“In time things started to swing back the other way. They were sick a lot, and they seemed to be aging, changing, almost overnight. By the time I was twenty-five, they couldn’t leave the property. They had become bound to it somehow. By the time I was thirty…well, it wasn’t good for anybody to see them anymore, and they had taken to disappearing into the bones of this place by then anyway.”

“We’ve spent so many years trying to fix what happened to them. And despite their problems, I’ve spent all that time trying to become like they once were. Because what they were…it was wonderful. Their mistake was leaving The Imago. They’re sick because they came back here for me.”

This was all insane. “Just kill me. I don’t believe any of this. Bunch of crazy bullshit.”

He leaned forward and slapped me across the face before I could pull back. When he spoke, his voice was hard and dangerous. “Just listen. They want you to understand, so you don’t think they’re being mean. That they’re bad people. They want you to hear it, so you’re going to fucking listen.” Clearing his throat, he continued. “They figured out that whatever magic they got from that place, if they can get a bit of it back, they’ll be able to leave this house and go back to the hotel. To the special room they had there. And all they think they need is someone to believe.”

He stood up, his face drawn as he began to pace. “I tried to do it for them, but it doesn’t work. We’ve had a couple of prior owners, but it didn’t go well.”

“Maybe because terrifying someone with old creepy decorations isn’t the way to give someone Christmas spirit?”

He chuckled and nodded. “You know, you might be right. But like I said, they aren’t thinking as clearly as they used to. Brain rot and all.” Turning back, he looked at me with a glint in his eye. “Sometimes I think I may be slipping a little myself. But we’ve made do with what we had on hand and had to hope for the best.”

The woman-thing stepped forward and pulled something from ragged remains of a pocket on the father’s Santa coat. Her voice was thick and hard to understand as she tried to talk around her moldering candy cane. “Please. Help us. Help us be free…and get back.”