Ethan looked up with red eyes—and recoiled, terrified.
It broke Alexander.
He stood, left, and closed the door harder than necessary. In the hallway, he paused, breathing like a man who’d just lost a fight.
That was when someone new appeared in the courtyard.
A small, skinny girl with hair in two ponytails, holding the hand of a woman in a janitor’s uniform.
The woman was Rosa—quiet, hardworking, invisible the way staff often are. She’d brought her daughter because she had no childcare.
The girl’s name was Lucy.
She sat near the garden, drawing on the stone tiles with a piece of chalk, or playing with pebbles she named—“This is a crocodile. This is a princess. This is a volcano.” She had big, curious eyes—the kind that don’t skim the surface, but search underneath.
On the first day, Lucy looked up and saw the boy in the window.
He was older than her. Dressed in fine clothes. And utterly alone.
When Ethan began to cry, Lucy stopped drawing. She didn’t panic. She just watched—still, attentive.
And she noticed something.
Just as a car crossed the courtyard, the glass vibrated—barely visible, but real. Ethan flinched as if that vibration had passed straight through him. Then he cried harder.