4308.264 · September 20, 1988 AD
The Pact in the Kitchen Light
Michelle's kitchen smells of blueberry muffins and possibility. Four girls gather around a checkered tablecloth, trading dreams of university and the French Riviera, laughing at memories of childhood adventures in abandoned mines. But the laughter fades. Sally Harlow's name hangs unspoken until it doesn't. Violet shares her theory—Emily Sullivan, patterns across a century, answers waiting in Silverton. By the time the lemonade runs dry, Operation Silverton has a name. And four girls have made a promise none of them will keep.
"Every great adventure starts as a secret no one else is meant to hear."
The afternoon light filters through lace curtains, turning Michelle's kitchen gold. Warm muffins. Cold lemonade. The comfortable rhythm of friends who've known each other long enough to share silence without awkwardness. Rebecca speaks of medical school. Mandy recalls the time they rode bicycles to the old Silverton mines, convinced they'd find buried treasure. For a moment, the future stretches ahead of them—bright, possible, theirs for the taking.
Then Violet says Sally Harlow's name.
The temperature in the room shifts. She tells them about Emily Sullivan—the explorer who vanished near Silverton a century ago, the patterns no one else has noticed, the feeling that won't leave her alone. The others listen. They question. They push back. And then, slowly, they lean in.
By evening, they have a plan. The Girl Guides camp will be their cover. Old maps, notebooks, torches. They'll divide the research, keep it secret, uncover what the adults have missed.
Operation Silverton.
Four girls around a kitchen table, certain they're the heroes of their own story. None of them knowing that the monster they're hunting has already noticed them back.
