Chapter 26
Lila didn't sleep that night.
Even after Olivia vanished back into the mirror—quiet as mist slipping beneath the cracks—Lila sat on the bathroom floor, arms wrapped around herself like they could still hold what she had lost.
She tried not to cry.
Not because it hurt less.
But because the tears had nowhere else to go.
They stayed behind her eyes.
Heavy. Waiting.
Just like Olivia.
—
Morning didn't come with light.
Only gray.
The kind that seeped into your skin and stayed there, like smoke.
She walked through the school halls barefoot, passing empty classrooms, dusty chairs, shattered chalkboards.
She remembered sitting in the second row of Mrs. Archer's class, trying not to fall asleep while Olivia doodled on the desk beside her.
She remembered Henry standing outside the door during recess, arms crossed, pretending he didn't care if she talked to other boys.
He always waited for her to come back.
Now she waited for him.
But no one came.
—
In the gymnasium, she found the first body.
It was James.
At least… it had his face.
Sort of.
His mouth was sewn shut. His eyes open. But not seeing.
On the wall above him, a message had been painted in something thick and red:
"Every time you forget, one of us dies again."
Lila fell to her knees.
She didn't scream.
She couldn't.
James' hands were still curled like he'd tried to hold something when he fell. Something invisible. Maybe a memory. Maybe her.
"I didn't forget you," she whispered.
But the blood on the floor said otherwise.
—
Later that day, she found Olivia again.
In the library.
Sitting in the window, legs crossed, hands in her lap like the girl she used to be.
But her eyes were too still. Too dark. Too old.
"I remember everything now," Lila said quietly.
Olivia looked at her. "Then you understand what's coming."
"I don't want to."
"You have to."
Lila stepped closer.
"I lost everyone."
"No." Olivia's voice was soft. Too soft. "You let them go."
Lila flinched.
It wasn't true.
She had fought. Screamed. Bled. Run. Dug her fingers into the dirt and pulled at the roots of the dead to keep them close.
But she had also looked away.
She had closed her eyes when Henry screamed.
She had let James' memory fade between the static of the radio.
She had whispered to herself that Olivia had died in the fire.
To survive.
She had forgotten to survive.
—
"That's the price," Olivia said.
"For what?"
"For remembering."
Lila shook her head. "That's not fair."
"No," Olivia agreed. "But it's true."
The air shifted then—something deeper than wind. A hum beneath the floor.
And then—
A door.
Not in the wall.
But beneath it.
The floor of the library groaned and split, revealing stone steps that spiraled into darkness.
"I've been waiting for you," Olivia said, standing now, barefoot again, the soles of her feet stained red.
Lila stared into the pit.
She didn't want to go.
But she knew she would.
Because answers live in the dark.
And because Henry's voice still echoed in her ribs.
You are not alone.
—
She descended slowly.
Each step felt like a page turning in a book she'd buried.
Memories she had shut away like forbidden chapters.
She saw them in the stone:
—Her mother's hands, trembling as she hid the old photographs.
—Her grandfather's voice, whispering about the Mother beneath the earth.
—Olivia, at six years old, touching the soil with her tiny fingers and whispering, "She's hungry."
—Henry, bleeding on the church floor, eyes locked on hers, and smiling through the pain.
"You'll survive this," he had said.
She hadn't believed him then.
She wasn't sure she believed him now.
But she kept going.
—
At the bottom of the steps was a room.
Circular.
Lit by flame.
And in the center: a cradle made of roots and bone.
Inside it?
A baby.
Sleeping.
Its skin looked like candle wax. Too perfect. Too pale. Eyes closed, lips blue, breath so soft it almost wasn't there.
Lila stepped toward it.
"What is this?" she asked.
Olivia appeared beside her, voice like winter.
"This is what you gave her."
"Who?"
"The Mother."
"I never—"
"Yes, you did," Olivia said, gently brushing the baby's cheek.
"When you let me burn."
Lila felt the weight of it then.
The scream she didn't answer.
The hand she didn't reach for.
The door she didn't open in time.
She thought she'd saved herself.
But she had offered Olivia instead.
And now the Mother had rebuilt her.
Stronger.
Hollow.
Divine.
—
Lila reached for the cradle.
She didn't know why.
Maybe to stop it.
Maybe to fix it.
Maybe just to feel something that didn't hurt.
But before her fingers touched the baby's skin, its eyes opened.
Black.
Endless.
And it whispered in her voice:
"Help me."
—