brings me here, right here. It brings me to you.
I'm sorry. I wasn't entirely honest with you, at the start of this story.
Not about the fact that this book will kill you, because it will. It has.
I just didn't tell you the truth about why.
About who.
I've been a little naughty.
Can you feel me there, right behind you? I'm watching you read, I'm watching you take in these last few words. If you turn around now you might see me, a girl with an empty head lined with meat, a girl with no eyes who still looks, a girl with no mouth who still whispers.
It's your own fault. You can't say I didn't warn you. Stories are powerful, especially hers, especially mine. Stories are weapons, and this weapon has killed you.
Are you ready, deadthing?
Close your eyes and listen, really listen. Listen into the quiet behind the noise of the world and hear me. You won't be able to unhear me, you won't be able to make it stop. Tonight you will feel my crackboned finger scratch itself down your cheek, you will wake to find my birdnest body pressed against yours, laughter echoing around the empty auditorium of my skull.
Tonight I will take you with me. I will take you to meet the witch.
You cannot change this, but you can delay it. Your only hope is to share this, to find another home for me. Maybe then I'll come for them first. Who? Does it matter? Your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, perhaps your child. Wouldn't any of those be better than this? Better than seeing me crawl up beneath your blankets in the middle of the night, better than me carrying you away with me to the place where the witch lives? Try it, and maybe you'll find yourself with an extra day, an extra week.
Maybe.
But sooner or later you have to come.
We're all there. We're all waiting. And there are so many of us. What kind of story will she make you tell? What kind of deadthing will you be? A thing of meat, or feathers? A thing that whispers, or screams? A thing that pinches, or punishes?
A thing that rots. A thing that rots. A thing that rots.
Or perhaps you will just be more meat on her table, more fat in her pan.
Either way, sleep well, child. Sleep well, deadthing. I know you. I see you.
I am on my way.