Mrs. Harris blinked as if Daniel’s words had jolted her with electricity.
“Excuse me?” Her voice wavered, then tightened like a wet rope pulled taut. “I don’t think I understand…”
“Pack. Your. Things.”
Each word dropped like a stone into deep water.
She straightened, lips pressed into a thin, cold line.
“I’ve done everything exactly as you asked. The house is spotless, the boy is well-groomed, his meals are balanced—why, I even lowered your electricity bills and—”
“I never asked you to break my son.”
Daniel’s voice was quiet, but inside it a storm raged.
Eli pressed himself against his father’s leg, fingers clutching the fabric like an anchor.
“Dad… I didn’t mean to… I really didn’t…”
Daniel smoothed a hand over his son’s damp hair.
“It’s okay, buddy. You don’t have to do anything anymore.”
Then he turned back to the woman.
“You have ten minutes.”
While she packed in the hallway, the house sounded strange—every raindrop outside seemed to echo through the walls.
Eli sat curled on the couch, knees to his chest. His skin still carried the painful cleanliness of someone scrubbed past comfort, past care, into discipline.
“Dad,” he whispered, “I just wanted her to like me.”
Daniel knelt in front of him.
“Love isn’t something you earn. It’s something given freely. You understand?”
Eli nodded, but his eyes stayed wary—feral, like an animal taught to fear loud voices.
When the front door slammed, Daniel flinched.
Silence. Only the soft hiss of rain against the glass.
He gathered the bucket, gloves, sponges—the tools of Mrs. Harris’s “order”—and tossed them all into the outside trash. He wanted the smell of disinfectant gone, but it clung to the walls like a memory.
That night, Eli slept in his bed. His small hand rested on his father’s chest, as if checking that he was truly there.
The next day, Daniel called the agency.
“Mrs. Harris no longer works with us,” the man on the phone said in a monotone. “She resigned two weeks ago.”
“What?” Daniel froze. “What do you mean resigned? She was here yesterday.”
“That’s impossible, sir. She deleted all contact information. We tried reaching her regarding a complaint from another client, but… she vanished.”
That evening, a letter arrived. No return address.
Inside—just a short note typed in an old typewriter font:
“You should have been more attentive, Mr. Brooks. Your house isn’t yours anymore.”
Daniel read it three times. At first he thought it was a prank.
Then he noticed the kitchen light was on—he was certain he’d turned it off.
On the floor lay a plastic soldier.
Eli’s toys were all blue.
This one was green.
He picked it up. Etched under its foot was a single letter:
H.
The next morning he dropped Eli off with Mrs. Kramer, the gentle elderly neighbor who smelled of pies and lived with three cats.
“Just a couple of hours,” Daniel told her. “I need to sort something out.”
Eli hesitated.
“Dad… is Mrs. Harris coming back?”
“No.” Daniel’s voice was steel. “No one comes into this house unless I say so.”
Back home, he checked the security cameras. Nothing.
The recordings were clean—too clean. As if someone had wiped not just the files but the memory of the device itself.
A new folder appeared on his laptop.
House_Security → ELI
He clicked.
A video.
Recorded that morning.
Eli’s room.
Eli sitting on the bed, rocking, whispering:
“I’m tired, Mrs. Harris. Can I sleep now?”
Daniel’s blood drained from his face.
He sprinted to the child’s room—empty.
The pillow was crushed, the window cracked open.
He called Mrs. Kramer—no answer.
A strange siren wailed outside—not police. A car alarm.
Daniel ran outside.
Mrs. Kramer’s car was gone.
On the wet asphalt lay a little star-shaped cookie, soaked by the rain.
Three hours later, the police found his son.
Eli sat in the backseat of Mrs. Kramer’s abandoned car, wrapped in a blanket, unharmed but trembling.
The woman herself was missing.
In the glove compartment was a photo—old, faded.
A young Mrs. Harris holding a boy, maybe six years old.
A boy who looked terrifyingly like Eli.
On the back, in shaky ink:
“If only you had saved mine.”
The next days blurred together.
The police searched, but Mrs. Harris left no trace—no calls, no bank activity, no DNA. She had erased herself.
Daniel didn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he heard Eli’s whisper:
“Please… I’m tired…”
A month later, another envelope arrived.
Inside— a photograph of Daniel’s house, taken from the street.
In the kitchen window, a woman’s silhouette.
On the back:
“He is my son now.”
The police increased surveillance.
But the cameras began malfunctioning again.
Sometimes a figure flickered near the door.
Sometimes a lullaby drifted through the speakers—the same song Claire used to sing to Eli before she died.
One night, Daniel woke to a small sound.
A smell of lemon drifted from the kitchen.
He got up, heart pounding.
In the hallway, tiny wet footprints led toward the back door.
Eli stood there in his pajamas, barefoot, holding a bucket.
“Dad,” he whispered, “I helped. She said we have to keep the house clean so you won’t leave.”
Daniel’s throat tightened.
“Who said that?”
Eli smiled softly.
“Mrs. Harris. She’s here.”
He pointed to the window.
Daniel turned.
On the outside glass, in the glow of the streetlamp, two handprints appeared—one small and childlike, the other larger, feminine.
They slowly faded under the falling rain.
The police never found Mrs. Harris.
The cameras stopped glitching.
But every night at 9:03—Eli’s bedtime—the house filled with the scent of lemon.
And somewhere far away, quiet as rain on the roof, came a whisper:
“Long strokes, Eli. If you want a show later, finish the kitchen properly.”
Then one morning, Daniel woke to silence.
Eli was gone.
On the table sat a warm cup of hot chocolate.
And a little star-shaped cookie.
On it, written in neat childish letters:
“I went to help Mom.”