The house remains dark, quiet, completely still, and my grip on the steering wheel tightens. This is how all those Netflix true crime docs start, I think, before the reality of the situation starts to sink in: I’ve driven into the foothills for a secret procedure I know nothing about. Nobody knows where I am. What am I doing?
Of course, I could turn around, tell Brayden that the meeting ended early, pretend none of this ever happened.
But then what?
Another luncheon full of Lydia’s backhanded jabs? Where Sophie’s pity stings worse than her hot goss? Where I’m always worried I’ll be the target of the next round of whisper campaigns? Worried that I’m one wrong move away from total ostracization?
No.
I finally cut the engine. The rain taps insistently on the roof, the only sound besides my breathing. The fog presses in. This is insane. Turn around. Go home.
But home won’t comfort me. Images flash through my head—Brayden cemented to the sofa, the bills piling higher on the kitchen table. I grab my purse and step out into the drizzle. It soaks through my trench coat immediately, cold rivulets trickling down my neck. My heels click on the front path.
Up close, the house is exactly as anonymous as it looked on Street View. No signage. No buzzer. Just a brass knocker and a doorbell glowing faintly in the dark. I press it. A chime sounds somewhere deep inside—melodic and almost churchlike.
Nothing happens.
I press it again.
Still nothing.
A chill unrelated to the rain crawls up my spine. The invite said 8:00 sharp—don’t be late. My phone shows 7:58. Unlike Aspyn’s pickup today, I’m right on time.
Then I notice—the door isn’t fully latched. Before I can chicken out or second-guess myself, I push.
The pale wood door swings open with a soft click, and light explodes out, sterile and blinding, forcing me to shield my eyes. I stumble forward blindly, the door sighing shut behind me with a finality that I can feel in my chest.
Blinking away spots, the interior comes into focus—and steals my breath.
It’s not the dim, empty house I braced for. Whatever this place looked like before, it’s been transformed—but not into anything clinical. Into something almost beautiful. The kind of interior you’d screenshot from an Architectural Digest spread and send to your group chat with three flame emojis.
Gleaming hardwood floors giving way to thick white carpet. Crisp white walls. Sparse furniture. Bare walls. Nothing on the surfaces, nothing in the corners, nothing that says anyone has ever spent a single ordinary moment here—which is either the work of a phenomenal stager who hasn’t finished yet, or something else entirely that I can’t quite name.
The air is crisp, laced with lavender and eucalyptus, undercut by the same chemical, antiseptic bite as Skinsational. Here, the scent mingles with something metallic, like the tang of fresh pennies. Or blood.
And then, on the far wall—a painting. Large, maybe four feet across, in a heavy gold frame. An angel in flight, wings outstretched, feathers tipped in gold leaf, rendered in a style that sits somewhere between Renaissance devotional art and something you’d find in the lobby of a very expensive hotel. Underneath, in the same ornate script as the card:
Eternal Glow™
It should look out of place. Somehow it doesn’t.
And then, at last, I see him.
In the corner, a towering Moroni statue stands sentinel, trumpet raised to the heavens, painted entirely in gold leaf that gleams under the recessed lights. Angel Moroni—the heavenly messenger who appeared to Joseph Smith and revealed the golden plates that became the Book of Mormon, the very foundation of our faith. Every temple in the Church is crowned with his image, trumpet aloft, heralding the Restoration. I’ve looked up at him my entire life.
If the doctor put Moroni here—in this space—she isn’t just a scientist. She’s a woman of faith. She understands what it means to believe in something bigger than yourself, to trust in a higher purpose. The Church teaches that the body is a temple.
Maybe that’s exactly what this is.
Maybe that’s why it feels different from anything I could find at Skinsational.
My shoulders relax. Something loosens within me.
I step closer to the statue. His eyes—black obsidian—catch the light at an odd angle, and for just a second they seem to shift, to track me across the room.
I look away quickly. It’s just the lighting.
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Excerpted from Eternal Glow by Heather Gay. © 2026 by Heather Gay. All rights reserved.
