The Phone Rang at 2:13

Chapter 1: The Number in the Back of the Drawer

The first time Mara called me after she disappeared, our kitchen telephone rang at 2:13 in the morning.

I remember the exact time because the clock above the stove had stopped at 2:13.

It was an old clock shaped like a sunflower, with yellow plastic petals and a brown face. My mother had bought it at a church sale. It stopped often, usually when the kitchen became cold, but that night its second hand was trembling in place.

I was ten years old.

The telephone hung on the wall beside the refrigerator. It was beige, with a long cord that had been twisted into tight knots by years of use. When I lifted the receiver, I could hear breathing beneath a soft electrical hiss.

Then a girl whispered my name.

“Anna?”

I knew her voice immediately.

“Mara?”

For three months, no one had known where she was.