The Wife He Buried

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Wife He Buried

Adrian was holding the knife.

I couldn’t stop staring at it. The silver blade glimmered beneath the candlelight, its edge stained with something dark that I prayed wasn’t blood. His fingers were wrapped tightly around the handle, and his eyes moved between me and the woman standing opposite me.

The other Elena.

She wore my face, my expression, even the same silver ring on her finger. But she looked at Adrian with an intimacy that made my stomach twist, as though she knew a part of him I had never been allowed to see.

Lily lay motionless between us.

I dropped to my knees beside her.

“Lily?”

She didn’t move.

I touched her cheek. It was cold, and for one horrible moment I thought I had lost her all over again. I pressed my fingers against her neck, desperately searching for a pulse.

Nothing.

“No. No, sweetheart, please.”

I shook her gently, fighting the tears blurring my vision.

“Lily, wake up. Mummy’s here.”

A small hand touched my shoulder.

I turned.

The other Elena was kneeling beside me.

“She’s not dead,” she whispered.

I recoiled from her.

“Don’t touch her.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“You look exactly like me. You know things about my life that I don’t remember. You appear in mirrors and tell me I killed my daughter. Forgive me if I’m not interested in your help.”

She looked down at Lily.

For the first time, I noticed the resemblance between them. Not the obvious resemblance of a mother and child, but something more unsettling. Their expressions changed in the same way. Their heads tilted at the same angle. Even the small crease between their brows appeared at precisely the same moment.

It was as if I were watching a memory repeat itself.

“You need to listen to me,” she said. “Adrian isn’t the person you should be afraid of.”

I looked towards him.

He was still holding the knife.

“Then why is he standing there with a weapon?”

“Because he knows what happens when the clock strikes twelve.”

Adrian’s face hardened. “Stop.”

The other Elena ignored him.

“Every night, when the clock reaches midnight, this house returns to the moment everything went wrong. The rooms change. The mirrors open. The memories you buried begin to surface.”

I looked around the bedroom. The candles burned steadily now, and the door stood open onto the corridor. Nothing appeared unusual, yet I could still hear the final echo of the clock’s chime.

“And Lily?” I asked.

“She returns with the house.”

“Why?”

The woman hesitated.

“Because you never let her go.”

I felt something tighten in my chest.

I looked down at my daughter. “I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

“No.” I rose to my feet. “I’m tired of being told that. I’m tired of people giving me pieces of my own life and expecting me to be grateful. If you know what happened, tell me now.”

She stood with me.

“Very well.”

Her gaze shifted to Adrian.

“Ask your husband why he buried you twice.”

The room fell silent.

I turned slowly towards him.

“Twice?”

Adrian lowered the knife.

“Elena, there’s something you need to understand about what happened after Lily died.”

“How many times did you bury me?”

He swallowed.

“Twice.”

I felt the floor shift beneath my feet.

“Explain.”

“The first time, you were dead. Your heart had stopped, and you weren’t breathing. The doctor said there was nothing more he could do.”

“Dr. Whitmore?”

Adrian nodded.

“And the second time?”

His eyes filled with something that looked like shame.

“The second time, you were alive.”

For a moment, I heard nothing.

Then I laughed.

It wasn’t a happy sound. It was the kind of laughter that escaped when the truth became so monstrous that the mind refused to accept it.

“You buried me alive?”

“I thought you were already gone.”

“You just said I was alive!”

“I didn’t know. I swear to you, Elena, I didn’t know until it was too late.”

I stepped away from him.

He followed, then stopped when he saw my expression.

“You had me buried twice, and you expect me to believe you didn’t know?”

“I heard you calling my name.”

My throat tightened.

“What?”

“The second night. After the funeral. I heard your voice coming from beneath the ground.”

He looked as though he could still hear it.

“I went back to the cemetery. I tried to get them to open the coffin, but the groundskeeper refused. By the time I found someone who would help me, the earth had already settled, and the coffin was damaged.”

I stared at him, unable to comprehend the words.

“What did you find?”

Adrian closed his eyes.

“Your hands were bleeding.”

I looked down at my fingers.

For one terrible second, I could feel the wood beneath my nails. I could smell the damp earth and taste the panic in my mouth. I remembered pounding against a lid, screaming until my throat tore, begging someone to hear me.

Then I remembered another sound.

A shovel striking the ground.

Someone crying.

A man whispering, Forgive me.

I staggered.

Adrian reached for me, but I stepped away.

“Who was crying?”

He said nothing.

“Adrian, who was crying?”

“I was.”

The answer broke something inside me.

I wanted to hate him. I wanted to scream until the walls collapsed around us. But the image of him standing over my grave, hearing my voice and being unable to reach me, was too terrible to fit into the version of him I had created in my mind.

It didn’t make him innocent.

It only made the truth harder to bear.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because when I finally brought you home, you didn’t remember being buried. You didn’t remember Lily. You didn’t remember anything about the last few days of your life.”

“And you decided to keep it that way.”

“I thought it would be kinder.”

I stared at him.

“Kindness without truth is just another form of cruelty.”

He lowered his head.

For once, he had no answer.

Behind us, the other Elena began to clap slowly.

“How touching,” she said. “The devoted husband and his endless apologies. Shall we discuss the part where he knew you were alive before he buried you the second time?”

Adrian turned on her.

“Enough!”

She smiled.

“There he is.”

I looked at Adrian.

