PART 6: The Boy Who Shouldn't Have Known
"The boy sees me every time."
The seven words seemed to burn into Laura's mind long after she left the police station.
She barely remembered driving home.
Barely remembered walking through the front door.
All she could think about was the photograph.
And the handwriting beneath it.
The detective had examined every possibility.
Perhaps the suspect had encountered Ethan somewhere.
Perhaps Ethan had unknowingly noticed him.
Perhaps it was all coincidence.
But none of the explanations felt right.
Because the photograph had been taken nearly four months before Emma was born.
Before the nursery existed.
Before anyone knew the family was being watched.
Yet somehow, the stranger believed Ethan could see him.
Laura found her son sitting at the kitchen table doing homework.
For a moment he looked exactly like any other thirteen-year-old.
Messy hair.
Pencil in hand.
A half-finished math worksheet.
Normal.
Ordinary.
Safe.
But now she wasn't sure how much she truly understood about him.
"Ethan."
He looked up.
"Yeah?"
She sat across from him.
Trying to sound casual.
"Have you ever seen someone watching the house?"
His pencil stopped moving.
Only for a second.
But she noticed.
"What do you mean?"
"A stranger."
Silence.
Then Ethan slowly lowered the pencil.
His expression changed.
The same expression she'd seen outside the nursery.
The same one that appeared whenever something frightened him.
"Why are you asking?"
Laura hesitated.
She hadn't planned to tell him.
But suddenly she needed answers.
So she told him about the notebook.
The photographs.
The message.
"The boy sees me every time."
Ethan listened quietly.
When she finished, he looked down at the table.
And whispered:
"I knew it."
Laura felt a knot tighten in her stomach.
"Knew what?"
"That he was real."
The room went completely still.
"What do you mean?"
Ethan swallowed.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then he stood.
Walked upstairs.
And disappeared into his bedroom.
Laura followed.
When she entered, Ethan was kneeling beside his closet.
He pulled out an old cardboard box.
A box she had never seen before.
Dust covered the lid.
It looked years old.
Slowly, he opened it.
Inside were dozens of folded papers.
Sketches.
Drawings.
Notes.
Laura picked one up.
Her heart nearly stopped.
The drawing showed a man standing across the street from their house.
A tall man.
Dark jacket.
Baseball cap.
The face wasn't detailed.
But the posture looked eerily familiar.
Another drawing.
The same man.
Near the grocery store parking lot.
Another.
Near Ethan's school.
Another.
Standing beneath a streetlight.
Watching.
Always watching.
Laura stared at the dates.
Most were over a year old.
Long before Emma existed.
Long before the police investigation.
"Ethan..."
Her voice barely worked.
"When did you draw these?"
He looked ashamed.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I kept seeing him."
A chill swept through her body.
"Seeing who?"
"The man."
"The suspect?"
Ethan nodded.
Laura felt the room spin.
"That's impossible."
"I know."
"No, Ethan, I mean impossible."
She grabbed one of the papers.
"This was dated fourteen months ago."
"I know."
"That was before any of this."
"I know."
His voice cracked.
"I thought I was crazy."
For a moment neither spoke.
Then Ethan sat on the edge of the bed.
And finally told her the truth.
The truth he had been hiding for almost two years.
It started shortly after his twelfth birthday.
At first it was only a feeling.
The sensation that someone was watching him.
Not constantly.
Just occasionally.
At school.
At the park.
Walking home.
A figure in the distance.
Always too far away to identify.
Always gone when he looked twice.
Eventually he began sketching the person.
Trying to prove to himself he wasn't imagining things.
But the stranger never disappeared.
Instead, he appeared more frequently.
Then came the dreams.
Dreams that felt different from ordinary nightmares.
Dreams that showed places before events happened.
Dreams that seemed absurd until reality somehow caught up.
The nursery had been only one example.
There had been others.
Many others.
And that was when Laura felt genuine fear.
Because she remembered something.
Something she had forgotten years ago.
A memory involving Ethan when he was six.
The memory surfaced suddenly.
A summer afternoon.
A family barbecue.
