Albert was mystified. "I don't understand. Did they kidnap you or something?"

"No," Ashlyn replied, possibly even softer. "They just... They just convinced me. As I said, my family hadn't always been so nice. It must not have been much of a challenge to convince me that they were worldly and evil and I didn't really belong there. One of these people had a vision that the Teacher explained as me having to leave my family behind in order to embrace the truth."

"So you just ran away?" Albert concluded.

"No, no, not at all," Ashlyn hastily said. "I just slept over at the church more and more often, until I didn't come back home at all. Pretty smoothly. They couldn't contact me, because I'd left my old phone at home and Philos bought me a new one."

Albert started to laugh. "Who calls their kid Philos? What a ridiculous name!"

"It's Tyler's church name."

"Oh, that guy again," Albert sighed. "He sounds like some kind of loverboy, to be honest."

Ashlyn laughed through her tears. "He's 27. That's literally ten years older than me."

"Right," Albert corrected himself, "so he's a child abductor."

"No he isn't!"

The silence that followed didn't last long, because a soft yet clear click told Albert that the water was boiling.

"Fine," Ashlyn sighed. "Call him whatever you want. It won't change my opinion. I believe he's a good person deep inside, he's just dreadfully misguided. Anyway, you might remember, one day they came to school to go find me. They walked into the classroom during math. My mom all teared up like that, my dad all furious. I acted like I didn't remember who they were. They gave up on me then."

Albert tried to imagine what it'd be like to leave his family and go live in some church. He tried to picture that conversation between Ashlyn and her parents, but it seemed too unreal to exist at all. Part of him was wondering if this all was just some practical joke. However, he remembered clearly how two years ago, during math class, how two people had ran in suddenly, demanding to talk to Ashlyn. She had glanced around in wonder and followed them outside. Albert hadn't expected those to be Ashlyn's parents, especially because of her reaction, though now that he thought about it, they looked similar enough. The only thing was that they were both blonde, and Ashlyn's hair had always been bloodred. He suspected she had dyed it, especially because he had never seen anyone with that as their natural hair colour.

He picked up the two cups of tea and brought them to the living room, where Ashlyn had gone back to studying her shoes.

"Did they give you a new name too?" he asked.

"Yeah," Ashlyn replied, "they called me Andreia."

"Well, that's sort of an acceptable name, at least."

Ashlyn chuckled. "It means "brave". Call it brave. I call it reckless."

Knock knock.

Ashlyn inhaled sharply. "Holy Christ on a cracker," she whispered. "How'd they find me here?"

"Calm down, Ash," Albert said. "I'm pretty sure it's not them."

"Then who could it be?"

Knock knock.

Albert stood up. "Whoever it is, I can't keep them waiting. They've probably seen us through the window."

He walked into the hall through the still open door. To him, his footsteps seemed to echo through the chilly silence. It can't be them, he thought to himself, but he was tense as if he was a prey, trying to hide his knowledge of the predator sneaking towards him, but ready to leap away as soon as the animal jumped towards him. That's how he felt when he opened the door.

"Mom?"

"That took you long," Albert's mother said, and she entered her house.

"Sorry," Albert replied. "If I'd known it was you, I would've teleported to the door immediately."

The two of them walked into the living room, where Ashlyn was still sitting on the couch. She'd grabbed a book from the table and was hiding her face behind it, and she had stuck her hair in the back of her shirt.

"I didn't know you had your girlfriend over," Albert's mother remarked.

"She's not my girlfriend, mom," Albert sighed. "Just a classmate."

"Hi," Ashlyn called from behind the book. "I'm Ashlyn."

"Why have you come back anyway?" Albert asked his mother. "I thought you said you were going to Belgium for the coming week?"

"I forgot my keys," she said. "What's your classmate doing here? You said you didn't have any homework for the weekend."

"I do," Ashlyn said, before Albert could come up with an excuse. "I've been sick for a while. Albert's helping me with the things I missed."

Albert's mother nodded thoughtfully. Then she fished her keys out of the drawer she was standing near and walked back into the hall. A few seconds later, Albert heard the outside door open and close again.

"Call me paranoid," Ashlyn said, "but I swear I've seen her face before."