Sounds, impossible and soft, curled around Isolde. A mother's lullaby, not a ghost's echo. It was *her* song, the one she’d hummed against a swelling belly, the one only Elara should know. Footsteps carried her forward, light and unthinking. Each creak of the floorboard beneath her felt like a betrayal of the profound stillness that had previously defined this room. The bassinet, a pale silhouette in the encroaching gloom, beckoned. Melody thinned. A wisp, then nothing. Silence descended, heavy and absolute, pressing against her ears. A different kind of wrongness now, far more profound than the song itself. She stopped beside the tiny crib. Empty. As it had been for weeks. A faint scent of lavender, almost imperceptible, clung to the cotton lining. She’d chosen that scent for Elara. Fingers, trembling slightly, brushed the soft fabric. No warmth. Only the cool, inert reality of absence. The hope, a fragile thing, threatened to shatter against the unyielding truth. But the lullaby. It had been real. A truth her mind struggled to reconcile with the cold evidence before her eyes. Grief played tricks, yes, but not ones so vivid, so perfectly tuned to her deepest longing. Her gaze drifted. Across the room, half-hidden by a draped sheet, stood a tall, ornate mirror. It had belonged to her grandmother, a relic she’d kept, intending to polish it for the nursery. Dust veiled its surface. A fine, grey film, undisturbed for months. It reflected nothing clearly, only diffused light and the vague, warped outlines of the room. Something shifted in the periphery of her vision. Not *on* the mirror, but around it. A flutter, like a moth, yet no moth was visible. Eyes narrowed. She stepped closer, drawn by the unsettling stillness of the mirror's face. The dust lay thick, unbroken, a testament to neglect. Then, she saw it. Not an impression, not a smudge from a clumsy touch. A deliberate mark. Scratched into the dust, at eye level, was a star. Five points, crudely drawn, a child’s first attempt at geometry. It was small, no bigger than her palm, perfectly centered. Breath caught in her throat. Her star. Elara’s star. She had traced that very shape on Elara's tiny palm, a secret language of love she’d planned for them. Logic screamed. No one had been in this room. No one could have made this mark. The window was latched, the door had been closed. The dust was undisturbed, except for this one, impossible symbol. Yet, her heart leaped. A desperate, terrifying joy surged through her veins, warring with the cold claw of dread. It was clumsy, imperfect, just like a child would draw it. Elara. Her baby. Communicating. A whisper from beyond the veil of silence, a tiny hand reaching out across an unimaginable distance. Isolde reached for the glass. Her finger hovered, then pressed, tracing the delicate, dusty outline of the star. It was gritty, real under her touch, yet profoundly unreal. Dust parted, revealing the dark, cool glass beneath. The imprint of her touch lingered, a new disruption in the ancient dust. The star was there, undeniable, a testament to something that defied explanation. A shiver, both of dread and overwhelming joy, ran down Isolde's spine as she traced the familiar shape.

Chapter 3: Scrawls on Dusty Glass