Chapter 1 - The Other Side of the Door
The wood of the bedroom door splintered under the heavy, desperate blow from the hallway, but it wasn't her mother’s hands that forced it open.
Caitlyn coughed violently, her small lungs burning as toxic grey smoke swirled around the edges of the pink floral wallpaper she had hated for as long as she could remember. Through the stinging tears in her eyes, she expected to see her mother’s face—the cold, disappointed mask she wore whenever Caitlyn was deemed "difficult." Instead, a large, calloused hand grabbed the doorknob from the outside, wrenching it hard enough to snap the cheap brass latch entirely off its screws.
"Caitlyn! Down low! Get down!"
It was Uncle Arthur. He wasn't even supposed to be on Bennett Street tonight; he lived three towns over, working night shifts at the locomotive yards. But he had been driving past, noticed the plume of black smoke rising above the pristine white roof of the Monroe estate, and pulled his truck onto the lawn before the fire department was even dispatched.
Arthur dropped to his knees, his rugged work jacket shielding Caitlyn from the wall of heat rolling out of the hallway. He scooped her light, trembling frame into his arms, pulling her tight against his chest as he carried her through the suffocating haze toward the open front window.
"I've got you, little bird. I've got you," Arthur choked out, kicking the screen outward and tumbling onto the soft grass of the front lawn just as the smoke detector inside gave one final, dying chirp.
Lying on the dew-soaked grass, gasping for clean air, Caitlyn’s chest heaved. She looked up at the second-story window of her bedroom.
Standing right there, framed by the white lace curtains of the upstairs landing, was her mother, Eleanor Monroe.
Eleanor wasn't coughing. She wasn't crying. Her hair was still immaculately styled in its usual French twist, and her silk blouse had not a single wrinkle. She looked down at Caitlyn on the lawn with an expression of cold, unblinking annoyance—as if Caitlyn had tracked mud onto a freshly cleaned carpet. Then, behind Eleanor, twelve-year-old Chloe peeked out, holding a charred box of kitchen matches behind her back before slowly vanishing into the shadows of the hallway.
Arthur stood up, shielding Caitlyn with his body, his eyes blazing as he stared up at the second-floor window.
"Eleanor!" Arthur roared, his voice shaking the quiet neighborhood. "What the hell is wrong with you? Your house is on fire, and your child was locked inside!"
The front door of the white house opened slowly. Eleanor stepped out onto the porch, smoothing down her skirt with agonizing precision. She offered a fragile, practiced smile that she had perfected for church committees and PTA meetings.
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"Arthur, thank goodness you're here," Eleanor said, her voice dripping with artificial panic and breathless exhaustion. "Caitlyn has been playing with matches again. She’s been so unstable lately. I tried to contain her in her room so she wouldn't burn the whole neighborhood down, but she’s just... so difficult."
Caitlyn clutched the old brown boot she had dragged out from under her bed clutched tightly in her small, soot-stained hand. Beneath its worn-out leather insole rested a folded piece of paper—a paper that Eleanor didn't know existed, and a paper that was going to tear the Monroe family's perfect illusion entirely apart.
