I didn't sleep.
I might've closed my eyes for a few minutes, but even then, it wasn't real sleep. Just images flickering behind my eyelids—faces I didn't recognize, voices whispering words I couldn't understand. And always that figure, just out of reach, watching from the edge of the mirror.
When my alarm goes off, I sit up slow. I feel like I've been dragged backward through the night. My hoodie's twisted around me, and my hair's a tangled mess. My throat is dry. My chest is tight.
I don't know if it was a dream. I don't know if I'm going crazy.
But I know what I saw.
And I don't want to look in the mirror.
I change in the dark. Black jeans, oversized band shirt, ripped sleeves. I pull the hoodie over my head and tighten the drawstrings until they almost cover my face. My fingers tremble when I tie my boots.
When I step out of my room, the hallway smells like frankincense and something sharper—rosemary maybe. There's smoke drifting from the little dish near Mom's altar. More candles. More crystals. More peace I can't seem to touch.
She's standing by the front door, waiting for me, her hands clasped around something small.
"I made this for you," she says.
I raise an eyebrow. "What is it?"
She steps forward and slips something around my wrist. A bracelet—woven with thin cords of black and deep red, with tiny beads spaced evenly between the knots. One of the beads is shaped like an eye. The others are stones—onyx, maybe, and something dark blue.
"For protection," she says softly. "You looked pale this morning. I thought you might need it."
I stare at the bracelet on my wrist. It's warm, like it was just resting in her hands. It feels weird. Not tight. Not heavy. Just… weird.
"You think this is going to stop the world from being horrible?" I mutter.
She doesn't answer. Just smiles like she knows something I don't.
"It won't hurt," she says. "And it's not just for what's out there. Sometimes it's for what's already following you."
I freeze for a second. My fingers twitch.
"What does that mean?"
She shrugs, turning back toward the kitchen. "Spirits are always around us. Sometimes the ones we carry are heavier than the ones we see."
I want to ask her more. I want to yell at her to stop talking in riddles and just tell me what she knows. But I don't. I just stand there, staring at the bracelet, trying not to think about the thing in the mirror.
---
The bus ride to school is quiet. I keep my hood up and my hands stuffed in my sleeves. The bracelet keeps brushing against my skin like it's alive. Like it knows something.
I don't talk to anyone. Nobody talks to me.
But every time I glance at the windows, I see shapes that aren't there when I turn my head. Shadows in corners. Reflections that linger too long.
The ghost didn't go away.
I don't think it ever left.