Chapter 2: A thirty-year-old man began regularly visiting my elderly neighbor. But one day, when I stepped inside her home, I discovered something terrifying.

I walked toward the living room.

The parcel that had originally brought me next door was still lying on the side table.

I'd left it there during the emergency.

Now I finally examined the sender.

LINDEN PHOTOGRAPH RESTORATION

Mrs. Wilson had apparently sent several old photographs to be repaired.

I called her at the hospital and asked permission to open the package.

“Of course, sweetheart,” she answered.

Inside were restored photographs and a handwritten note from the photographer.

One picture showed the original Seven Oaks Circle standing beside the enormous oak tree.

Another showed Mrs. Wilson and her late husband, George, laughing together in their garden.

I smiled sadly.

Then I noticed a third photograph.

It was an older image, probably taken in the early 1960s.

A very young Margaret Wilson stood outside a brick hospital.

She couldn't have been more than seventeen.

She wore a pale dress and held something close against her chest.