My neighbor kept insisting she spotted my daughter at home during school hours. To be sure, I pretended to leave for work—then hid beneath the bed. Minutes later, I heard more than one set of footsteps crossing the hallway.

The next morning, I delivered the performance of a lifetime.

I bustled around the kitchen, humming a tune, packing my lunch with exaggerated normalcy.

“Have a great day at school, sweetheart,” I told her as she shouldered her backpack at 7:30 a.m.

“You too, Mom,” she said softly. She hesitated at the door, looking back at me for a lingering second, before stepping out into the morning chill.

I waited.

Fifteen minutes later, I got into my car, drove out of the driveway, and turned the corner. But I didn’t go to work. I drove three blocks down, parked my sedan behind a dense row of overgrown hedges near the community park, and killed the engine.

My hands were shaking as I walked back toward my own house. I moved through the neighbors’ yards, feeling like a criminal in my own life, ducking behind fences and trees. My heart pounded a frantic rhythm against my ribs—thump-thump, thump-thump.

I slipped into my house through the back door, locked it silently behind me, and crept upstairs.

Lily’s bedroom was pristine. The bed was made with military precision. The desk was organized, pencils aligned by height. It was the room of a girl who was trying desperately to control her environment because she couldn’t control anything else.

If she was coming home, she wouldn’t expect me to be here.

I needed a vantage point. The closet was too risky; if she opened it, I’d be exposed immediately. My eyes fell to the bed.

With a groan of effort, I lowered myself onto the carpet and crawled under the bed frame.

It was a claustrophobic nightmare. The space was cramped, smelling of dust and old carpet fibers. The darkness pressed against my face. I pulled my phone out, silenced it, and checked the time.

8:15 a.m.

I lay there, my body rigid. Every creak of the house settling sounded like a gunshot.

9:00 a.m. Nothing. My legs were beginning to go numb. Doubt began to gnaw at me. I’m paranoid, I thought. I’m a crazy mother spying on her innocent daughter. Mrs. Greene is just senile.

9:20 a.m.

CLICK.

The sound of the front lock turning echoed through the silent house.

My breath hitched. My entire body froze, muscles locking up.

The door opened.

Footsteps.

But it wasn’t the heavy, solitary stomp of a teenager throwing down a bag. It was a soft, shuffling sound. And it wasn’t one person.

There were multiple sets of feet. Light, hurried, whispery footsteps. Like mice scurrying into a hole to escape a cat.

I held my breath until my lungs burned.

“Shh, be quiet,” a voice whispered.

It was Lily.

She was home. She had lied to my face.

And she wasn’t alone.

I lay beneath the bed, paralyzed, as the footsteps moved across the hallway downstairs. The floorboards above the living room creaked under the weight of several bodies.

I heard voices. Children’s voices. Three, maybe four of them.

Lily’s voice floated up the stairs, authoritative yet gentle—a tone I had never heard her use.

“Sit in the living room. Keep away from the windows. I’ll get water and the first aid kit.”

First aid kit?

A faint, trembling voice answered her. “Thank you, Lily.”

That voice didn’t belong to a delinquent. It didn’t sound like a troublemaker skipping algebra to smoke cigarettes or play video games. It sounded terrified. It sounded broken.

I wanted to jump out, rush downstairs, and demand answers. But a maternal instinct, deeper and more primal than anger, told me to wait. To listen. I needed to understand the landscape of this secret world before I invaded it.

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