That night, Jane awoke to the sound of creaking. At first, she thought it was just from somewhere deep within the house. She had noticed an abundance of creaking since she first arrived, just the side effects of a magic manor, she presumed. But the creaking grew closer. First, it began outside her door, then it moved up towards the ceiling. She looked at Catie, silhouetted in the dark, sound asleep. The creaking continued going down the walls until it finally ended in a corner of the room. The darkness of the corner began to move, taking a strange shape, like that of a person. The shadow moved and Jane had to cover her mouth to keep herself from screaming.
"Hello, child," the Weeping Widow said in that terrible raspy whisper that she had heard from her nightmare.
Jane leapt out of bed towards Catie to wake her.
"Don't bother," the Widow said. "This is your dream, not hers."
"I'm- I'm in a dream?" Jane asked, looking around her. The room appeared to be as authentic as the real one.
"Yes. I cannot enter the manor on my own, so I must only communicate directly to you through your dream space, I'm afraid," she moved closer towards her and Jane took a step back. "I mean you no harm," she said, putting out her skeleton hands as a sign of reassurance.
"Why are you following me?"
"Because you can help me, Jane Gracey."
"Help you? Why don't you go to Mrs. Macabre? She helps plenty of people."
The ghost made a sound that Jane only recognized as a chuckle. "Oh, no. The witch is not who she appears to be."
"What do you mean?"
"Sit down, child," the Widow gestured to the bed. Jane reluctantly got back in and the Widow sat down, making no imprint on the bed itself. "Once upon a time, when I was still alive, my wife and I knew Mrs. Macabre. We considered her to be a very close friend of ours. We trusted her. We respected her. She could do no wrong in our eyes. Then I tragically lost my beloved and, in my grief, I went to her, knowing that she had been through the same pain once before. Seeking comfort, I instead received wrath. She mocked me for always lamenting and sulking over the loss of my poor wife. She would taunt me, bully me, hate the woman that I had become. Tired of my grieving, she turned me into the thing that sits before you," she gestured to her black dress. "She turned me into a ghost, imprisoning me for all eternity in a shell of heartbreak and sadness," She removed her veil and Jane saw a stream of black tears rolling down her skull, like a faucet that could never be turned off.
"I'm sorry," Jane said in revulsion and pity, "I'm sorry that happened to you, but- how? Mrs. Macabre isn't bad, she's done nothing but good things for Catie and I."
"That is where you are wrong, foolish girl," the Widow wagged her finger at her. "Like the wicked witches of the old stories, Mrs. Macabre tempts children with pleasures and promises using those desires to deceive them."
"What do you mean?" Jane asked, a sense of dread crept over her.
"Since you have arrived in the Hallowland, she has placed you and your sister's lives at risk. First with the gremlins, then allowing Catherine to climb that nightmare tree, and now, nearly forfeiting your soul to the Reaper."
"How can you follow us?"
"As I said before, Mrs. Macabre and I were close in life and we shall remain so in death. I saw your game of wits with the Reaper, I saw you win by sheer luck, I overheard the prophecy that he gave to you. The loss of someone you care for is coming," she glanced over to Catie in the other bed.
"But, Mrs. Macabre didn't do those things to hurt us!" Her voice rose in a desperate attempt to make sense of what she was hearing. "How could she have known that we would be in danger?"
"Because she has made that same mistake before," the Widow pointed to the dark patch in the corner where she had appeared. A boy walked from the shadows, he was translucent and the color of moon light like the portraits of the ghosts that she saw in the library. The boy moved towards the bed and the Widow wrapped a long arm around him. "This is the spirit of the last child that she has taken from your world. Like yourself, he was an outcast, a misfit. Ignored for his love of dark things. She took him on adventures like yourself, but in the process, he perished by her recklessness. Now he haunts the Hallowland in perpetual terror." The boy's eyes were wide with fear, staring at nothing in particular, his mouth hung slightly open, as if he was permanently gazing at the thing that killed him.
"You're lying!" Jane cried at her, "She would never do that!"
"Though your protest, I see doubt in your eyes, Jane Gracey. I've seen it ever since you've arrived here. Somewhere, deep inside you lies a place that has always seen her and her ways cautiously. Listen to that place. Make your home in it," the Widow tilted her head up, as if she heard a noise. "You will wake soon, I must leave. Remember, child, heed my words or it may be your doom," the Widow and the boy drew themselves back into the shadows. As they did so, the creaking returned and it was replaced with crying.
"Stop it!" Jane covered her ears.
The crying turned into sobs.
"Stop it!" She yelled again, shutting her eyes.
The sobbing multiplied a hundred times over, the chorus of anguish grew and grew until it swarmed her senses like flies.
"I said stop it!" She screamed and bolted upright from her bed. She looked around, panting. She blinked as the false sun shone through her window. She breathed out a sigh. A dream, that was all it was. Just a dream. She looked over to the bed next to her and Catie wasn't in it. She heard from far below the sounds of Mrs. Macabre and her sister moving around in the kitchen. She got out of bed to join them, then she noticed something on her hand. She looked down at the white sheets of the bed and saw black splotches dotting them, like tears of ink.