The mirror stayed silent.
After the reflection spoke, after the whisper echoed, Elara had stared into the glass for what felt like hours, waiting for it to move again.
It didn't.
By morning, it reflected her as it always did: tired eyes, tangled hair, and a frightened woman gripping the frame as if it might crumble in her hands. But the memory of that smile, of that voice, lingered.
"You remember what you did, don't you?"
She didn't.
But she was starting to.
Downstairs, the house was still. Margaret hadn't come home last night. Elara had stayed up waiting, lights on in every room. But the front door had never opened. Her mother had simply vanished.
The car was gone. The spare bedroom door stood open, the bed untouched. No note this time. Just absence.
Elara made tea with trembling hands. Her mind replayed the last 48 hours in jagged, overlapping cuts: the whisper outside her door, the drawing of the faceless girl, the woman in the videotape, the cabin, the word "MARA" carved like a scream into the wood.
And now… the mirror.
She wasn't crazy.
She knew that much.
But maybe she had once been someone else. Someone who could lock away a memory so deeply that it turned into a shadow with a name.
She needed answers.
And she needed Isla's missing journal pages.
The red journal was still where she left it under Isla's mattress. She pulled it out, flipping again through the dense, unraveling entries. The same paranoia, the same unraveling mind. But now she read them differently. Now she knew Isla hadn't just been seeing things.
She was remembering, too.
And it had been driving her mad.
Near the middle of the journal, several pages had been carefully torn out. Not ripped in haste, removed. As if Isla had wanted to hide them. Or someone else had.
Elara leaned back, trying to think. Where would Isla hide pages like that? Where would she have put something she didn't want even her mother to find?
The sketchbook.
Not the one Elara had found earlier but the one she had ignored: the burnt one, half-charred, that had been tossed beneath the bed. She pulled it out now, the edges curled from fire damage. She hadn't bothered to look through it at first. It seemed ruined.
Now she opened it carefully.
The drawings were smeared, almost beyond recognition.
But near the middle… taped inside a singed page… three journal pages.
Folded. Preserved.
Elara peeled the tape slowly and unfolded the yellowing paper.
Her hands trembled as she read.
"I remember what happened that night. Finally. And I can't live with it anymore."
"Elara was different after Dad died. Quiet. Distant. She stopped drawing. Stopped talking about Mara. But I never forgot. Not really."
"He was drunk. He hit Mom. He dragged me outside. I was screaming. I remember her voice, Elara's shouting. And then something cracked."
"When I looked up, he was at the bottom of the basement stairs. His head twisted. Elara was standing above him."
"She didn't cry. She didn't run. She just said, 'Don't tell anyone. Mara did it."
Elara gasped.
Her vision blurred.
She read on:
"Mom helped cover it up. She said he ran off. That he'd disappeared. But I saw her carry him with Elara down into the woods. I saw the fire at the cabin the next night. They said it was an accident. But I know it wasn't."
"Mara isn't real. I know that now. She was Elara's way of surviving. Of forgetting. But she's not gone. I see her in the mirror. I hear her in the walls. She's the part of Elara that remembers everything and wants it all back."
"And I think… she's coming for me next."
Elara dropped the pages.
Her knees buckled, and she sank to the floor.
Her throat felt dry, raw, like she'd swallowed ashes.
She had killed him.
Not in rage. Not in the calculation.
In defense.
In terror.
To protect Isla.
And then… she had buried it.
Created Mara.
The imaginary friend. The scapegoat. The shadow she could push all her guilt onto.
And somehow, that shadow had grown teeth.
There was a knock at the front door.
She jerked upright, heart hammering.
Another knock. Louder.
She stood slowly, stepping into the hallway.
The knock came again. Insistent.
She opened the door.
A woman stood there.
Late 40s. Tall. Blonde hair tied back. Sharp eyes behind round glasses.
"Are you Elara?" she asked.
Elara nodded slowly.
The woman pulled a card from her coat.
"Dr. Lillian Carter," she said. "I was your sister's therapist."
Elara let her in.
They sat at the dining table, steam curling from untouched mugs of tea.
"I tried reaching out to your mother," Dr. Carter said, "but she never returned my calls. I wasn't supposed to come here. I could lose my license."
"Then why are you here?" Elara asked.
The woman folded her hands.
"Because Isla was terrified. And I didn't take it seriously enough. And now she's dead."
Elara looked away.
"She told you about Mara?"
Dr. Carter nodded slowly.
"She described hallucinations. Voices. Mirror images. But what she feared most was you. Or something inside you."
Elara flinched.
"I thought it was psychosis," the doctor said. "Schizophrenia. Maybe a shared delusion between twins. But now… I'm not sure."
"I remember now," Elara whispered. "That night. What happened?"
Dr. Carter leaned in.
"You blocked it. Dissociation. It's not uncommon in childhood trauma. But creating an alternate persona, a scapegoat that's rare."
"Mara," Elara said.
"She was never real," the doctor replied gently. "But the guilt you gave her life."
"She's still here," Elara whispered. "She talks to me. She watches me. I see her when I sleep."
Dr. Carter frowned. "Elara… sometimes the mind externalizes trauma. You're grieving. You're remembering. It's painful, but it's not supernatural."
"But she said Isla would be next," Elara said. "And she was right."
Silence hung heavy.
"I don't know what to believe anymore," Elara said finally. "But I need to know… was Isla suicidal?"
Dr. Carter hesitated.
"She was afraid. But not hopeless. She was trying to fight something."
She pulled a flash drive from her bag and slid it across the table.
"Her last session. I recorded it with her consent. Maybe it'll help you understand."
That night, Elara lay in bed, Isla's sketchbook beside her, the flash drive plugged into her laptop.
The audio clicked on.
Isla's voice filled the room.
"It's not just memories. It's her. She's coming back."
"Who is Isla?"
"Mara. I see her in the mirror. In my dreams. In Elara."
"You believe Mara is part of Elara?"
"She is Elara. Or who Elara became to survive. But she's angry now. She wants the truth."
"What truth?"
"That Elara didn't just forget what happened. She chose to forget. And Mara won't let her anymore."
Elara paused the audio.
She sat in silence, the laptop screen flickering blue shadows on the wall.
She didn't need a doctor to tell her anymore.
The past wasn't staying buried.
And neither was she.