My neighbor kept insisting she spotted my daughter at home during school hours. To be sure, I pretended to leave for work—then hid beneath the bed. Minutes later, I heard more than one set of footsteps crossing the hallway.

I lay beneath the bed, paralyzed, as the footsteps moved across the hallway downstairs. The floorboards above the living room creaked under the weight of several bodies.

I heard voices. Children’s voices. Three, maybe four of them.

Lily’s voice floated up the stairs, authoritative yet gentle—a tone I had never heard her use.

“Sit in the living room. Keep away from the windows. I’ll get water and the first aid kit.”

First aid kit?

A faint, trembling voice answered her. “Thank you, Lily.”

That voice didn’t belong to a delinquent. It didn’t sound like a troublemaker skipping algebra to smoke cigarettes or play video games. It sounded terrified. It sounded broken.

I wanted to jump out, rush downstairs, and demand answers. But a maternal instinct, deeper and more primal than anger, told me to wait. To listen. I needed to understand the landscape of this secret world before I invaded it