It rained today.
Not soft, like the rain I hear from the attic window.
This rain was angry.
It hit the roof like fists.
Like someone trying to break in from above.
Mama didn't speak to me.
Not a word.
She didn't come to open the hatch.No food.No "good morning."No rules.
Just silence.
So I read.
I picked up one of the old books near the wall — the ones she gives me sometimes. Most are fairy tales. Stories with wolves and children and woods.
But this one was different.
It didn't have a cover.
No title.
Just yellow pages with smudged ink and scribbles in the margins.
Some words were scratched out.
Others… circled.
It wasn't a story.
It was a diary.
The first page said:
"For Penny, who loved the garden."
I froze.
Penny.
The name I gave the girl in my drawings.
But… this book was real.
And the handwriting — not a child's.
A woman's.
I kept reading.
Pages were torn, some nearly blank.
But between the damaged words and broken sentences, I pieced things together:
A house in Yorkshire.
A little girl named Penny.
A baby brother.
A woman who wasn't well.
A fire that didn't make it to the news.
A family that vanished.
I turned the last page still intact.
Just one line:
"They said she took him. But she said he was hers."
I don't know what it means.
But it feels heavy in my chest.
Like truth trying to crawl out.
I tucked the book under the floorboard.
Next to my notebook.
Next to where Mr. Nibbles used to sleep.
That night, I dreamt of fire.
And a voice I didn't know.
A voice calling my name—
Not "Lucas."
But something else.
Something that felt like mine.