Rewind>>>
Sarah didn't speak much these days.
The house was too quiet, and hope had started to rot in the corners like old bread.
Years of failed prayers and herbs and doctors with shaking heads had left her hollow. James stopped asking her to smile.
Stopped looking her in the eye.
That night, she'd gone to the market late—anything to escape the silence. The wind picked up on her way home, pulling at her coat, whispering through the trees that framed Ashwood's cobbled lanes.
Then she heard it—footsteps. Rapid. Uneven.
Sarah spun around.
A woman was sprinting toward her from the dark. Wild hair matted to her pale face, barefoot, eyes sunken like she hadn't slept in weeks.
Cradled in her arms—something wrapped tightly in a cloth.
Sarah's body froze, gripped by fear.
"Please," the woman choked out, skidding to a stop. "Take him. Take him—please."
"What—what are you talking about?" Sarah stammered, stepping back. "Who are you?"
"I don't have time!" the woman cried, eyes darting like a hunted animal's. "They're coming. They can't find him. They can't—"
Rain began to fall, soft at first, like the sky was listening in.
The woman dropped to both knees in the mud. "Please," she begged, tears streaming. "I had no choice. Please."
Sarah stared at the bundle. A baby? A real child?
Her heart clenched. The lies were already forming in her head—James would never need to know how. She'd say she found him. She'd say God finally listened.
The woman must've seen the shift in her eyes. Relief flooded her face. She shoved the baby into Sarah's arms like handing off a bomb.
Then—she stopped.
She sniffed the air. Her spine straightened.
"They're close," she whispered. Her voice dropped an octave. "You have to go. Now."
And with a final look—a look that said more than any words could—she turned and vanished into the rain.
Sarah stood in the street, heart pounding, a baby in her arms, and no idea what she had just agreed to.
But it didn't matter.
She finally had a child.
And she would protect him with everything she had.
The rain had subsided to a gentle drizzle by the time Sarah reached their modest home. The dim glow from the lantern inside cast elongated shadows on the porch.
Clutching the swaddled infant tightly, she took a deep breath, rehearsing the words she'd settled on during her hurried walk.
Pushing the door open, she stepped inside, the warmth of the hearth contrasting sharply with the chill in her bones.
James looked up from his chair, surprise evident on his face. "Sarah? You're soaked! What happened?"
She hesitated, then stepped aside to reveal the bundle in her arms. "James, look what I found laid at our doorstep."
He stood abruptly, eyes widening as he approached. "Is that... a baby?"
She nodded, her voice trembling. "Yes. I was returning from the market, and there he was, just lying there. No note, nothing. I couldn't just leave him."
James took a step back, running a hand through his hair. "This is... unexpected. Are you sure there was no one around?"
"No one," she replied, meeting his gaze. "I think... I think this might be a sign."
He looked at the child, then back at her, the weight of the moment settling between them.
They named him Asher.
It was Sarah's choice — soft, simple, meaningful.
"Happy and blessed," she'd said, brushing the curls from his forehead when he was barely a month old. James had only grunted, more occupied with the thought of what the neighbors might say.
But by the time Asher turned five, that quiet distance had curdled into suspicion.
"He's... strange, Sarah," James muttered one evening, watching Asher sit alone in the yard, tracing shapes in the dirt with a stick. "He doesn't talk to the other kids. Doesn't laugh. Never even cries."
"He's just shy," Sarah defended, her voice tight as she folded laundry. "Lots of children take time to adjust. You're overreacting."
James snorted. "He watches things. People. Too closely. Like he's figuring them out. Gives me the creeps."
Sarah bit her tongue, biting back the urge to shout. It wasn't the first time James said something like this. Wouldn't be the last.
Yes, Asher was different. But he was kind. Thoughtful. Gentle in ways other children weren't. That had to mean something.
And she loved him — fiercely. As if the boy had been born from her very bones.
Still... she'd be lying if she said she didn't think about that night.
The night the woman shoved the baby into her arms, knelt in the dirt with rain pouring down her face, and begged her to protect him.
Sarah hadn't seen her face — not clearly. It had been too dark, the woman too frantic. Her eyes wild, her voice raw. "They're after him," she'd whispered. "He must be hidden. Please."
And then she'd vanished. No name. No explanation. No one ever came for him.
Sarah never spoke of it again.
She tucked the memory into a box, sealed it tight, and buried it beneath motherly instincts and early-morning lullabies.
The pendant — that strange golden crescent with odd runes carved into it — she kept hidden in her jewelry drawer, wrapped in cloth, untouched.
Maybe one day, she'd tell him. Maybe when he was older. Maybe never.
For now, she only knew one thing:
Asher was hers. And come whatever shadow or secret, she would protect him with everything she had.
Asher was seven the night he heard his mother scream.
Not a scream of terror — not quite — but sharp, startled, full of something wild and new. From the room down the hall, her voice rang out like a bell in the dead quiet:
"James!"
Asher didn't move. He simply turned his head toward the sound, eyes open, blank.
