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She seemed reluctant to talk, at first, based on the notes that described earlier sessions, during which she spent most of the time staring off. As if terrified of something. The notes went on to describe a friend of hers, Appoline Dejarae, who helped her sneak away at night and drove her to the sessions with my father.

Appoline Dejarae.

Brie’s mother. I only heard it once, or twice, but the name is unforgettable.

In the notes, my father described Appoline as a nervous woman who seemed anxious, always looking over her shoulder, as if worried someone was watching. Just like Vivienne.

I recall that Brie was only about seven, or eight, years old when her mother died and she went to live with her Maw Maw.

In her sessions, Vivienne spoke of a religious cult that she’d been born into. One that apparently regarded sacrifice as a means of obtaining success. Shrewd in her omissions, as noted by my father, she seemed both careful and reluctant to offer too much information.

A painful reminder of my own sessions with a therapist.

He described her as exceptionally intelligent, beguiling, and almost seductive in the way she drew him into her well-choreographed confessions.

And then the notes stop. Flipping the page shows blank rows where her story from the prior visit should’ve picked up. A session date and time scribbled and crossed off. As though she suddenly quit seeing him.

Easing back into the chair, I lift the file from the desk, and something flutters out of it to the floor. I reach down to pick it up, flipping it over to see a picture of a woman, lying in muddy grass along the water. Needling branches of ice crawl across my chest and into my limbs as fear takes hold of me. In the image, her stomach has been sliced. The stark nudity is hard to look at, where she lies prone, body pale, green eyes lifeless and vacant. Crooked fingers show where they were broken at the joints. Bruises color her arms and thighs. Her neck also has a strange lump sticking out from the side as if it’s been broken.

The most disturbing part, though, is how many of her features mirror my own, like I’m staring down at an image of myself.

I’ve no doubt that this is the same ghostly woman who visited me back at the cabin, though her features weren’t so pronounced. More of a watered-down version, where my head must’ve forgotten some of the details of her face. Yet, I know it’s her. The one who claimed to be my mother.

I drop the photo onto the desk and cover it with the folder, closing the notes away. Pushing away from the desk, I breathe hard through my nose to settle the panic bubbling up inside of me.

Don’t look away.

“She was my mother.”

“I always wondered if your similarities were as obvious to everyone else as they were to me,” my father answers. “Seems they were most obvious to you.” With a slight smile, he clasps his hands behind his back and paces in the archway. “Her story intrigued me. I’d never met a woman so resilient. So puzzling and captivating. I dare say I fell in love with her.” A separate note at the end of the chart details those exact thoughts. Written as a letter to Vivienne, in which he went on to profess his love and desire to steal her away.

Perhaps it was too late by then.

Tears wobble in my eyes as I stare down at the folder. The very thing I came here to find out, I suddenly wish I didn’t know. “I found the file once before. I knew she was my mother then.”

“One afternoon, I finished with my sessions. I called down to you, but you didn’t answer me. I found you lying passed out beside her open folder. You’d gone into a sort of trauma upon seeing it.”

“That’s why you boarded up the rooms and hid them away.”

“Yes. Over time, you forgot about it. You didn’t even seem to notice that there should’ve been doors in that hallway. You never asked. And I never spoke of it again.”

True, he never did speak of it again. In fact, he went so far as to deny that the chamber ever existed. “You made me think I was crazy. You tried to convince me that there was no chamber.”

“For your protection. I never meant to hurt you, Cely, please believe me.”

“My mother … she was murdered.”

“Yes.”

“By whom?”

“That’s what you need to find out. I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

“But you know.”

“Of course I know. But you don’t. And I’m a figment of your mind. Therefore, I can’t tell you. Everything you’ve learned up to this point, you already knew. You just refused to see it.”

“This is all too much. Too much at once. I don’t …. I don’t even know what to do with all this shit. Russ. Brie. My mother …. I feel so tired right now.”