The light that bled through the broken shutters was thin and watery, casting pale streaks across the floorboards. I sat at the edge of my bed, my body hollowed out by grief and exhaustion, my hands trembling slightly as I tried to steady my breath.
Lily’s face still haunted every corner of my mind. Her lifeless body twisted in that grotesque ritual pose, the unnatural black symbols carved into her skin, the candle wax melted into her mouth and eyes—it would never leave me.
I closed my eyes now, sitting in the stillness, only the ticking of the broken clock in the hallway filling the air. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. Grief had moved past tears—it was a weight I carried in my lungs, in my bones.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I said, my voice hoarse.
Mrs. Hawthorne entered with
