EPISODE 10: THE LOST ## CHAPTER 1: THE MIDNIGHT KNOCK The knocking came at three in the morning. Penny was downstairs before she was fully awake, the house having gently shaken her from sleep with an urgency she had never felt before. Silas was at her heels, his fur shifting through anxious grays. "Someone needs help," she said. "Someone always needs help. But this is different." She opened the door. A woman stood on the porch—young, mid-twenties, with tangled dark hair and eyes that had seen too much. She was holding a child. Maybe four years old. Small, pale, and utterly still. "Please," the woman whispered. "Please. They said you help people. They said you don't ask questions." "Come in," Penny said. "Come in now." --- ## CHAPTER 2: THE REFUGEES Their names were Maya and Sophie. The woman was a hedge witch—untrained, unaffiliated, one of the countless practitioners who existed outside the formal magical community. The child was her daughter, born with abilities that had started manifesting in the past month. "She makes things disappear," Maya explained. "Not intentionally. Not on purpose. But when she gets scared, when she has nightmares—things just... vanish." "What kind of things?" "Small things at first. A cup. A book. Then bigger." Maya's voice dropped. "She made our apartment door disappear. For three...