.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters in the full book.