The handle turned with the careful slowness of someone trying not to be rude.

  Skye’s body locked before her mind caught up.

  Alice moved first—not panicked, not loud, just immediate. She slid Skye sideways behind the wardrobe, the one that smelled faintly of mothballs and hymnbook paper. It wasn’t a proper hiding place. It was the kind of hiding place you chose when you had three seconds and a life you couldn’t explain.

  Skye’s shoulder bumped wood. Her arm itched under the taped cotton like a small animal clawing to get out.She kept her hands clenched at her sides anyway. No touching. No bleeding. No fainting. Not here.

  Father Mallory opened the door a crack, body angled so the room stayed hidden behind him.

  Ben’s voice came through first, impatient and confused. “Dad? Mum says you’re—”

  The boy stepped forward and saw it wasn’t his father.

  He stopped.

  There was a beat where his face tried to decide whether to be embarrassed or annoyed.

  “Sorry,” Ben said quickly, cheeks flushing. “I thought—”

  “I know,” Father Mallory said, softening his tone without making it patronising. He didn’t move aside. He didn’t offer Ben a view of anything. “Your mum asked me to check something in here.”

  Ben peered up at him anyway, eyes narrowing in that young way that wasn’t suspicious so much as pattern-seeking. Skye had known that look on him since Year Six. It was the look he got when a teacher changed the rules mid-lesson.

  “Where is he?” Ben asked.

  Mallory’s hand stayed on the door like a brace. “Not here,” he said. “He popped out. He’ll be back.”

  Ben frowned. “He never pops out. He hates meetings.”

  Skye heard the edge of affection under the complaint and felt something twist in her chest. Ordinary life. Ordinary grumbles. A boy annoyed his dad had escaped beige-curtain hell.

  Father Mallory offered a small, tired smile. “People surprise us.”

  Ben’s gaze flicked past Mallory’s shoulder—trying to see into the room.

  Alice’s nails dug into Skye’s wrist, a warning and a tether at once.

  Ben’s eyes landed on Mallory’s face again. “Were you... talking to someone?”

  Mallory didn’t even blink.

  “There’s someone staying here for a bit,” he said, quietly, the words chosen like stones placed carefully on a bridge. “Until they can get back on their feet.”

  Ben’s frown deepened. “Like... homeless?”

  “Yes,” Mallory said. “Like that.”

  Ben’s whole expression shifted. Not judgement. Just concern, the way he’d looked at a pigeon once with a broken wing.

  “Oh,” he said, and then, because Ben couldn’t help himself: “Is she-are they okay?”

  Mallory’s eyes softened for real. “They will be.”

  Ben nodded, accepting it in the way he accepted most things adults told him: not because he trusted them blindly, but because he wanted the world to be a place where help existed.

  He hesitated on the threshold anyway. “Mum said I could come find you after speaking to Dad because she didn’t want me listening to Maureen shout about curtains again.”

  A faint voice from somewhere down the corridor rose on cue—Maureen, probably, indignantly insisting beige was “inviting” and anyone who thought otherwise had no taste.

  Ben grimaced. “See.”

  Mallory breathed out. “Come in for a moment,” he said, and stepped back just enough to let Ben slip through without opening the room to the corridor.

  Skye’s stomach tightened.

  Ben entered the vestry like it was a secret club. He took in the two narrow beds, the faded sofa, the mismatched mugs on a tray. His gaze flicked toward the high window, the slit of glass that looked into the church interior.

  He didn’t look at the wardrobe. Not yet.

  He was close enough now that Skye could hear the quiet click of his trainers on the worn floor. Close enough that if he laughed, it would feel like it landed on her skin.

  Ben sat on the edge of the sofa without being invited, as if he’d been in this room enough times to claim it.The wardrobe was still behind Mallory’s shoulder, just out of Ben’s direct line of sight. He wasn’t looking at Mallory now. He was looking at the floor, working up to something.

  Skye knew that posture too.

  “Father?” Ben said, voice dropping.

  Mallory angled himself so he blocked the wardrobe from Ben’s peripheral vision. Casual. Natural. Like it wasn’t a human shield.

  “Yes?”

  Ben swallowed. “I’ve been... seeing Skye.”

  Silence hit the room like a bell.

  Skye’s lungs stopped. Alice’s grip tightened so hard it made stars flash behind Skye’s eyes.

  Mallory didn’t react the way Skye expected. No flinch. No shock. Just a stillness that said he’d been waiting for this moment since the car park.

  “You’ve been thinking about her,” Mallory said carefully.

  Ben shook his head hard. “No. Like— seeing. Properly.”

  Mallory’s gaze stayed steady, but Skye saw the tiny shift in his throat as he swallowed. “Tell me.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Ben leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped too tight. “It started at McDonald’s,” he said, and then rushed the words as if they might slip away if he didn’t get them out fast. “Drive-thru. I’m on window. It’s boring. Then this car pulls up and I recognised it, obviously—” He stopped, eyes flicking up, checking if Mallory was going to tell him off for saying obviously.

