We're not locked in with the ghost.

They told me not to go back. Not to the house on Vermillion Street. But the dreams wouldn't stop—the same dream where I'm twelve again, and the floorboards creak like a whisper: "Come play."

On the other side, the little girl I'd buried—the one who learned to laugh while bleeding—reached out and pulled me through.

I touched the mirror. My fingers went through.

So I returned.

In it, I saw two versions of myself: one cowering, one grinning. The grinning one pressed her palm against the glass. "You remember," she said, "what Mother made us do to survive."