Page 64 of All the Things We Buried

She blinked back and then smiled.

She had no teeth.

A cold scream tore from my throat as I stumbled away from her.

That girl was Sophie.

But how?

She stood there, holding the doll in her arms, eyes fixed on me.

“The wet lady got me,” she said. “Before I lived too far. She gave me tea, and then she took everything that made me beautiful.”

I gasped, breath catching in my throat. Something twisted inside me, crawling up my spine. I forced myself to stand, my legs trembling under me.

I moved toward the door. Just as my hand touched the handle, her voice floated across the room again.

“This room is where it all began,” she whispered. “It’s why this house breathes.”

I didn’t look back.

I made it down the stairs, stumbling like I had forgotten how to walk, searching desperately for any sign that this was just another nightmare. But the air only grew colder. And the only person I wanted to see was nowhere.

“She’s gone,” Vivian said from the kitchen.

I turned, and there she was, seated at the table. She has been waiting. “Lenore left.”

“She left?” I said, my voice cracking. “No.”

I touched my head. The blood was still warm, sticky against my fingers.

“You have a job to do,” Vivian said calmly.

I didn’t respond. I walked to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat across from her, staring straight ahead.

“She left?” I repeated, softer this time.

Vivian only nodded.

Lenore left me.

She left me.

But she promised.

She fucking promised.

My hand slammed against my forehead. I hit it again, harder, until tears spilled down my cheeks and spit dripped from my mouth. My head throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the pain cracking open inside my chest. I could feel the salt tracing down my face.

This was the first time I cried since Ian died.

And it was because ofher.

She reached inside me and touched something I thought had long since rotted. And now she was gone.

I felt hollow. Like a ghost still haunting a place no one lived in anymore.

When someone disappears without warning, without goodbye, without a single goddamn trace... all you’re left with is that bitter taste they left behind. And you ask yourself the same thing over and over.