The Trade
Nori didn't take his hand.
Couldn't.
The forest trembled around them—trees vibrating with a low hum, like a breath being drawn before a scream. The mirror pulsed again, faster now. Hungry.
Max stood between them, his voice low. "We're not making any more trades."
Eli smiled, but it wasn't really Eli anymore. The boy was still in there, maybe—but buried deep beneath something far older.
"You already did," he said. "All of you. Years ago."
Nori's voice was shaking, but she forced herself forward. "We were children. We didn't know what we were doing."
"Mary did," Eli said, softly now. "She knew what it wanted. And she gave herself for you."
The mirror brightened—and this time, Mary's form stepped through.
Not an image. Not a reflection.
She was there.
Solid.
Her feet left damp prints on the forest floor. Her hair was matted to her face, her arms limp by her sides. But her eyes… they weren't hollow anymore.
They were full. Of pain. Of memory. Of choice.
"I remember everything," she whispered.
Nori stepped toward her. "Mary, I'm so sorry. We were scared. We thought the house—"
"You left me," Mary said, simply.
Not angry. Not accusing. Just… tired.
"I called out. You heard me. But the door closed."
Max shook his head. "We didn't know what the ritual would do. We thought we were just sealing something away."
Mary looked at them both. "You sealed me."
She turned to the mirror, and it rippled with her gaze. "It's been feeding on me ever since. Memory. Fear. Regret. That's what it needs. That's what you gave it."
Nori's knees buckled, but she didn't fall. "Then take me. Let Max and the others go."
"No," Max snapped. "That's not how we fix this."
Mary looked back at them. "It doesn't want one. It wants all. Every thread of the story. Every echo of the lie."
Eli—what remained of him—stepped beside her. "We finish it now."
Behind the mirror, the shadows boiled, pressing against the glass. Faces. Children. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Each one with wide eyes and silent mouths.
"We let it end," Mary said.
Nori looked from her to Max. "What if it doesn't end? What if we just become the next memory it eats?"
Max stared at the mirror, then at the locket on the ground. It had stopped glowing.
He picked it up, slowly, turning it in his hand.
"It doesn't want a sacrifice," he said. "It wants the truth."
He held the locket out toward the mirror—and it responded. Not with light, but sound. Screaming, whispering, laughter. Voices from every summer they'd spent at that camp. Every time they'd walked past the ruins of the old house and pretended they didn't feel it staring back.
"We tell it everything," Max said. "All of it. We show it we remember. Not just what we did, but what we didn't do. No lies. No forgetting."
Nori met his eyes—and she understood.
The locket had always been more than a vessel. It was a confession.
She reached into her pocket and took out the photograph they'd found weeks ago—the one with the five of them. All smiling. Mary in the center.
She pressed it to the mirror.
The shadows stopped moving.
A silence fell so heavy it almost knocked her over.
Then, one by one, the faces inside the mirror began to retreat.
The crack in the glass sealed itself with a soft sound, like closing a book.
And Mary turned.
She was smiling.
Not happy—but at peace.
"I remember," she said one last time.
And she was gone.
So was Eli.
The forest exhaled.
---
In the clearing, the mirror still stood—but now, it only showed what was real: two broken kids, older than they should have been, staring back at themselves through a truth they couldn't undo but could finally face.