"Anli, you need to come to the hospital. There's been an accident."
The words didn't make sense. They were English words, arranged in a logical order, but they carried no meaning. Anli gripped her phone tighter, her knuckles whitening against the plastic case.
"What?" she whispered. "What accident?"
"It's your mother." The voice on the other end—Marcus, she realized now, her mother's husband of six months—cracked with what sounded like grief. "She fell. Down the stairs at the flat. Anli, I'm so sorry. She didn't make it."
She didn't make it. Make what? Make dinner? Make the appointment? Make the—
"No," Anli said. "No, that's not—she was fine. She texted me. She made dal. She—"
"Please, Anli. Come to St. Thomas's. I'll meet you there. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
The line went dead.
Anli sat motionless, the phone pressed to her ear, listening to nothing. Around her, the office continued its endless hum—keyboards clicking, phones ringing, voices murmuring. Normal life. Regular life. Life as it had been five minutes ago, before the world cracked open.
She stood. She gathered her things. She walked past Penny's office—Penny, who was on the phone, laughing about something—and out the door. No one stopped her. No one asked where she was going. She was invisible, as always, a ghost moving through a world that had no room for her.
The tube ride was a blur. Faces swam past her—commuters, tourists, students—all of them alive, all of them breathing, all of them ignorant that the universe had just tilted on its axis. Anli gripped the pole and stared at nothing. Her mother was dead. Her mother, who had taught her to draw, who had read her stories every night, who had worked double shifts at a hotel to pay for art supplies, who had held her when she cried and cheered when she succeeded.
St. Thomas's Hospital loomed against the grey sky, its modern facade offering no comfort. Anli hurried through the automatic doors, her heart hammering against her ribs. A nurse at the reception desk directed her to a small room on the second floor. Family room, they called it. The room where they delivered news that couldn't be delivered in hallways.
Marcus was there. He rose when she entered, his handsome face arranged in an expression of profound grief. His eyes were red-rimmed. His hands trembled slightly. He looked like a man shattered by loss.
"Anli," he said, his voice breaking. "I'm so sorry. I'm so—"
"Where is she?" Anli's voice was flat. Dead. "I want to see her."
"She's... they've taken her to the morgue. There will have to be an autopsy. It's standard procedure when there's an accident at home."
Anli stared at him. Something was wrong. She could feel it, a vibration in her bones, a whisper in her blood. His grief was perfect—too perfect. The trembling hands, the broken voice, the red-rimmed eyes. It was like watching an actor perform grief on a stage.
"How did it happen?" she asked.
Marcus sighed, running a hand through his silver hair. "I was in the study, going through some papers. I heard a cry, then a thump. By the time I got to the stairs..." He shook his head, his jaw tightening. "She was at the bottom. There was so much blood, Anli. I tried to help, but she was gone. She was already gone."
The stairs. The flat was on the third floor. Their staircase was steep, narrow, with a sharp turn at the landing. Her mother had climbed those stairs a thousand times. She knew every step, every creak, every loose board. How could she have fallen?
"I need to see the flat," Anli said.
"Now? Anli, it's late. You're exhausted. Why don't you come home with me, and in the morning—"
"No." The word was sharp, final. "I need to see it now."
Something passed between them—a current, invisible but powerful. Marcus studied her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he nodded slowly.
"Of course. I understand. I'll take you."
The flat was exactly as Anli remembered it—and completely different. The same cream walls, the same worn sofa, the same photographs of her and her mother on the mantelpiece. But everything felt wrong now, charged with an absence so profound it was almost a presence. Her mother's slippers by the door. Her mother's cardigan draped over a chair. Her mother's favorite mug, still in the drying rack, waiting to be used again.
Anli walked through the rooms like a sleepwalker. The kitchen, where her mother had made dal two nights ago. The living room, where they'd watched Bollywood films together. The bedroom, with its neatly made bed and the book on the nightstand—a collection of poetry by Rumi, a bookmark halfway through.
And then the stairs.
They rose from the hallway, narrow and steep, carpeted in a faded floral pattern. Anli stood at the bottom and looked up. The landing was halfway, a sharp right turn, then the final flight to the second floor. Her mother had fallen from the top. Had tumbled down all those steps, her body breaking against each edge, each corner.
There was so much blood.
"Where exactly was she?" Anli asked. Her voice echoed in the silent flat.
Marcus stood behind her, close enough that she could feel his warmth. "Here. At the bottom. Her neck was at an odd angle. I knew immediately that she was gone."
Anli knelt, examining the carpet. It was clean. Too clean. No stains, no signs of the violence that had occurred here.
"You cleaned up."
"Of course. I couldn't leave it like that. It was... distressing."
Anli ran her fingers over the fibers. They were slightly damp. Recently cleaned. Recently scrubbed. Her eyes traveled upward, scanning each step. And then she saw it.
A thread. Caught on a splinter at the edge of the third step from the top. A gold thread, glinting in the dim light. Her mother's favorite scarf—a gift from Anli, bought with her first paycheck—had been woven with gold threads.
Anli rose slowly, her heart pounding. She climbed the stairs, her hand on the banister, and stopped at the third step. The thread was unmistakable. Her mother's scarf. But if her mother had fallen from the top, how had the scarf caught on a step halfway down? It didn't make sense. Unless—
"Find something?"
Marcus's voice came from directly behind her. Anli spun. He stood two steps below her, his face in shadow. But his eyes—those winter-sky eyes—caught the light, and they were cold. Absolutely cold.
"The scarf," Anli said. "It's caught here. But if she fell from the top, it should have—"
"She didn't fall from the top."
The words hung in the air between them. Anli felt her blood turn to ice.