Page 89 of The Madness Within

After the funeral, I was placed with a distant cousin I barely knew, strict, cold, and more interested in rules than grief.

I bounced between foster homes after that, never staying long, always running when things got too quiet.

Fifteen years of moving, hiding, surviving… Trying to forget the blood-soaked memory that never really let me go

And now, I was here to tear open the grave she’d tried to leave behind.

Dorian walked beside me, silent but solid. He hadn’t touched me since we arrived. He didn’t need to. His presence was enough. And right now, I needed that tether more than I cared to admit.

Because this wasn’t just about the past. This was about who I was becoming.

The house rose from the fog like a wound. The white siding was gray now, chipped and cracked. The front porch groaned under my step. When I reached for the door, it opened without resistance.

Like it knew I was coming home.

Inside, everything was dust and silence.

I passed the couch where I curled up with storybooks, the hallway where I used to chase shadows pretending they were monsters. Now, I knew better.

They were never pretend.

And the monsters were real.

I stopped at the basement door. I could feel it, The Hollow Orchard.

How could I not have known it was here? All this time, buried beneath the place where my life began… and ended.

It was sealed shut, not with locks, but with runes. Bloody-red ones etched into the wood. They pulsed when I placed my palm against them.

“She said only blood,” I whispered, almost to myself.

Dorian stepped forward. “Yours.”

I nodded, and with a shaky breath, I pressed my finger to the edge of a broken nail and dragged it across my palm. The pain was sharp, bright.

The moment my blood touched the wood, the runes ignited, then burned away in a flare of crimson light.

The door groaned open. Cold air rushed up the stairs. And then I remembered, this wasn’t just ahouse.It was hersanctuary.

Her shield.

Her secret.

I descended slowly. Each step was its own heartbeat.

At the bottom, the air shifted. The basement was no longer just cement and boxes. It’s alive with magic. There were candles, unlit, and a massive circle carved into the stone floor. Glyphs surrounded it.

My mother’s handwriting.

And in the center… a mirror. Shrouded in black cloth.

I stepped toward it, fingers trembling. Something inside me began to hum. A vibration in my chest, my bones, my blood.

I peeled the cloth back.

And I saw her.

Not a reflection. Not me.

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