Returning to Grimwood feels wrong, like trying to walk up the down escalator. It feels as if it has been a lifetime since we first arrived, yet I can imagine it so clearly as if it were only yesterday. As the car emerges from the thick forestry and the manor comes into view, a shudder forces its way down my spine.

I don't want to be here. I'd rather be anywhere else. But there's no other choice. I'm ending this. Here and now.

Danny pulls off to the side in the large driveway, away from the construction vehicles and equipment, which are on the right side closer to the manor. I open the door before he turns off the engine. The air is especially dusty, and the running machinery breaks that eerie silence the manor once had.

Not sure where to even go — I don't think we have permission to go inside anymore — I walk to the front of the car and I sit on the hood. Once he gets out, Danny joins me. I can feel his gaze on my face, trying to read my mind, but I try to gather my thoughts before I say anything.

So, I watch as the wrecking crew prepares for the job ahead. They're oblivious to our presence, and probably oblivious to the house's history, to the evil that's inside. I hope that whatever has claimed us won't touch them.

After a while, I glance over at Danny. I swallow hard but my throat is stiff. "I'm terrified," I whisper, and it's all I can get out before my voice breaks.

He looks at me empathetically, reaching out and putting his hand over mine. "I won't let anything happen to you."

I shake my head. "No. I'm terrified that something is going to happen to you like Georgia." My heart breaks. "Like Seth. Because of me."

"I'm going to be okay," he says, his voice and face confident, but how can he be so?

"Georgia was so sure she was fine, but I could see her cracking, slowly. Each night, there was a bit of her lost until..." I gesture with my hands. "Nothing." I lock eyes with him. "You can't be so sure, either."

Danny takes a breath and he looks away, his gaze sharp on the manor. The surrounding trees billow in the wind, and I wonder if those will be cut down too. "I'm pretty sure it's over for me. I beat it."

My heart skips a beat. "How?"

He's quiet at first. Then, when he speaks, his voice is low. "I told you about my mom, and what happened when I was a baby, and how she was admitted several times because of it." I nod in response. "She lives in Arizona now, and a couple of days before Seth died, I flew down there to talk to her about everything. I told her what happened at Grimwood and what's been happening now." He pauses and his Adam's apple bobs. "I can't believe what she said still..."

It's my turn to reach out. I caress his arm. "It's okay. Take your time."

When his eyes meet mine, they're red and filled to the brim with tears. "She said she made it all up."

I shake my head. "Made...it up? Made what up?"

He throws his hands in the air. "All of it! The ghosts, the experience when I was a baby! She said it was for attention, that it was never real."

My mind tries to wrap around it, but I'm struggling. "But what about what you said at Sunnyside?"

His jaw clenches. "She kept digging herself deeper with the lies, and at that point, people thought she had lost her mind. She said she wasn't sick, she just needed attention." He shakes his head and looks down at his hands in his lap.

"But..." I hesitate to ask, but I think we're beyond hesitation when it comes to the paranormal. "You said you saw it too? The ghost?"

"I don't remember seeing it when I was a baby, but I saw it in my apartment. After Grimwood." He shakes his head. "I don't think I saw it as a baby, but it looked exactly how my mother used to describe it."

I take a breath. "What did your mom say to that?"

He sighs. "She didn't believe me. My uncle didn't either."

"Your uncle?"

Danny nods. "She lives with him. After she went to bed, he and I chatted for a while. He said she has this thing called factitious disorder, and that's part of the reason why she was admitted so frequently to Sunnyside. He said they never told me because they didn't want to scare me. So, they just let me believe the ghost thing was real."

He scoffs. "That story my mom told me is what got me interested in the paranormal. When I went to college, I did as much research into the occult and the paranormal as I could, including taking all of the courses offered at the community college. It was my dad who told me to major in something else, so I got my video production certification too." When he hangs his head, I can feel all of his despair in my chest. "I can't believe it was all fake. None of it was real."

I turn to face him. "What happened then might not have been real, but this is. You didn't believe in anything that wasn't real."

He meets my eyes as tears crash onto his cheeks. "But what inspired it wasn't real. I feel like a fraud."

If anyone is a fraud, it's me. That burns in my throat, but I hold it back. That isn't what he needs to hear. I take his hand into mine and look deeply into his eyes. "You are not a fraud. You are the real deal, no matter the origin." I gesture to the manor. "And if you still wanted to pursue the paranormal for real, you can do that. Nothing and no one can take that from you."

He shakes his head as he wipes at his face with the back of his hand. "It's kind of ruined now. But at least I'm out."

"How do you know?"

The look that crosses his face can only be described as relief, and that makes me feel settled yet nervous. "When I got home from Arizona, there was this sense of quiet in my apartment. After Grimwood, the air was pure static and heavy. But now, it's gone. I haven't felt on edge or threatened. And I slept good for the first time. A whole ten hours, no nightmares." He smiles, and it's genuine. "I'm ghost-free."

I take a shaky breath. "Actually, now that you mention it, I think I might be okay too."

His gaze rakes my face as he smiles. "Yeah?"

I nod, feeling a smile of my own. "Yeah. I had a similar revelation —"

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway cuts off my words. A sleek black car pulls in front of us. A BMW.

Bridget Crenshaw gets out of her car. Her eyes fall onto us and she shows visual surprise. As she heads over, I feel a mix of humiliation and guilt. And of course, the first thing she says makes those feelings burn and bubble in my stomach.

"I saw your interview on Good Morning, Madison," she says quietly. Disappointment and anger mix in her face. "I understand now. This," she gestures at us, "wasn't real. Until it was."

I open my mouth. "I —"

"You came to the wrong place," she interrupts, her gaze sharp and heated. Even though I feel humiliated, I want to say, You have no idea even though she does, in fact, know exactly.

For a moment, neither Danny nor I say anything. Bridget just looks over us cryptically. She purses her lips before she nods curtly. Her gaze finds the manor. "No one else will go through what you have, at least."

I wonder how she views the manors through her eyes. She lived there for a long time. She experienced the manor in her own way, in a way we could never imagine. I look over at it anyway, trying to get an idea. As my eyes are scouring the edges of brick and stone, I notice them for the first time.

The moths. They coat the walls like cobwebs. They blend in almost perfectly in color, but I can see them. As one of the crew members turns on a piece of equipment, the swarm of moths kicks off the wall and flutters off, heading in all directions.

As I look back at Bridget and begin to ask about the moths, I see she's already walking back to her car.

"Wait," I call out as she opens her car door. "How did you do it?" When she raises a brow, I try again. "How did you escape? How did you survive this house?"

She turns her head and looks at the manor, and that mysterious smile lifts at the corner of her mouth. "Maybe I'll tell you the story sometime," she says as she looks back at me. "Good luck." Again, her face is unreadable. She gets back in her car, and she turns around, driving back down the dirt road, disappearing into the trees.

I look at Danny. "She didn't come here for us, right?"

He furrows his brows. "How would she know we were here? That we would come?"

I shake my head. She didn't speak to anyone on the crew. Only us. Maybe she wanted to see the house one last time before the demolition. Or perhaps she had a sixth sense that we would be here.

All I know is that this nightmare is almost over. I have a feeling that once this building is gone once and for all, it will all be done with. As Bridget said, no one will ever live here again, will never experience the manor and its demons again.

This ends with us. I only hope that we will go back to normal once all that's left of Grimwood is brick and dust.

Current word count: 26,907