CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I am made of neglected glass and abandoned iron—uncared for, forgotten, alone.
No, not alone. Never alone.
The ghost of North Lane hid in the shadows.
Watching me. Taunting me. A harsh reminder of what I had become—of what I had always been.
She was right. The Devil lived inside me.
I was the monster haunting this tale. And now, I was condemned to an eternity with her ghost, trapped inside an endless loop—my own personal Hell.
I had long since given up hope of escaping, but I had not given up on Auden. I had to find him. He was the sole reason I returned to North Lane, the reason I murdered my mother, the reason I could not escape. But even if we were prisoners of the House, at least we'd be imprisoned together.
Days passed, and those days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months. I thought I'd seen him one day, standing by the stairs, but he'd transformed into a mere shadow, vanishing before I could utter more than his name. He was gone. Nowhere to be found.
It was just me, the ghost, and the House on North Lane.
***
I stood in front of a door that would not open, an unyielding guard sealed at the very end of the upstairs hallway. It was here the shadowed figure led me, yet I could not follow it inside, the House barring me from its secrets.
"What are you trying to tell me?" I asked, fingers tracing over the splintered paint, small specks of dust drifting to the floor.
The Devil's clawed hand caressed my shoulder, the stench of rot gushing from his lips that parted to whisper, There is nothing for you in there.
"How do you know?" I asked, testing the doorknob I knew would not budge.
We are trying to escape this prison, he said, claws digging deeper into my flesh, not explore it.
"You know what?" I freed my shoulder from the Devil's grasp, shoving him backwards. "I don't need to listen to you anymore!"
Don't be stupid, little monster.
"I'm not a monster!"
Your mother's ghost says otherwise.
Rage tore through me, fist raised to strike the Devil. His lips spread into a grin. Wicked delight glistened in his eyes. He wore my face, yet I could hardly recognise myself. Who was I? Who had I become? Who did I want to be?
The Devil wanted me to strike him; to be the monster he believed me to be. I had no intention of proving him right.
"I don't care what you say," I said, lowering my fist. "I don't care what you think. You do not get to decide who I am."
Behind me, the door clicked open, and the Devil vanished. Inside the room, the shadowed figure stood facing a mirror. The mirror—its familiar golden arch outlining the ghost of its reflection. It was not my mother. Nor the Devil. There was one other prisoner inside the House on North Lane.
The figure was tall, dressed in black trousers and a plain black t-shirt, the long sleeves stained with blood. His dark brown hair was an untamed mess atop his head, skin pale, almost luminescent. And his eyes—as blue as a cloudless sky.
Auden.
“You,” I whispered, “you are the ghost haunting the House on North Lane.”
“You,” Auden whispered back, “you are the ghost haunting the House on North Lane.”
I blinked, startled. Auden blinked back.
I raised my hand. Auden followed.
My knees slammed down onto the wooden floorboards, a loud crack echoing along the walls. The ghost knelt in front of me—silent, waiting.
“I don’t…understand.”
“You are the ghost haunting the House on North Lane,” he repeated.
“A ghost? But I’m not dead,” I said. “Are…you?”
Auden shook his head. “I was never born.”
If I hadn't already fallen to my knees, I certainly would have at those words. "What…what are you talking about?"
“I’m not real, Augustus,” Auden said, “I never was.”
"That doesn't make any sense. You’re my brother. We’ve grown up together.”
“Have we?” Auden asked.
And then he was gone, the mirror reflecting four-year-old me, curled up outside on the front porch, shivering from fear and the cold. I was praying to God, praying for my mother's forgiveness, praying for a sibling so that I would no longer be alone.
The image shifted and I was in the hospital room, only it wasn’t Auden in my mother’s arms, it was me. My mother whispered soothing words as I cradled my bruised wrist, but as soon as the nurses left the room, she handed me to my father as if she couldn’t stand to look at me.
All those days in the woods—alone. Images of my childhood came and went, the mirror unveiling the truth. I had always been alone. Auden—the ghost of Auden—had been right. He never existed.
The mirror reflected that night in North Lane—trapped in a circle of flames as my mother spoke in tongues, waving her crucifix in front of her like a sword.
It wasn’t Auden I was trying to save, but myself.
“You created me,” Auden returned to the mirror, “so that you wouldn’t be alone anymore. That’s all you ever really wanted. To not be alone. And I became a reason for you to live, to aim for something better.”
A choked sob escaped my throat as Auden’s face shifted to mine, and the reality of my whole life came crashing down on me. Auden wasn’t real. None of it was real.
Auden was the innocence I had lost and now I was alone, just as I had always been.
I screamed, I cried, I sobbed, until my tears dried up and I was nothing but an empty shell, laying in front of the mirror. Everyone I loved was dead. Or never existed.
What about Nathaniel?
Sniffling, I sat up and lifted the hem of my shirt to wipe my eyes.
I had been trapped in this House for too long alongside ghosts and haunted memories.
I needed to escape. I needed to move on.
I needed to find Nathaniel. I had made a mistake—a huge, irredeemable mistake. But I wanted him in my life.
There was a knock on the front door as if I’d summoned him with just a thought. I staggered to my feet, heart and head aching, desperate to find him.
The knock grew louder, more urgent, as I descended the staircase, floorboards coming alive to gnaw at my feet, the House trembling with rage. It refused to let me leave—refused to let anyone in.
Did I dare hope to find Nathaniel on the other side of the door?
I raced toward the entrance in slow motion, the walls growing closer and closer in an attempt to suffocate and crush my bones. But I pushed through, the knock pounding inside my head, trembling fingers desperate to curl around the door handle.
The door hadn't opened in a long time, but maybe, with the ghosts gone and my memories resurfaced, the House would have no choice but to let me leave. Had I not been punished enough?
The door creaked open slowly, a blast of light chasing away the darkness that curled around me.
And there he was, standing in the doorway, his eyes glistening with tears, his perfect lips parted in surprise.
“Augustus,” Nathaniel whispered, “you let me in.”