We tried to love him; truly, we did. I thought if only I loved him enough, then I could save him. We tried to love him, even when he started killing frogs from the swamp, even when he spoke to ghosts who weren’t there, even when he insisted on sleeping in the room at the end of the hall. Who knows what he saw there—whether he ever stepped through that dark hole and saw what lay on the other side of the universe. Whether he was forced to watch his mother slowly bleeding to death in his very bed, over and over.

And how could I continue to love him when he said his mother still lived in the swamp? Even when I told him she was buried at the county cemetery, when I took him to her grave, he insisted his real mother lurked in the trees, with eyes made of fire.

Eventually my mother grew too ill, mentally and physically, for me to continue taking care of her while teaching full-time and caring for Julian besides, so I settled her into a lovely retirement home in the next town over, where she rediscovered the joy of other people and was able to cast off the worst of her social anxieties. I was very happy for her, that she had finally found a place to be at ease aside from this rambling old mansion where she had lived her whole life, but nevertheless, moving her out left me here alone. With Julian.

I have tried to leave this place, you know. But whenever I am out, I find myself stepping through doors that lead right back here, to the house. It won’t let me go.

He won’t let me go either.

It took me a long time to realize that whatever the witch took from him when she lifted him out of that water was something he could never get back. All the love in the world couldn’t get it back.

I won’t go into all the details, all the minor brutalities he unleashed on me, and all the greater ones beside. I have let it happen—have let him push me down and stomp my hands, have let him confine me to this chair, and when I talked too loudly for his liking, I let him glue my lips shut too, over and over again. I think soon he will do something to stop me looking; he does not like the way I stare at him, laughing quietly to myself as I realize the truth.

There was always something familiar about the old woman with Xs for eyes—something familiar about her face that I simply could not place. I think I would have recognized her sooner if only I hadn’t smashed all the mirrors.

But I did smash the mirrors. And I did bring Elizabeth to that cursed room. And I did give Julian up to the witch when I couldn’t bear to look at his cold dead face.