At the end of each day, between your bath and bedtime, your daddy reads you a book with stiff cardboard pages. Tonight he chose a simplified version of Cinderella. You patted the pumpkin and laughed when he waved his finger like a wand and booped you on the nose.

You don’t know that you have a godmother. Not a fairy one who could transform vermin and vegetables into a coach-and-four. The woman we asked to be your godmother was something different. She was the Baba Yaga of legend, the Countess of Bathory, the stuff of nightmares. And for a while, I called her my friend.

Maybe comparing her to larger-than-life figures makes her sound intriguing, even appealing, but that was her power. She mimicked emotion, she created the illusion of relationship, and she blinded with her charisma.

Charisma isn’t the same thing as character. I know that now.

She’s the reason your father still wakes up screaming. If the world could be pressed into a cardboard book, the evil witch could be identified by her smirk and her long nails, but your godmother wasn’t a witch. She was a predator, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the spider inviting a fly to her parlor. And I fell into her web.

Looking at you now, your eyes drooping, your little body curled around your stuffed rabbit, I can’t imagine the time you’ll be old enough to hear the truth. Maybe this story will keep you safer and make you wiser. But I’m afraid that words aren’t strong enough for that lesson. People’s words can’t be trusted. Not everyone is who they pretend to be. Your father shouldn’t be reading you Cinderella; he should be reading Red Riding Hood.

That’s the reason I listen to true-crime podcasts while you nap and your father’s at work. I’m part of a sisterhood, scarred in a way no one can see, but I’m not alone. I used to think we told stories as a way to hold back the dark, but now I think stories are a training ground, an opportunity to do a dry run through danger. If Hansel and Gretel had read their fairy tales, they might have recognized the witch before ending up in a cage.

Here’s the truth, Grace. You have two sets of loving grandparents, two amazing aunts, a mother and father who adore you, and a godmother who’s a serial killer.

That’s the story I don’t want you to hear. Not now. Maybe not ever.