Diary Entry
I just looked out the window! It’s not the Darkness outside, tapping on the glass. It’s Mrs. Semple!
She’s at the window, clutching a small book to her chest and tap-tap-tapping, trying to coax me outside.
But I’m not sure it’s the real Mrs. Semple doing it. It might look like her and act like her and even sound like her, but it might be the Darkness, trading that horrifying image I saw in the parlor for Mrs. Semple.
Wait! She’s moved to the door again! Not scratching. Pounding.
Throwing herself against the door until it rattles and shakes and—
Now it’s giving way!
Dear God, it’s open!
Mrs. Semple stands in the doorway, begging for my attention. But I can’t look at her. I won’t! I’ll keep writing it all down so that if anything happens to me, there’ll be a record of it. Someone needs to know everything that happened here.
“It’s time, Daisy,” she’s saying. “Time to follow the light.”
But I don’t want to! I’m so scared and so confused. Especially now that the Darkness is rising like a cloud in the downpour behind her. It looks like a storm within the storm, roiling and churning, taking the shape of