The Quiet Room
The Extra Chair

The Visit

August 25, 2026 · Part 5 of 10 · 2 min

The woman on the porch introduced herself as Priya Sundar, county caseworker, and Vesta's whole body changed the way it did for company — spine straighter, voice pitched up half an octave into something almost musical.

"Toby! There you are. Ms. Sundar's doing her routine check-in. Isn't that nice?"

Nothing about Vesta's smile said nice. It said watch your step.

We sat in the good living room, the one with the couch nobody was allowed to actually sit on except when someone official came by. Priya had a laptop bag and reading glasses pushed up into short dark hair, and she asked easy questions first — school, friends, favorite subject — while Vesta hovered by the doorway with her arms crossed, technically not in the room, absolutely in the room.

"And how are things at home?" Priya asked. "Anything you'd want to tell me, just between us?"

I felt Vesta's eyes on the back of my neck like a hand.

"Everything's good," I said.

"Pip? Birdie?"

"They're happy here."

Priya nodded and wrote something down, unreadable from where I sat. Then she pulled a thin folder from her bag and flipped it open on her knee.

"I just need to confirm a few details for the file," she said, half to Vesta now. "Birdie's date of birth — the birth certificate copy we have on record says March, but the enrollment paperwork from her old county lists April. Small thing, probably a typo somewhere."

Vesta's smile didn't move, but something behind her eyes went very still, the same stillness I'd learned to read as danger.

"Typo," Vesta agreed smoothly. "I'll dig up the original when I find a minute."

"No rush," Priya said, closing the folder. "I'm sure it's nothing."

But she didn't sound sure. And as she gathered her things to leave, she glanced at me one more time — not a caseworker's polite goodbye look, but something sharper, like she'd noticed the flinch I hadn't managed to hide when Vesta shifted her weight behind me.

She left her card on the counter. Vesta waited exactly until the car pulled away before she picked it up, folded it in half, and dropped it in the trash.

Continue the story Part 6: The Gap Between Counties →

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