Chapter 2: Someone Who Never Stopped Believing
My legs wouldn't hold me.
I grabbed the stair railing just to stay upright.
"My brother," I repeated.
"Thomas was my brother."
The old man nodded slowly.
His eyes were wet.
"His name wasn't Thomas Cross.
That was a name he chose.
His real name was Thomas Harlan.
My son."
Harlan.
I had never heard that name in my life.
"Then who am I?"
He looked at me for a long moment.
"You are the child we spent twenty years trying to find."
Sophie had gone completely still near the door.
I looked at the key in my hand.
The brass was worn smooth, like someone had held it thousands of times.
"He had this key all those years," I said.
"And he never brought me here.
Why?"
The old man's jaw tightened.
"Because of what happened the night he took you."
The word landed wrong.
"Took me?"
He didn't answer immediately.
He looked at Sophie.
Something passed between them.
Then he turned back to me and said:
"There is someone else in this house who needs to see you first.
Before I explain anything."
He started up the staircase.
"Come."
I didn't move.
"Who?" I asked.
He stopped.
Gripped the banister.
"Someone who never stopped believing you were alive."
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What the old man revealed upstairs left no one in that room able to speak.
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