Sandie appeared at the window. Not as a victim. As a fury.

At first, Ellie tried to rationalize. Stress. Sleep paralysis. But the dreams grew longer, more vivid. She began designing her final collection around Sandie’s clothes: shift dresses with hidden slashes, fake fur coats lined with razor wire. Her professor called it “brilliantly aggressive.”

The room was small but perfect: a sash window overlooking a neon-lit alley, a mannequin in the corner, and a brass bed that seemed to hum. That night, Ellie fell asleep beneath a peeling floral wallpaper and dreamed of a girl named Sandie.

The answer came from the mannequin. Ellie had dressed it in a replica of Sandie’s vinyl coat. Now, in the dark, its head turned. Its painted mouth opened.

“Yours,” it whispered, in Sandie’s voice.

Ellie’s final collection walked the runway three months later. Critics called it “a séance in silk and leather.” Every dress had a hidden pocket—for keys, for phones, for broken glass.

Sandie had lived there in 1965. In the dream, Ellie saw her through Sandie’s own eyes: a blonde in a white vinyl coat, stepping out of the same front door, her laugh like cracked bells. Sandie wanted to be a singer. She wanted to be seen .

One night, Jack’s patience snapped. He dragged Sandie into an alley off Wardour Street. Ellie felt each blow as if it were her own face. She woke with blood under her fingernails—her own, from clawing the headboard.