The next day after Zoë vanished, the school was wrapped in a heavy stillness, as if even the walls refused to speak of what had happened. Gabriel sat in his classroom, his pen unmoving, his thoughts circling around her last words to him. He wanted to believe she'd show up, walking in with an awkward excuse. But she didn't.
No one could find her. Not a book, not a bag, not a trace of her uniform. It was as though Zoë Whitlock had been swallowed whole by the silence that Gemma lived in. Gabriel clenched his fists but didn't speak, keeping his turmoil pressed deep inside.
When Zoë's parents came to the school the next morning, the air turned tense. Her mother's sobs carried down the hallways, raw and breaking, every cry scraping through the silence. She demanded answers from the staff, from the walls, from anyone who would listen. But there were none.
Her father, however, was quiet. Too quiet. His expression was pale and drawn, his eyes hollow. As he walked with his wife toward Principal Morgan's office, his steps slowed when he noticed someone standing at the end of the corridor.
It was Gemma.
She stood motionless, her face unreadable, her silence heavier than ever. For a long, suspended moment, Zoë's father froze where he was. His eyes widened—not just in recognition, but in shock… and fear. The kind of fear that comes from seeing a ghost you thought you'd buried in memory. His throat worked as though he wanted to say something, but instead, he tightened his jaw and moved on, following his trembling wife into the office without a word.
That afternoon, Miss Aveline's class was colder than usual. She didn't instruct. She didn't lecture. She simply read from that heavy, nameless book, her words slipping like smoke through the silence.
Every student sat frozen, as if lulled into a trance.
Then, her eyes found Gabriel.
"You seem troubled, Mr. Moore," she said, closing the book with a sharp thud. "Do you… miss her?"
The class turned their heads toward him, confusion flickering. None of them knew who she meant.
Except Gabriel.
And Gemma.
Because Gemma's eyes — normally flat, distant — flickered. Just once. Just enough to betray that she remembered too.
Miss Aveline smiled at that. A thin, knowing curve of her lips.
"Some people," she whispered, her voice slicing through the room, "don't vanish. They're simply… collected."
The bell rang. Yet no one moved, not at first.
Aveline glided past Gabriel's desk, her perfume sweet and cloying, carrying something faintly rotten beneath it. Her presence lingered even after she left.
Gabriel's chest heaved with unspoken fear, but what made his blood run colder was Gemma.
She wasn't staring off into space anymore.
Her eyes were locked — sharp, unblinking — on Miss Aveline's retreating figure.
And for the first time, Gabriel realized that his sister wasn't just silent.
She was waiting.
Watching.
And she knew.