I rushed my little girl to the ER after she said fish were swimming inside her, and the scan revealed thirty-six magnets.

The first few months after the sentencing were the happiest I’d been in years. With Patricia gone, with the trial behind us, with no more threats or harassment or court dates hanging over our heads, we finally felt like we could breathe again. We settled into a comfortable, happy routine—work, school, therapy, family dinners on the patio every Sunday night, movie nights on the couch every Friday. Daniel and I grew closer than we’d ever been, the trauma of the past year forging a bond between us that was stronger than anything we’d had before. We talked about everything, held nothing back, and slowly, slowly, the trust that had been broken in that ER waiting room began to heal.

But by the time summer rolled around, something started to feel… off.

It was small things at first. Things I told myself I was imagining, things I blamed on lack of sleep or leftover stress from the trial. I’d be in the kitchen cooking dinner, and I’d feel like someone was watching me through the window. I’d turn around, and no one would be there. I’d hear footsteps upstairs when I knew both Daniel and Lily were downstairs in the living room. I’d go up to check, and all the rooms would be empty. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, convinced I could smell Patricia’s perfume—her signature lavender and vanilla scent—lingering in the air, even though we’d thrown away all her things, even though we’d had the entire house professionally cleaned three times.

Daniel told me I was being silly, that it was just my mind playing tricks on me, that after everything we’d been through, it was normal to be a little jumpy, a little paranoid. He checked all the locks on the doors and windows every night, made sure the security system was armed, walked the perimeter of the property with a flashlight before we went to bed. But the feelings didn’t go away. If anything, they got worse.

Then the objects started moving.

I’d leave my coffee mug on the kitchen counter, turn around for five seconds to get the milk out of the fridge, and when I turned back, the mug would be on the other side of the counter. I’d put Lily’s hairbrush on the bathroom vanity in the morning, and that night it would be on her nightstand in her bedroom, even though I knew neither of us had touched it. I’d set the alarm on my phone for 7 a.m., and wake up at 9 a.m. to find it had been changed to 10 a.m., even though I knew I’d set it correctly.

At first, I blamed Lily. She was five, after all—she was curious, she liked to touch things, she was always moving stuff around. But when I asked her about it, she’d shake her head solemnly, her big blue eyes wide with innocence. “I didn’t touch it, Mommy. I promise. Maybe the house ghost did it.”

“The house ghost?” I said, laughing nervously. “What house ghost?”

“The nice lady who lives in the walls,” Lily said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “She comes out at night when we’re sleeping. She watches me sleep. She sings me lullabies when I have bad dreams. She says she’s my friend. She says she’s going to take me away soon, so we can be together forever.”

The blood drained from my face. I felt cold all over, a chill running down my spine that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. “Lily,” I said, my voice shaking. “When did you see this lady? What does she look like?”

Lily thought for a second, tilting her head to the side. “She has gray hair. And she wears a blue dress. And she has the same smile as Grandma Patricia. But she’s nice, Mommy. Not mean like Grandma was. She says Grandma was bad, but she’s good. She says she’s going to take care of me. She says you and Daddy work too hard, that you’re too sad all the time, that you don’t know how to take care of me right.”

I ran out of Lily’s room, down the hall to Daniel’s home office, my heart pounding so hard I thought I was going to be sick. He was on a work call, but I hung up the phone on his desk, grabbing his arm, my nails digging into his skin.

“Daniel,” I gasped. “She’s here. Patricia is here. She’s in the house. She’s been talking to Lily.”

Daniel stood up, wrapping his arms around me, trying to calm me down. “Rachel, honey, breathe. She’s in prison, remember? Maximum security. Three hundred miles away. She can’t be here. It’s impossible.”

“Then why does Lily know what she looks like?” I cried, pulling away from him. “Why does she say there’s a lady with gray hair and a blue dress who comes into her room at night? Why are things moving around the house? Why do I smell her perfume everywhere? Daniel, I’m not crazy. I know what I’m feeling. I know what I’m smelling. She’s here. Somehow, some way, she’s here.”

Daniel’s face grew serious. He didn’t believe me, I could see that—he still thought I was suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress, that my mind was making things up to cope with everything we’d been through. But he loved me. And he could see how scared I was.

“Okay,” he said, grabbing his car keys off his desk. “Okay. We’ll go to the police station right now. We’ll talk to Officer Carter. We’ll have them check the prison records, make sure she’s still there. We’ll have them send someone out to check the house, look for any signs of a break-in. Whatever you need, Rachel. Whatever makes you feel safe.”

We dropped Lily off at a friend’s house and drove to the police station. Officer Carter was there, and he listened to everything I had to say with a serious, concerned expression on his face. He didn’t laugh, he didn’t tell me I was imagining things, he didn’t dismiss my fears out of hand. He just nodded, taking notes, asking questions when he needed clarification.

When I was done talking, he picked up the phone, calling the maximum security prison where Patricia was being held. He talked to the warden for almost ten minutes, confirming her inmate number, her cell location, her status. When he hung up, he turned back to us, his face grave.

“She’s still there,” he said. “Locked in her cell twenty-three hours a day. No visitors in the last three months. No phone calls. No outgoing mail. She’s been on suicide watch since the sentencing—she tried to hang herself with her bed sheets two weeks after she got there. She’s not going anywhere, Rachel. Physically, anyway.”

He paused, leaning forward across his desk. “But that doesn’t mean what you’re experiencing isn’t real. Trauma does weird things to the brain, Rachel. It can create sensations that feel one hundred percent real—smells, sounds, even visual hallucinations. And Lily? Kids are incredibly perceptive. She picks up on your fear, your anxiety. Her little brain is trying to make sense of it, so she creates this ‘nice lady’ ghost who’s the opposite of the mean Grandma who hurt her. It’s actually a very common coping mechanism in trauma survivors, both kids and adults.”

He reached across the desk, patting my hand gently. “I’m not saying you’re crazy. Far from it. You’ve been through hell, Rachel. It’s normal that your mind is still processing it. But I am saying there’s no one in your house but you, Daniel, and Lily. No one is breaking in. No one is watching you. Patricia is locked up, three hundred miles away, and she’s never getting out. You’re safe. I promise you. You’re all safe.”

I wanted to believe him. I really did. But as we drove home that night, as we pulled into the driveway and I looked up at the dark windows of our house, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was standing behind the curtains, watching us. Waiting.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed next to Daniel, listening to his steady breathing, staring at the ceiling, my senses on high alert. Around three in the morning, I heard it. A soft, scraping sound. Coming from Lily’s room.

I slipped out of bed, grabbing the baseball bat Daniel kept under the bed for protection, and tiptoed down the hall. The door to Lily’s room was slightly ajar, a thin line of light spilling out into the hallway. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears as I pushed the door open, raising the bat over my head, ready to swing.

The room was empty. Lily was fast asleep in her bed, her stuffed rabbit clutched to her chest, a small smile on her face. The window was locked. The closet door was closed. No one was there.

But on her nightstand, sitting right next to her hairbrush, was a small, velvet pouch. The exact same kind of velvet pouch Patricia had used to carry the magnets.

I dropped the bat, it clattering loudly on the hardwood floor, waking Daniel, who came running down the hall, his eyes wide with fear. “Rachel? What is it? What happened?”

I didn’t answer him. I just stared at the pouch, my blood running cold. I knew, without even opening it, what was inside. I knew what the sound I’d heard was. I knew Officer Carter was wrong. I knew the prison was wrong. I knew Daniel was wrong.