  Mallory didn’t.

  Ben continued, voice gaining pace. “It was the Harpers’ car. Same one. I mean, it looked a bit... older, but it’s the same shape. And Mr Harper—” He nodded vaguely toward the church hall, meaning Simon without naming him. “He was driving.”

  Skye felt her ribs pull, a dull reminder that her father’s idea of stealth had always been built on willpower, not practicality.

  Ben’s eyes widened slightly, the story catching heat as he relived it. “And I was like— wow, okay, because Mum talks about Linda all the time, and I was going to say hello and be normal about it, and then the passenger window was down and I saw her.”

  Skye’s stomach dropped even though she already knew where this was going.

  Ben’s face went pale. “Skye.”

  Mallory didn’t correct him. Didn’t soften it. He let the name sit there.

  Ben’s voice cracked on the next line. “Same age. Same hair. Same—” He touched his own chin without thinking. “That scar. And she was wearing—” His gaze flicked toward the wardrobe, as if the clothes might be hiding in there. “She was wearing the same kind of stuff she used to. Not like a grown-up pretending. Like... like she’d stepped out of that same day.”

  Skye pressed her forehead against the inside of the wardrobe door. The wood was cold.

  Ben kept going, breath shallow. “And the weirdest part is, she looked at me like she knew I’d seen her. Like— like she was surprised. Like she got scared straight away.”

  He swallowed. “Not like a normal scared. Like—like she’d been caught. Like she didn’t want anyone to notice. And then she sort of... went still, and they drove off. Fast.”

  Skye felt heat flare under her skin—not pride, not anger. A flash of memory: the sudden drop in her stomach, the way her whole body had gone rigid in the passenger seat. Terrified, and furious at herself for being seen at all.

  Mallory’s voice stayed calm, but there was steel under it now. “And you told your mum.”

  Ben nodded. “She said I was tired. Then I told Mr Clarke because he was my teacher and he’s always been... you know. Not rubbish. He said— he said he thought he’d seen Skye too, in Ipswich, with Alice, and they told him it was a cousin called Lindsey.”

  Skye felt Alice’s body tense, a silent curse.

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. “But no one’s ever mentioned an identical cousin. And I know it’s not my business, but—” His voice shook. “It was the same day Jamie got out.”

  Mallory’s gaze flicked to the door, as if he could hear that name travelling through walls.

  Ben saw the look. “You know, don’t you?” he said, quietly. Not accusing. Just suddenly certain.

  Mallory didn’t answer.

  Ben licked his lips, voice dropping again. “There’s more.”

  Skye’s throat tightened so hard it hurt.

  Ben’s hands unclasped and reclasped, the movement jittery. “Police were at Jamie Waters’ house,” he said. “Like... loads of them. Tape. Vans. Dad was on shift and he came home looking like he’d swallowed something sharp. He told Mum they’d found his parents.”

  Alice made a sound behind Skye—too small to be a word, too sharp to be nothing.

  Ben’s eyes flicked toward Mallory’s face, needing him to anchor the world. “Dead,” he said, voice going thin. No one spoke for a moment. Even the building seemed to pause.“And his parole officer. Dead too.”

  For a second Skye didn’t understand the sentence. It slid past her brain like water past stone.

  Then it hit.

  Jamie’s parents. The parole officer. Dead.

  Not hurt. Not missing. Dead, clean and absolute, like the world had decided to become the kind of place it had always threatened to be.

  Mallory’s face drained. His hand went to the back of the chair beside him as if he needed something solid to hold.

  Ben kept talking because stopping would mean feeling. “And the police went down into the basement,” he said, and swallowed. “And they found... stuff.”

  “Stuff,” Mallory echoed faintly.

  Ben’s voice dropped to a whisper, like the words themselves were contaminated. “Nazi things. Propaganda. Memorabilia. Like— flags and books and pictures and— notebooks.”

  Skye felt her skin crawl.

  Ben’s gaze slid away, shame flickering over his face like he was confessing something he’d personally hidden. “And apparently he’d been writing,” he said. “For ages. Like he’d been planning.”

  Mallory’s voice was hoarse. “Planning what?”

  Ben looked up and the fear in his eyes was clean and childlike despite him being old enough to work and use words like propaganda.

  “Us,” he said.

  Skye’s stomach turned.

  Ben swallowed hard. “The Harpers,” he clarified, voice shaking. “Your family. Like... names. Times. Notes about where they go. Who they talk to. And it said—” His breath hitched. “It said it over and over. Like he couldn’t stop writing it. and Dad said it sounded recent compared to the other stuff, like it only just happened after he got out”.

  Skye felt Alice’s nails dig into her arm through the wardrobe wood, not physically possible but somehow still felt.

  Ben’s mouth worked. “Skye must die,” he whispered.

