By three in the morning, the house should have been silent. Normally at that hour the neighborhood slept in a kind of deep stillness where even the ticking of the kitchen clock sounded loud enough to echo through the hallway. But that night something felt off long before I reached my daughter’s bedroom door. I had woken up suddenly with the uneasy feeling that parents sometimes get without knowing why, the kind of instinct that pulls you out of sleep before your mind has time to form a reason. At first I tried to ignore it, lying there in the darkness and listening to the quiet hum of the refrigerator downstairs, but then I heard it—soft movement from the hallway, followed by what sounded like someone whispering.
I sat up instantly.
