Valerica Steele Dad -

He’d spent fifteen years proving everything was.

She believed in hard data, in the sharp click of a camera shutter, in the cold weight of a microphone cable coiled around her palm. As a rising star in paranormal investigation, she’d debunked more haunted attics than she could count—loose floorboards, rusty pipes, even a neighbor’s cat that liked to knock things off shelves at 3 a.m.

The letter arrived in a pale blue envelope, the kind people used for wedding invitations or sympathy cards. No return address. Inside, a single photograph: a man standing in front of a lighthouse, fog curling around his boots like something alive. On the back, in handwriting she hadn’t seen in fifteen years: “He’s waiting for you, Val. Come home.”

“You left .”

A long silence. Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a small glass vial, half-filled with what looked like liquid moonlight. “I found what I was looking for, Val. The door between worlds? It’s real. But it doesn’t open both ways unless someone holds it from the other side.”