Moments later, James's hurried footsteps thudded across the creaking floorboards. Then came laughter — real, warm, rare in that house. Asher stared at the ceiling.
"I'm pregnant," Sarah had whispered, barely able to contain the joy in her voice.
Pregnant. With a child of her own.
No, wait — children. Twins, the doctor confirmed the very next day.
She'd held her stomach on the ride home, eyes wide with wonder, while James muttered prayers under his breath. Their house felt fuller. Lighter. Like hope had cracked the windows and let the sunlight in.
That night, she pulled Asher into a hug, arms soft and trembling. "You're my blessing, Asher," she murmured. "You opened the door for them."
And for a moment — just a moment — it felt real. Like a family.
But James… James didn't soften. He hardened. Like stone left in bitter frost.
The more Sarah glowed with life, the more James saw Asher as a stain on their joy. A shadow that didn't belong.
He never raised a hand while Sarah was watching.
Oh no — he wasn't foolish.
But when she turned her back, when she fell asleep on the couch, or went outside to hang clothes… Asher saw his real face.
The push. The slap. The hand that gripped his shoulder too tightly. The hissed insults. The threat of the belt that never quite landed — maybe because even James didn't want to leave evidence.
But Asher never cried.
Not once.
He just… looked at him. With wide, still eyes like glass, like mirrors. No fear. No sadness. No rage.
Just silence.
And somehow, that unnerved James more than screams ever could.
He wanted to break the boy. To crack the surface and see what was underneath. He wanted pain. Emotion. Something human.
But Asher gave him nothing.
And that made James hate him even more.
When the twins arrived, the house was filled with cries — real ones this time — tiny, squalling reminders that life had bloomed.
Two baby boys. Rave and Ryan. Sarah cradled them like they were spun from light. James hovered over her with trembling hands and wide, unbelieving eyes.
For the first time in years, he smiled without bitterness.
Asher stood at the doorway.
He said nothing.
The joy in that room didn't stretch far enough to reach him.
He watched from the shadows — that strange, still boy with eyes too old and shoulders too quiet — and he knew. Not from a single moment, but from a thousand tiny ones stitched together like a fraying thread.
He did not belong here.
He wasn't the son James rejoiced over, nor the child Sarah had wept with joy to carry. The warmth she gave him now was a flicker compared to the flame she burned for her newborns.
She hadn't meant to change. But Asher could feel it — that invisible shift, that quiet, guilty pulling away.
He wanted to feel something. Anything. But inside, there was only a slow, gnawing hollowness.
One night, not long after he turned eight, he sat across from Sarah in the kitchen. The twins had finally stopped crying. James was asleep in the next room.
The overhead light buzzed. The silence was brittle.
"Why doesn't dad like me?" he asked, voice quiet.
Sarah blinked, her spoon pausing mid-air.
"What?"
"He doesn't look at me the way he looks at them." He didn't need to say their names. "He looks at me like I'm... something else."
"That's not true," she said too quickly. Her voice wavered. "He loves you, Asher."
"No," Asher said. "He doesn't. And he's not my dad."
Silence. A long, echoing pause.
Sarah looked at him like she'd been caught in a lie she hadn't even told yet.
"I'm not your son either, am I?" Asher asked, not accusing — just... tired. He tilted his head slightly. "So who are my parents?"
Sarah's lips parted, but no words came.
Tell him the truth. She should. The woods. The woman. The rain. The way he didn't cry when she held him, just stared with those watchful, endless eyes. The pendant.
But her throat tightened. Her heart pounded.
What if she lost him?
So she did what desperate mothers do when the truth feels too dangerous.
She smiled. Weakly. "You're being silly, Asher. You're just a little boy with a big imagination. Of course I'm your mother."
And just like that, the conversation ended.
But something inside Asher — something old and quiet — finally woke up.
The twins grew quickly — golden-haired, bright-eyed, loud. Everything Asher wasn't.
Their laughter rang through the house like music meant for someone else.
And Asher?
He stood in the corners, always watching. The only black mane in a sea of gold. He never asked why. He didn't need to. The silence between questions spoke louder than answers ever could.
He endured James' bursts of rage, the slaps, the slammed doors, the drunken curses. Until one night, James cracked — not in anger, but exhaustion. His voice slurred and bitter.
"She picked you up like a stray. You don't belong here."
It should've hurt. Maybe it did. But more than anything, it made sense. Everything clicked — the quiet stares, the shame, the distance.
Of course.
Of course.
Rave and Ryan mirrored James — in looks, in temperament, in cruelty. It was like they'd inherited his hatred from the womb. Their taunts became sport. Their fists, instinct.
But Asher didn't care. Not really.
He still looked at Sarah the same way he always had — with hope.
Hope that maybe she'd one day tell him the truth.
About where he came from. Who had left him. And why, no matter how much he tried, he felt like he was unraveling from the inside out.
One day, he sat by the window, staring into the dusk, his thoughts the only company he grew accustomed to.
Who was my mother?
Why did she give me away?
Why does everything inside me feel... wrong?
And just then — a shift in the air.
A cold breeze slipped through the cracks of the window.
To be continued.