It began with her history report.
Lisa printed it at 7:04 AM—she remembered the time because she'd double-checked for Oxford commas. But when Ms. Hoover asked for it, her folder was empty.
"I turned it in," Lisa insisted.
Hoover gave her a pity-smile. "Lisa, if something's going on at home…"
"It's not," Lisa said. "There's something going on here."
Hoover sighed. "Let's not be dramatic."
Lisa sat down slowly. Bart was already watching her from across the room. He gave her a thumbs-up. Too slow. Too sincere.
Her stomach turned.
That evening, she practiced for her solo.
The school showcase was in two days, and the piece was hers—saxophone, unaccompanied, full of angular jazz riffs and emotional chaos.
She played until her fingers were sore.
The next morning, she opened the case and screamed.
The reed had been snapped clean in half. The mouthpiece was missing. And the brass—her precious, polished brass—was scratched.
Marge rushed in. "Honey?"
"Someone broke my saxophone."
Marge frowned. "Are you sure it wasn't... an accident?"
Lisa looked at Bart standing behind her in the hallway. Silent. Calm.
He smiled.
Then the detentions began.
Lisa didn't talk back in class—but she was marked for "disruption."
She didn't skip recess—but was written up for "unauthorized absence."
Books went missing. Her locker combination changed overnight. Ms. Hoover suggested a therapist. Principal Skinner began talking to her like she was fragile glass.
One afternoon, Lisa opened her backpack and found a note she hadn't written:
"Everything you say is being remembered wrong."
She looked up.
Bart walked past her without a word.
Marge grew concerned. Gently.
"Honey, Dr. Monroe says stress can make us feel like things are changing, even when they aren't."
"Mom, I'm not paranoid," Lisa said.
"I didn't say you were."
"Yes, you did. Just now."
Marge looked hurt. "Sweetie, I just want to help."
Lisa looked around the room. Framed photos. Doilies. Passive warmth.
"Then believe me," she said. "Something's wrong with Bart."
Marge hesitated. "Bart's been... better lately. More polite. More helpful."
"Too helpful," Lisa muttered. "He's curating his identity like it's a school project."
Marge sighed. "Maybe you're just feeling left behind."
Lisa stood.
She didn't answer.
In the living room, Bart sat beside Homer on the couch. They laughed at something dumb. A clown fell into a manhole.
Lisa watched from the hallway.
"Hey, Lis," Bart called. "Wanna watch Itchy & Scratchy? I think this one's... educational."
She stepped back into the shadows.
He'd waited for her to appear.
He knew she was watching.
At school, Ms. Hoover began treating her with guarded sympathy. Skinner started calling her parents about "emotional concerns." Even Ralph Wiggum whispered behind her back.
Milhouse kept his distance. Even he was scared now.
"Lisa," he said once in the library. "I think you're right. But I also think... it's already too late."
"Why?"
He looked at the exits.
"Because he doesn't need to be Bart anymore," Milhouse whispered. "He just needs everyone else to act like he is."
Lisa began to fight back.
She started keeping journals—small ones—tucked under her bed, slipped inside Nancy Drew covers, disguised as math worksheets. She switched pens mid-sentence, wrote backward for whole pages, trained her fingers to write code in mirror script.
She built patterns inside her diary. Anagrams. Riddles. Maps.
If he was watching her, she wanted him to misread every move.
But Bart was playing a longer game.
She overheard him telling Ms. Krabappel he wanted to start a "conflict resolution initiative" for recess disputes.
He led a class discussion about civic responsibility using quotes from John Locke.
He helped Martin write his science fair abstract—flawlessly.
Skinner called him "a turning point in American boyhood."
Lisa listened to it all like a woman drowning in praise she couldn't contradict.
One day, she found her coded notebook sitting on her desk.
Open.
Clean.
Not destroyed. Not stolen. Just returned.
With one line added in red ink:
"Encryption assumes someone is listening."
She slammed it shut. Her hands shook. Her stomach turned.
Later that night, her closet light turned off on its own.
She hadn't known it was on.
Lisa started taking longer routes home. Back alleys. Sewer tunnels. She scraped her knee climbing the junkyard fence. She wrapped her notebooks in duct tape, then shoved them inside a broken Etch-A-Sketch.
She made rules:
Never repeat hiding spots.
Don't trust comfort.
Avoid eye contact.
Then, one morning, she found her journal rewritten.
The entries were all intact—but edited. Her language softened. Her fears translated into "growing pains." Her observations rewritten as dreams.
He hadn't removed her reality.
He had overwritten it.
She walked into the school office and asked for an appointment with Dr. Monroe.
The receptionist blinked.
"You already had one."
"No, I didn't."
She pointed to the clipboard.
There was Lisa's name. Today's date. An appointment time already checked off.
"You said it helped," the woman added, cheerfully.
Lisa walked out of the office in silence.
That afternoon, she confronted Bart.
She found him alone—on the swings—reading a book on narrative psychology.
"You're rewriting my life," she said.
He closed the book without looking up. "No. Just adjusting the metadata."
"Why?"
"Because people believe stories, not facts. And I want your story to sound plausible."
She stepped forward, eyes burning.
"I'm not afraid of you."
He finally looked up.
"That's your weakness."
Marge found Lisa crying that night.
She held her tight.
"I believe you're hurting," she said. "I do."
Lisa gripped her harder. "That's not the same as believing me."
Marge said nothing.
Alone in her room, Lisa turned on her old toy recorder.
She began speaking—clearly, slowly, like she was building a testimony for someone in the future.
"This isn't depression. It's disassembly. Bart is a ghost in my house. A smiling intruder with my brother's voice. He is rewriting people one kindness at a time. And the world is letting him because he's effective."
She paused. Then added:
"And he's winning."
The next morning, she woke to find a note on her pillow.
No signature. Just four words:
"Trauma only sticks once."
Lisa skipped school. Sat under the treehouse. Didn't move.
Bart came outside eventually.
He sat beside her. Didn't say anything.
The wind moved the leaves like whispers.
He reached into his pocket and handed her a juice box.
"Strawberry," he said. "Your favorite."
She took it.
Held it.
Didn't drink.
That night, she watched Maggie play with a toy phone Bart had given her the week before.
She looked closer.
The antenna was wrong.
She cracked it open with a screwdriver.
Inside was a blinking red diode.
She didn't know what it meant—but she knew what it wasn't.
It wasn't a toy.
She pulled out her notebook. Wrote with shaking hands:
"Invisible fires are still fires. The structure is already burning. No one sees the smoke because it smells like progress."
She hid the journal beneath the floorboard.
Tomorrow, she would break into Bart's room.
She had to know what he was really building.
What he was preparing for.
And whether anyone else remembered how he used to laugh.
[End of Chapter 3: Invisible Fires]