Natalie wakes in an unusually cold, dark room around 6 am. The power is out, the generator has not activated, and she is covered with an unfamiliar hand-knit quilt. Caleb is absent from the bed. Natalie reaches for her phone, but it isn’t there, and she falls to the floor. Terrified, she believes she has been kidnapped. She hears children laughing, then a child calling her “Mama.”

Natalie follows the voices to a kitchen that resembles her own but is lit only by a fireplace. Four children in pioneer-style clothing sit by the fire; they look like her children but are strangers. When Natalie asks who they are, the oldest girl tells her to go to the barn. At the front door, Natalie finds height measurements carved into the wood, dated 1852 to 1854, for three children: Maeve, Noah, and Abel. At her eye level is a fresh carving: “MAMA, 1855.”

Outside, her ranch appears old and neglected. A man resembling Caleb but with cold, lifeless eyes approaches and identifies himself as her husband. Natalie offers him money, believing she is being held for ransom, then runs. He catches her, and when she spits in his face and swears at him, he slaps her unconscious.