(Helen's POV)
I'm up before anyone else the next morning.
Old habit from years of travel — my body refuses to sleep past six regardless of time zone. I shower, dress, and go downstairs to find the kitchen empty and the coffee already made on a timer. I pour a cup and stand at the window overlooking the back garden.
The house is quiet in the way family houses are quiet before they wake up — full of the shapes of the people who live in it, the particular texture of their routines pressing through the walls.
I hear Rose before I see her.
Not screaming. Not the high, distressed sounds I remember from five years ago that used to tighten every muscle in my body. Just small, purposeful sounds — the particular low murmur of a child talking to herself while she works through something.
She ap