Children running through the backyard.
Ethan playing with a red ball.
Then Ethan suddenly walked up to Daniel.
And said something strange.
Very strange.
"Dad, don't use the ladder tomorrow."
Everyone laughed.
Daniel laughed too.
"What ladder?"
"The garage ladder."
Why?"
"Because you'll fall."
Adults had smiled politely.
Children said odd things.
Nobody thought much about it.
The next day Daniel climbed the garage ladder.
A rung snapped.
He fell nearly ten feet.
Fortunately he wasn't seriously injured.
At the time everyone called it luck.
A coincidence.
Nothing more.
Now Laura wasn't so sure.
"Ethan."
He looked up.
"Have your dreams ever come true before?"
The silence lasted so long she already knew the answer.
Finally he nodded.
A single tear rolled down his cheek.
"Sometimes."
Laura sat beside him.
Her heart pounding.
"How many times?"
He stared at the floor.
Then whispered:
"Too many."
That night neither slept.
Laura spent hours going through the box.
Every page revealed another unsettling detail.
Predictions.
Sketches.
Notes.
Some were insignificant.
A teacher dropping books.
A storm causing a power outage.
A neighbor crashing a bicycle.
Others were impossible to explain.
Events recorded before they happened.
Details nobody should have known.
Around 3 a.m., Laura reached the bottom of the box.
There she found a sealed envelope.
Across the front Ethan had written:
DO NOT OPEN UNLESS SOMETHING HAPPENS TO EMMA.
Her hands immediately began trembling.
The envelope looked old.
Months old.
Perhaps older.
Carefully she opened it.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
A drawing.
And the moment she saw it, all the air left her lungs.
It showed Emma.
Older.
Maybe three years old.
Standing in a large crowd.
Crying.
Alone.
No parents nearby.
No Ethan.
No family.
Just Emma.
Terrified.
Behind her stood several police officers.
Ambulances.
Emergency vehicles.
And above the scene Ethan had written a date.
A date that had not happened yet.
A date nearly three years in the future.
Laura stared at it in horror.
"What is it?"
Ethan stood beside her.
Then he saw the drawing.
His face went white.
"No."
"What is this?"
"No."
"Ethan."
He shook his head violently.
"I threw that away."
Laura felt cold.
"What?"
"I got rid of it."
"You drew it?"
"Months ago."
His breathing became uneven.
"I burned it."
Laura looked down.
The paper in her hands was real.
Very real.
"Ethan, this was inside your box."
"No."
His voice sounded terrified.
"No, Mom."
The room suddenly felt freezing.
"I destroyed it."
The paper slipped from Laura's fingers.
For the first time since the nightmare began, she saw genuine panic in Ethan's eyes.
Not fear of an intruder.
Not fear of a dream.
Fear of something else.
Something he had never told anyone.
Then he whispered words that would change everything.
Words that made Laura wish she had never opened the envelope.
"Mom..."
His voice shook.
"Sometimes the dreams don't come from me."
The house seemed to fall silent.
Outside, rain tapped softly against the windows.
Inside, Laura felt her heartbeat pounding louder than thunder.
"What do you mean?"
Ethan looked toward the hallway.
Toward Emma's room.
Then back at her.
And whispered:
"Sometimes they come from someone else."
Laura stared at him.
Unable to breathe.
Unable to think.
Then he said the one thing she never expected.
"The man wasn't the only person watching Emma."
A wave of terror crashed through her.
"What are you talking about?"
Ethan's eyes filled with tears.
"The night before the police arrested him..."
He paused.
His voice barely audible.
"I saw another person standing beside the crib."
Laura's blood ran cold.
Another person.
Not the intruder.
Not the suspect.
Someone else.
Someone the police had never found.
Someone Ethan had never told anyone about.
Then he whispered:
"And last night..."
Laura grabbed his arm.
"What?"
His face had become ghostly pale.
The answer came in a trembling voice.
"I saw her again."
"Who?"
Ethan looked directly at the nursery door.
May you like
And spoke three words that made Laura's heart stop.
"The woman in white."
