Diary Entry June 16, 1926
It’s early. Not yet dawn. And even though I managed to live through another night on New Avalon, I already know I won’t last another day.
I know because Mrs. Semple is dead.
And I am the one who killed her.
I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to get away, to save myself. When I tried to run, I was blocked by Mrs. Semple and the Darkness. I still didn’t understand why it looked just like me. But then Mrs. Semple said, “You know what happened to the others now, don’t you, Daisy?”
I shook my head. I honestly didn’t! But the longer I looked at my own face in the Darkness, the more I started to recall things that had happened on the island. Bad things. Horrible things. The stuff of nightmares.
But that’s not what they were.
“The bad dreams I had,” I said, gasping. “Those weren’t nightmares!”
“No,” Mrs. Semple said. “Not quite. But what you saw wasn’t quite real, either.”
I looked at my face within the Darkness, the truth striking me so hard I thought I’d break into a thousand pieces.
“It was me!” I cried.
Mrs. Semple approached me, arms open, pulling me into an embrace that I no longer resisted. Instead, I wept in her arms, overwhelmed as I sobbed, “I killed them! Oh, dear God, it was me!”
“I don’t blame you, my dear,” Mrs. Semple whispered. “It wasn’t your fault. It was all Azra’s doing.”
No, she was wrong about that. She had to be.
Because that meant the Darkness had been in me this entire time.
A prospect so frightening that I covered my ears, no longer willing to listen.
But Mrs. Semple kept talking, insisting that it was true.
She said that Azra had been coming out when I wasn’t aware of it.
That all those nightmares were something worse.
A possession.
“Where are Katrina, Jonquil, and Mrs. Minafer?” I asked, despairing. “What did I do with them?”
“I’m hoping we can find out together.” Mrs. Semple held up the book she’d brought with her. “Would you like to compare journals?”
I pushed her away, suddenly more horrified. She knew what I’d done and said nothing! Instead, she wrote it all down in her own journal while I filled mine with lies. Which meant she had been working with the Darkness all this time!
“You’re lying,” I said. “I didn’t kill them. I’d never hurt anyone.”
Mrs. Semple raised a brow. “Are you certain of that?”
“Yes! I—”
Suddenly, I wasn’t certain at all. More memories began to flood in. Ones from before coming to New Avalon, before being taken to the boardinghouse. Ones of Daddy.
Mrs. Semple knew what I was thinking and said, “Again, I don’t blame you. Your father was a cruel man. Drunk. Abusive. You’re remembering now, aren’t you? How he’d beat you. How, at night, he’d climb into your—”
“Stop!” I cried. “None of that happened!”
“It did, my child,” Mrs. Semple said quietly. “I’m so sorry that’s the case, but it did happen. And continued to happen. Until, one night, you—”
“I didn’t!” I screamed. “You’re lying!”
When she stepped toward me again, I spotted the knife from the kitchen that I’d used to carve my daisy wheel. It was still in the cottage, right where I’d left it. I lunged for it, wrapped my fingers around the handle, and, closing my eyes, thrust it out in front of me.
Mrs. Semple let out a cry before the sound of her voice was replaced by the sickening squish of the knife entering her body. As it was happening, I was overcome by a thousand memories.
Of Daddy drunk.
Screaming.
Throwing an empty bottle at my head and then crawling into my bed whispering apologies, his beard like sandpaper on my skin.
The last memory was of me, knife in hand, shoving the blade deeper and deeper into Daddy’s gut until he gasped out his last word.
My name.
Mrs. Semple did the same right before she hit the floor with a thump, dead by my hand.
I wept by her body for an hour, too overcome with guilt to do anything else.
I didn’t mean to kill her. I swear on Mommy’s grave that I didn’t.
I was just trying to defend myself and get away.
But lying next to her body, I knew Mrs. Semple had been right.
With or without the Darkness, I was a killer.
Now she’s buried. It was the least I could do. Unlike the others, there was a body left behind, something to commit to the earth. And when I put her there, weeping and racked with guilt, I pretended that the others were being laid to rest as well.
I suppose that’s why I went to the main house, took a dress from Mrs. Semple’s armoire, and placed it in the smoke-scarred branches of the oak. Another memorial for someone who didn’t have one.
Then I slipped out of my own dress and did the same.
It hangs there now, joining the others in a fitting tribute.
For in a few minutes, I also will be gone.
The Darkness will soon take over. Before it does, I know what I must do.
Now here we are—at the end of my story.
I want whoever reads this to know I’m not scared or sad. I take comfort in knowing I’ll be joining Mommy soon. Perhaps I’ll even encounter Mrs. Semple, Jonquil, Mrs. Minafer, and Katrina as well, and I can seek forgiveness for what the Darkness made me do.
Good-bye, New Avalon.
Good-bye, Daisy.
Before the Darkness consumes me completely, I will head for the light.