Evelyn didn't sleep again.
Not really.
Each time she closed her eyes, she saw things she hadn't lived.
A wedding dress soaked in rain.
The sharp edge of a mirror.
A hand grasping Elias's throat—not in hatred, but in longing.
When she woke, she could still smell the lavender oil Lenore used.
She could feel the heat of fire licking up her wrists even though the room was cold.
The worst part?
She didn't hate it anymore.
She stood at the motel sink, brushing her teeth with a trembling hand, watching her reflection.
It looked back with Lenore's eyes.
Not always. Not constantly.
But when Evelyn tilted her head a certain way, when she blinked too long, when the light flickered—
There she was.
Lenore. Smiling softly. Sadly. Like a woman watching herself drown and calling it baptism.
Elias came back from the pharmacy with aspirin and coffee.
"You didn't sleep," he said.
Evelyn sat on the edge of the bed. "She's getting stronger."
"Because you're not pushing her out."
"I'm not sure I can."
He sat beside her. "You still have a choice."
"Do I?"
Elias didn't answer.
They drove back to the ruins of the house that afternoon.
Something called her there.
Not just memory. Not guilt.
The grave.
The one beneath the rose garden.
Elias tried to stop her. "There's nothing left in that place but bones."
"Exactly," she said. "And I think they're mine."
The garden was black with ash.
What roses remained were dry, skeletal things that rattled in the wind like teeth.
Evelyn walked to the spot where the old cradle once stood.
The dirt was disturbed.
Someone had dug recently.
She dropped to her knees and began pulling at the soil with her bare hands.
She hit something hard.
Not wood.
Glass.
A mirror.
She pulled it free.
Its frame was bone-white, carved with delicate runes.
The surface shimmered—but it didn't reflect her.
Instead, she saw a woman standing inside it.
Herself—wearing Lenore's wedding dress.
Bleeding from the eyes.
Mouth sewn shut.
Hands clutching a child wrapped in thorns.
"You were never meant to be free," the image whispered.
"You were meant to finish what I started."
Evelyn dropped the mirror.
It didn't break.
She screamed, but it wasn't fear—it was rage.
"I'm not your echo!"
She raised a nearby rock, brought it down—
Shattered the glass.
The scream that burst from it wasn't hers.
It wasn't Lenore's either.
It was every woman the house had ever swallowed.
Elias found her there.
Hands bloody. Knees in the dirt. Mirror shards around her like fallen stars.
"You're bleeding," he said.
"It's not my blood," she whispered.
"I saw her. I saw all of them."
He helped her up.
"They're inside me now. All of them. Not just Lenore."
Elias looked uneasy. "That's not a gift, Evelyn."
"I didn't say it was," she said.
"But it's mine now."
That night, she didn't dream of the house.
She dreamt of a cathedral made of mirrors. Of herself, walking through its halls, surrounded by reflections she didn't recognize.
Some screamed.
Some laughed.
One leaned in close and whispered:
"You think this is horror. But it's only the beginning of power."
When Evelyn woke, her eyes burned gold in the motel mirror for just a second.
And she didn't look away.
[End of Chapter 14]