The letter lay limp in Elara's hands, the ink smudged where her fingertips pressed too hard. Her mother's handwriting, once sharp and even, had faltered in the final lines. Regret bled between the words like a shadow into water.
"You didn't kill your father. I did."
She reread it.
And again.
But the guilt clung anyway.
Because even if she hadn't pushed him…
Even if Margaret had done the fatal thing…
She had remembered doing it.
She had created Mara to cope with it.
And she had let that phantom bloom inside her like a wound.
Elara was no longer afraid of Mara.
She was afraid of herself.
That night, she dreamed.
But it wasn't a dream.
It was a memory.
Real and whole.
She was nine years old, standing barefoot at the top of the basement stairs, the shadows stretching long behind her.
Isla screamed from below.
Her father's voice, slurred and angry, bellowed something incomprehensible.
A loud crash.
Then silence.
Elara moved before she thought, before she feared.
She reached the bottom and saw him, kneeling over Isla, his hand raised, his belt wrapped around his fist.
Her mother stood behind him, shaking.
"David," Margaret said. "Stop."
He turned.
"You think I'm afraid of you?"
Margaret stepped forward.
"No," she said softly. "You should be afraid of what happens next."
Then she shoved him.
A clean, desperate motion.
He fell.
The sound of bone hitting concrete echoed forever.
Blood pooled fast.
And Elara, frozen, stared into his empty, unblinking eyes.
Then the memory skipped.
A blur of movement.
Margaret is dragging them upstairs.
Isla sobbing.
And Elara, glassy-eyed, stared into the hallway mirror.
Her reflection looked back.
Only it wasn't her.
Not quite.
The mouth curved up in a grin.
"I can carry this," the reflection whispered.
"You don't have to."
Elara blinked.
The girl in the mirror winked.
She awoke with a scream caught in her throat.
Sweat slicked her neck. Her heart pounded like it was trying to escape her chest.
But her mind was clear.
She remembered.
Everything.
She knew what she had to do.
It was nearly 3:00 a.m. when she stepped back into the forest.
The flashlight danced ahead of her. The wind had risen, shaking the branches like they were trying to warn her off.
But she didn't stop.
Not until the cabin appeared again.
She stepped inside.
The carvings on the walls had multiplied.
MARA repeated endlessly, jagged and deep.
But this time… beneath them…
Her name.
ELARA
Etched beside it.
Like they were the same person.
Or like the cabin was tired of pretending otherwise.
She stood in the center of the room, where the chair still waited.
Slowly, she pulled Isla's silver pendant from around her neck and placed it on the seat.
Then she spoke not loudly, not in a commanding tone.
Just true.
"I remember now."
Silence.
Then a whisper in the rafters.
"Do you?"
Elara didn't flinch.
"Yes. I remember the stairs. The blood. The lie. I remember you."
"Then why did you need me?"
Mara's voice was calm. Curious.
Elara turned in a slow circle, searching the shadows.
"You were a door," she said. "So I didn't have to feel it. But I don't need you anymore."
The whisper curled into a laugh.
"You think that's how this works?"
"You made me."
"I know," Elara whispered. "And now I'm unmaking you."
Suddenly, the mirror appeared.
It wasn't there a moment ago, but now it leaned against the wall, taller than her, its frame rotting at the edges.
The reflection inside was Mara.
Her eyes are darker. Her hair is longer. Her mouth was cruel.
"I lived in you," Mara said. "I kept you safe."
"You kept me hollow."
"I kept you alive."
Elara stepped forward.
"I accept what happened," she said. "I don't need you anymore."
Mara's grin faltered.
"You'll forget again," she hissed.
"No," Elara said. "Not this time."
She picked up a rock from the floor.
And with all her strength
She smashed the mirror.
It exploded.
Shards flew like birds scattering into the night.
Light poured from it, not white, but deep red, like blood caught in flame.
Elara shielded her face.
When she looked again…
Mara was gone.
The cabin was quiet.
And something inside her finally… released.
Like chains falling from the walls of her chest.
She walked home under the stars, the dawn rising slowly and softly behind her.
The house stood still, but no longer haunted.
It was just a house.
Not a coffin.
Not a shrine.
Just a place where pain had lived and now had been set free.
She buried Isla's pendant at the base of the tree they used to climb as kids.
She whispered a thank you.
Not to Mara.
To herself.
For coming back.
For remembering.
Later that week, she received a call.
Dr. Carter's voice was calm on the line.
"Elara," she said, "the police found your mother."
She held her breath.
"She's alive," the doctor added. "Safe. She checked herself into a psychiatric facility. She left a note at the gate. Said she wanted to face what she'd buried."
Elara said nothing.
Just nodded.
Weeks passed.
She painted again.
Not flowers. Not landscapes.
Memories.
Her father's face. Isla's laughter. The woods. The mirror.
And then one last painting.
A woman.
Standing at the edge of the forest.
Back turned.
A mirror at her feet, shattered.
And sunlight on her shoulders.