I live in a house outside the city. Recently, I was coming home from work one evening when I saw a woman lying on the roadside, asking for help. She was dressed quite oddly. As I got closer, I noticed she looked like a typical fortune teller from a fair.
The woman was pregnant—and in labor. Luckily, I’m a surgeon. Though not an obstetrician, I knew I had to act quickly. Right there on the roadside, I helped her deliver her baby.
“Do you have somewhere to go?” I asked, handing her the crying newborn wrapped in a towel I found in my car. She had nowhere to go; she explained that she had run away from a husband who treated her badly.
Feeling sorry for her, I offered her a room in my house, as I have a large home where only I and my six-year-old daughter live. My daughter had recently broken her leg in a fall from her bicycle and was on bed rest at home, with a nanny looking after her while I worked.
The woman, whose name was Miranda, thanked me and gratefully accepted my help. I drove her to my house and showed her a spacious room where she and her baby could stay. I also made sandwiches, and we had dinner together.
The next morning, I got up to check on my daughter, but her room was empty. Worried, I began calling her name. There was no answer. Then I went to Miranda’s room. When I opened the door, I began to cry.
The crib where Miranda’s newborn had been sleeping was empty, and beside it lay my daughter’s crutches. Both she and the baby were gone.
My knees nearly buckled. Panic surged through me as I searched the room—her clothes, gone; her shawl, gone; even the blanket I had given her. But on the nightstand sat a small deck of worn tarot cards, spread out in a strange pattern.
The top card made my blood run cold. It showed The Lovers—but crudely drawn over it, with what looked like charcoal, was the figure of a child.
I tore through the house, shouting both their names. The nanny came running, pale and trembling. She swore she hadn’t heard a thing during the night.
I rushed outside, scanning the road, the fields, anywhere she could have gone—but there was no trace. No footsteps. No tire marks. Nothing.
Also Read : My Greedy In-Laws Tried to Kick My Dad Out of His Own Home, but He Brilliantly Taught Them a Lesson
Just as I was about to collapse from terror, I noticed something else. On the porch, pinned beneath a stone, was a note.
It was written in a hurried, almost frantic scrawl:
“Your daughter is safe. She has a gift. She belongs with me now. Don’t follow, or you will lose her forever.”
The world tilted beneath me. My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped the paper. I didn’t know if it was madness, desperation, or something darker—but one thing was certain: Miranda hadn’t just needed my help. She had planned this.
And now, my daughter was gone.
My hands trembled as I clutched the note. Every instinct screamed at me to run after them, to scour the roads, to tear the world apart until I found my daughter. But Miranda’s warning echoed in my mind: “Don’t follow, or you will lose her forever.”
It wasn’t just a threat—it felt like a prophecy.
I called the police immediately. Explaining the situation made me sound like a madman: I had taken in a strange woman off the street, delivered her baby, and now both she and my disabled daughter had vanished overnight. The officer on the other end promised to send someone, but his tone carried a faint edge of disbelief.
While I waited, I searched Miranda’s room again. That’s when I noticed something I had overlooked in my panic—a small leather pouch tucked beneath the pillow. Inside was a bundle of herbs, a silver coin worn smooth, and another card from the tarot deck: The Star. Scrawled across the bottom in a hurried hand were the words: “She will lead.”
A chill crept down my spine. Lead what? Lead who?
When the police arrived, they combed the area, but like me, they found nothing—no footprints, no vehicle tracks, not even a neighbor who had seen someone leave. It was as if the earth itself had swallowed them whole.
That night, I sat alone in my daughter’s empty room, clutching one of her stuffed animals. I replayed every moment of Miranda’s arrival, every word she had spoken, every strange glimmer in her eyes. She hadn’t stumbled into my life by accident. She had targeted me.
And then—just as despair was consuming me—my phone buzzed. An unknown number.
With shaking hands, I answered.
There was silence at first, then the faint sound of a baby crying in the background.
“Daddy?” It was my daughter’s voice—soft, weak, but alive.
My chest tightened. “Sweetheart! Where are you? Are you safe? Tell me where you are!”
Before she could answer, Miranda’s voice came on the line, low and calm, almost soothing:
“You can’t protect her from what she is. The moment you delivered my child, our fates became bound. Your daughter is special—you’ve always known it. The world will need her, and I am only preparing her for what’s to come.”
My blood boiled. “If you hurt her—”
“I would never hurt her,” Miranda interrupted sharply. “She is the key. But you’ll have to choose, Doctor. If you come for her now, you’ll destroy her future. If you let her stay, you may never see her again—but she will live to fulfill her purpose.”
The line went dead.
I sat there, phone still pressed to my ear, my heart pounding like a war drum.
My daughter wasn’t just missing—she was part of something far larger, something that reeked of destiny, secrets, and danger.
And I had only two choices: trust a woman who had stolen my child… or break the prophecy and risk losing her forever.
