Dearest Reader
From the hand of Lucy… or Lenore… or whomever you choose to believe:
Now that you have reached the end of my tale, you must surely be wondering one last thing:
Which ending is the truth?
Was it the tender one—where I awoke in Sylum’s arms, safe and beloved, and all my horrors were nothing more than a dream within a dream?
Or was it the darker ending—the one where I found a diary that should not exist, a file written in the doctor’s unforgiving hand, and a man wearing my husband’s face?
Perhaps you believe I fractured that night on the cliffs. Perhaps you think my mind—wounded, delicate, desperate—ate the truth whole and birthed some monstrous imitation.
Perhaps I pulled the trigger. Perhaps I watched Sylum fall.
Or perhaps everything you have read—every whisper, every shadow, every trembling confession—was only a fever-dream born of head trauma and a wild imagination. Perhaps I merely fell asleep again and the nightmare, loyal as ever, returned to fetch me.
Which, then, is the ending you choose? The happily-ever-after or the tragic unraveling?
If you recall, I did tell you at the beginning of this tale: “This story is told through the eyes of a madman, who, like all of us, believed he was sane.”
Ah, but the truth is a slippery thing, dear reader, and I shall leave you with a secret.
Even now, as I write these final words, I cannot say with certainty whether I am Lucy recounting a nightmare or Lenore never quite awakening from one.
Perhaps I truly am a woman caught forever between two selves.
Two shadows. One bone.
As Poe would say—dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
So choose your ending, dear reader.
Choose it gently, or choose it cruelly—but know that whichever you choose will tell you more about yourself than it ever will about me.
With all my fractured heart,
—L (Whoever she may be when you close this book)