No, I just want you to understand how I came to the place I did and why I felt I had no other choice. I’m sure you’ve asked yourself that question many times over the years.

Why? Why did I do it?

Well, sweetheart, this is the answer. Now I can finally tell you. But be patient with me, because some secrets are difficult to share and prefer the shadows to the light of day.

I was only twenty-six years old when the monster came back to Black Wolf County. The answers you want begin with the death of a man named Gordon Brink at Christmastime that year. However, if you really want to understand everything that happened—and I’m taking a leap of faith that you do—you have to go even farther back in my life.

Years back, to the night I met the Ursulina face-to-face.

So let’s start there.

*

We’d gone boating in the national forest, just me, my father, and my older brother. I was ten years old then. We spent the days on the lake, them with lines in the water, me with a book in my hands. At night, we’d pitch a tent, and my dad would grill the fish he caught, along with mushrooms he’d picked, showing me which ones were safe and which ones weren’t. Then, around the fire, we’d sing Rolling Stones songs. Probably my most vivid memory of my father is him channeling Mick on “Get Off of My Cloud” while chewing on a mouthful of beef jerky.

That camping trip is nostalgic for me. The three of us rarely spent much time together as a family because we were too busy making ends meet. I never really knew my mother; she died of leukemia when I was three. And yes, I know that only adds to the horror of what I did to you. With my father behind the wheel of a truck for weeks at a time, and my brother already taking jobs at sixteen, I had to fend for myself. By the time I was seven, I was biking back and forth to school alone. At ten, I was doing most of the cooking in the house.