  The room went too quiet. Even the voices in the hall seemed to fade, as if the church itself didn’t want to carry that sentence.

  Mallory shut his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his gaze was fixed on the floor, not because he couldn’t look at Ben, but because he couldn’t look at God without asking why.

  “There’s a warrant,” Ben added, hurried, as if he needed to give them something that sounded like order. Dad said—well, he said it sounded like they were looking for him.

  Alice’s breath came in sharp. Skye could picture her face—rage and panic and that old, poisonous guilt trying to climb back in.

  Ben’s shoulders hunched. “But—” He stopped, frowning. “If there’s a warrant, why didn’t they... stop him before?”

  Mallory’s jaw tightened. “Mrs Harper tried warning them.”

  Ben’s eyes widened.

  “They didn’t act,” Mallory said, voice held carefully in place. “They told her to call if she saw him.”

  Ben’s eyes flashed. “That’s useless.”

  Mallory didn’t argue. He looked older suddenly, not in his face but in his posture, like a man who’d spent years comforting people with faith and had just watched the world hand him something faith couldn’t legally restrain.

  Ben’s voice cracked. “I don’t want him to get away with it,” he said. “I don’t want him to—” He stopped himself, swallowed. “I don’t want anyone else to die.”

  Mallory’s gaze lifted, and for a fraction of a second it slid toward the wardrobe.

  Skye’s heart slammed.

  He didn’t betray her. He just looked, and the look said something Skye couldn’t bear and couldn’t deny: You have already died. And now the world is trying again.

  Mallory’s voice came careful, controlled. “Ben,” he said gently, “I need you to do something for me.”

  Ben nodded instantly. “Anything.”

  Mallory tilted his head toward the corridor. “Go back to your mum. Tell her I’m dealing with something pastoral. Tell her I’ll be back in five minutes. And—” His gaze sharpened. “Do not go out into the car park.”

  Ben frowned. “Why?”

  Mallory’s smile was thin, practiced. “Because Maureen will corner you about the curtains and you’ll never escape.”

  Ben let out a weak huff that wasn’t a laugh. He stood, obeying, but the worry didn’t leave his face.

  At the door he hesitated. “Father?”

  “Yes?”

  Ben’s voice dropped again, raw. “If I’m not mad... if it really is her somehow or if it it is Lindsey and Jamie sa...?”

  Mallory held his gaze. “You are not mad,” he said softly.

  Ben nodded once, hard, like he’d just been handed a rope.

  “Bring them here safe,” Ben blurted, then flushed as if he’d said something too big in a church.

  Mallory’s eyes softened. “I intend to try.”

  Ben slipped out and pulled the door closed behind him. The latch clicked.

  Silence rushed back in.

  For a second nobody moved. Not even Alice.

  Then Mallory turned toward the wardrobe, eyes wet and steady at once. He didn’t speak yet. Like he was asking permission from the air.

  Alice opened the door first, just enough for Skye to step out.

  Skye emerged into the room like someone being born badly—too bright, too loud, too exposed.

  Her legs felt weak. Her ribs pulled. Her arm itched under the cotton and tape, and she didn’t touch it, because she couldn’t afford a single additional complication.

  Alice’s face was white with fury. “He killed his parents,” she whispered.

  Mallory’s voice was low. “If what Ben heard is true... yes.”

  Skye couldn’t find the right feeling. Horror was there, but it was tangled with something colder: a recognition that Jamie had always been capable of this and everyone had just... pretended he wasn’t.

  “He wrote my name,” Skye said, and her own voice sounded strange to her. Flat. Like it belonged to someone else. “Over and over.”

  Mallory nodded once, grim. “Obsession makes people devotional,” he said quietly. “In the wrong direction.”

  Alice’s hands were shaking. “We can’t stay here.”

  “We may not have a choice,” Mallory said.

  Skye’s irritation flared—sharp and alive, a relief. “I’m tired of people deciding,” she snapped. “I’m tired of being a secret. I’m tired of—” She stopped, breath catching, because the rest of the sentence was being dead in everyone’s head.

  Mallory’s gaze softened. “I know,” he said. “But alive and safe is the first miracle. The second is keeping you that way.”

  Alice wiped her face with the heel of her hand like she hated that it was wet. “Dad’s out there,” she said. “And if Jamie’s— if he’s—”

  Mallory’s phone was already in his hand, thumb hovering. “I will contact your mother,” he said. “And I will contact your father as soon as he returns. And”—his eyes flicked to the small window—“we will keep you out of sight until we have a plan that isn’t made of panic.”

  Skye stared at the door Ben had just closed.

  Ben knew.

  Alan had seen her.

  Christine and the Base has seen her,

  The town wasn’t a sealed container. It was a net full of holes, and secrets leaked like light.

  Outside, beyond stone and wet grass, her father had opened the coffin

  and come up holding nothing only for someone to realise the truth:That Skye Harper is alive.