Weeks had passed since that storm-torn night.
The Whitman house, once steeped in tension and silence, now echoed with laughter again. Mira's footsteps ran up and down the hallway. Her parents still sometimes looked at her too long, touched her shoulder a little too gently—but Mira didn't mind. She understood now. They were just grateful.
So was she.
The nightmares came less often. The memory of the Collector faded like a bad dream at sunrise. Sometimes, though, Mira caught herself staring into mirrors for too long. Listening, just in case.
Detective Monroe filed her final report with the station. Officially, Mira had been found in an abandoned house, disoriented but unharmed. The strange stories were brushed off, the case quietly closed. Her colleagues rolled their eyes behind her back, whispered about burnout.
Monroe didn't care. She knew what she'd seen.
Elias vanished without a trace. The old book he'd used, along with the iron mirror, were gone too. As if the world had swallowed them up again. As if they'd only ever existed when needed.
And the shop?
The crooked little alley where Amanda swore it had stood—the place Mira first found the doll—was now just a blank brick wall between two buildings. No sign of a door. No shopfront. Nothing.
Sometimes, Monroe would stand there on rainy afternoons and just… wait.
Once, she thought she heard something. The clink of wind chimes. A slow creaking, like an old door opening.
But when she turned, it was only the wind.
Mira kept the cracked porcelain doll in a box, deep in the attic. Not out of fear. But as a reminder. A part of her still wondered how many other children had made wishes. How many never escaped.
She often stood in her room at night, looking out the window.
Not afraid.
But never forgetting.
Because somewhere out there—perhaps in the space between reflections, in the corners of forgotten alleys—the Collector might be waiting.
For someone else to wish.