Chapter 150

Emily

The steam from the cup curls in soft spirals above my hands. It smells like moss and mint, with something else layered beneath—something deeper, bitter, and wild. I stare into the surface of the green tea as if it holds all the answers I’ve been chasing. I know it doesn’t. But I drink anyway. The warmth coats my throat as I sip, sliding into my chest with a soft burn.

Wanda sits across from me, still and quiet, like a statue carved from old wood and shadow. Her eyes don’t blink. They never do when she’s preparing for something like this. The ritual hums around her even before she speaks.

“Drink all of it,” she says. “Let it fill you.”

I obey, swallowing the last mouthful. It leaves an earthy aftertaste on my tongue. My lips tingle. The edges of the room begin to blur slightly, as if I’ve just stepped between two worlds and haven’t quite landed in either.

Wanda rises and moves to the couch. I follow her, legs already a little heavy, like I’m underwater. I lay down, sinking into the cushions, and rest my hands across my stomach.

“Good,” she says, kneeling beside me. “Now listen carefully.” Her voice is calm, slow. Almost hypnotic. “We’re going deeper this time. Into the corners of your mind that your consciousness has sealed away. Your father is there. The truth is there.”

A cold sweat prickles across my forehead. My father. The faceless man in my memories. The figure that always lingered just beyond the edge of my dreams. I don’t know what’s hidden behind the walls I built around him. Only that my mother never spoke his name without flinching.

“What if I don’t want to see it?” I whisper. Wanda rests a hand on my heart, the warmth of her palm steady.

“You have a choice. You always have a choice. You can turn back now. You can forget this and walk away,” her words are kind and they give me the support I need to continue. I stare at the flickering candle beside the table, watching the flame dance.

“I can’t walk away anymore.”

Wanda’s expression doesn’t change, but I feel something shift in the air. She turns to the items beside her, the crystals and incense that burns on the small wooden table.

“You may see things that disturb you,” she says. “Memories that twist what you believed to be true. Pain that changes how you see the world—and yourself. What lies behind this door may alter your understanding of your own life.”

I close my eyes.

“I know,” I say.

“And still, you want to proceed?” Wanda lowers her voice, almost as if she is the person who heralds evil, an ending that will bring me my demise.

“Yes.”

The silence that follows feels sacred.

“Very well,” she whispers.

Her hands move again—one at my forehead, the other at my sternum. She begins to chant, the words older than language, threaded with something ancient. The air thickens. My lungs grow heavy. The tea begins to settle.

My body loosens beneath her touch. My fingers twitch once, then go still. My heartbeat slows. I breathe in time with the rhythm of her words, each syllable sinking into my bones like weightless stone.

Something opens. Not a door. A space. Inside my consciousness.

I feel it—like the cracking of ice over a frozen lake. A tension breaking. A current beneath the surface. And then I hear her. My mother. Her voice floats through the darkness like smoke on the wind.

“Emily,” she whispers. “You’re safe, baby. I’m here.”

The fear melts. All at once, the resistance in my chest dissolves. I can feel her, real and present, more than a memory. She surrounds me like warmth, like sunlight behind closed eyes.

“Come home,” she says softly.

My muscles go slack. My mind floats. My breathing slows even further. And I fall.

There’s no beginning to this place. No border or shape. I’m drifting in a space that feels like both memory and dream, where color and sound bend around me like water. Everything is blurred, smudged by time and emotion. The place I find myself in is familiar, as if it was plucked from the depths of my trapped memories.

It’s mine. A reflection of everything I’ve buried. I hover in it, half-asleep, but aware enough to know what’s coming.

There’s a presence nearby. Not Wanda. Not my mother.

Him.

The air changes when he arrives. Thickens from the weight of his sins. I don’t see him yet, but I feel the shape of him—tall, heavy, like thunder crouching in the corner of the room. The space shifts. The haze pulls back.

I’m no longer drifting. I’m standing in our old kitchen. The one from my childhood house — the one we left behind after everything changed. The wallpaper is peeling in the corners. The counters are stained with age. The window above the sink is cracked, just like I remember. I turn.

There he is. My father. He looks like he did when I was a kid, back when I adored him with the entirety of my heart.

He sits at the faded and worn out table. The wood is actively rotting, peeling away from its body. It drops to the floor where its vanishes. He turns and looks at me, his expression both haunting and chilling.

His eyes are hollow. His mouth is set in a line so tight it looks painful. There’s something in his stance—a tension I recognize in myself when I’m trying not to cry.

He doesn’t speak. Neither do I. But the moment stretches, thick with unspoken memories.

This is the man who ruined my life. This is the man who killed Derek. This is the man who was been the root of my family’s misery, my mother’s death, and the misery of my sleeping wolf.

His usual look of anger and disdain is replaced with depletion. He looks haunted. It is as if he’s carrying more than just his own pain.

He slowly rises from the table. Every step that he takes towards me makes my heart shrivel up. I want to run away and hide, to escape from his clutches just as I did when I was a child. The familiar feeling of terror washes over me and yet I can’t bring myself to move.

He raises a hand and slowly reaches toward me, a simple porcelain tea cup in his hand. I want to move. I don’t know whether it’s to step back or reach for him, but I can’t. I’m frozen. Stuck between a child’s fear and a woman’s need to understand. His voice cracks the silence.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he says, his voice just above that of a whisper. He brings the tea cup to my lips, the material cool against my lips.

“What?” I whisper.

“I never meant to hurt you, Emily,” my father whispers.

The liquid washes down my throat. Despite the steam that plumes from the cup, the tea is ice cold. It causes my body to shiver, shaking uncontrollably as my limbs go numb. I slowly fall to the floor, the gravity in my mind’s landscape keeping me safe just as a veil of darkness is placed over my head.