“Is it true?”

He didn’t answer.

My heart began to pound.

“Is it true?”

His silence was answer enough.

I felt suddenly cold, as though every candle in the room had gone out.

“You knew.”

He looked at me, his eyes full of tears.

“Yes.”

I slapped him.

This time, he caught himself before he stumbled. He didn’t attempt to defend himself.

“You knew I was alive, and you buried me anyway.”

“I was trying to stop what you had become.”

“What I had become?”

“You weren’t yourself anymore.”

“Then you should have helped me!”

“I tried!”

His voice rose, breaking across the room.

“I tried everything, Elena. I brought doctors. I begged you to eat. I stayed beside you through nights when you couldn’t remember your own name. You were hurting yourself, and you were hurting everyone around you. You kept saying that if you died, you could bring Lily back.”

I stared at him.

“And you believed me?”

“No. But you believed it.”

He looked at the other Elena.

“And she made sure you never stopped believing it.”

The woman’s smile disappeared.

I turned towards her.

“What did you do to me?”

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then she answered.

“I gave you what you wanted.”

A chill passed through my body.

“What did I want?”

“To see your daughter again.”

She stepped closer.

“You were willing to sacrifice anything for that. Your memories. Your marriage. Your life. You would have destroyed the entire world if you thought it would bring Lily back.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“You don’t remember the things you said to Adrian. You don’t remember the nights you begged him to help you. You don’t remember what happened when he refused.”

Her eyes moved towards the knife.

I followed her gaze.

Adrian’s hand had begun to tremble.

“What happened?” I whispered.

The other Elena leaned towards me.

“You stabbed him.”

I looked at Adrian.

He slowly opened his shirt collar, revealing the scar that ran from his chest towards his shoulder.

“I was trying to stop you from going into the mirror,” he said. “You told me that Lily was waiting for you. You said you could hear her calling.”

My stomach twisted.

“You tried to stop me?”

“Yes.”

“And I stabbed you?”

He nodded.

I looked away, struggling to breathe.

The other Elena continued.

“And when he survived, you decided he was the reason you couldn’t reach Lily.”

“Stop.”

“You told him he had stolen your daughter. You told him you would rather die than spend another day in a world where she was gone.”

“Stop!”

The woman fell silent.

I covered my mouth, fighting the nausea rising in my throat.

I had imagined myself as the victim of a terrible secret. A woman whose memories had been stolen by someone she trusted. A wife trapped in a house full of lies.

But the fragments were beginning to form a different picture.

I had loved Adrian.

I had loved Lily.

And somewhere along the way, grief had turned that love into something I no longer recognised.

I looked at the other Elena.

“Why do you hate me?”

For the first time, she seemed genuinely surprised.

“Because you abandoned me.”

I frowned.

“What?”

She touched her chest.

“I am the part of you that remembers.”

The room became very still.

She continued, her voice trembling.

“When Adrian buried you, your body survived. Dr. Whitmore brought you back, but your mind could not bear what had happened. You remembered Lily’s death. You remembered the coffin. You remembered what you had done to Adrian.”

She swallowed.

“So you chose to forget.”

I stared at her.

“You’re saying you’re my memories?”

“Not all of them.”

“Then what are you?”

She looked towards the mirrors.

“Everything you refused to carry.”

The words settled into me with terrible certainty.

I thought of the woman in the mirror, the way she had cried while I stood on the other side of the glass. I thought of her warning me not to trust Adrian, her insistence that I ask the right questions.

Perhaps she had never been trying to frighten me.

Perhaps she had been trying to reach me.

I stepped closer.

“If you’re part of me, why can’t I remember you?”

“Because remembering me means remembering everything.”

“And what happens when I remember everything?”

Her expression darkened.

“You’ll have to decide whether you can live with yourself.”

A quiet sob escaped me.

Before I could answer, Lily stirred on the floor.

I turned immediately.

“Lily?”

She opened her eyes.

My daughter sat up slowly, looking around the room with a confusion that seemed almost ordinary. She rubbed her face with the back of her hand and glanced at Adrian.

“Daddy?”

Adrian dropped the knife.

It struck the floor with a sharp metallic sound.

He fell to his knees in front of her, his hands hovering uncertainly, as though he was afraid that touching her might make her disappear again.

“Lily?”

She smiled at him.

“Why are you crying?”

Adrian broke.

He gathered her into his arms and held her against his chest, sobbing into her hair. I had never seen him cry like that. Not when I had accused him of murder. Not when I had learned about the coffin. Not even when he confessed to burying me.

But he cried for Lily.

And watching him, I realised that whatever else he had done, he had loved our daughter.

Lily turned towards me over his shoulder.

“Mummy, come here.”

I knelt beside them and wrapped my arms around both of them.

For a few precious seconds, we were a family again.

I didn’t question how Lily had returned. I didn’t ask whether she was alive or whether this was another trick of the house. I simply held her and listened to her breathing, desperate to believe that the universe had finally given me something back.

Then Lily whispered in my ear.

“Mummy, you have to wake up now.”

I pulled away.

“What?”

She looked at me with an expression I had never seen on her face before.

Fear.

“She’s getting closer.”

I looked towards the other Elena.

The woman had backed away from us. Her face was pale, and she was staring at the doorway as though something terrible waited beyond it.

“What is she talking about?” I asked.

The other Elena shook her head.

“It’s too soon.”

“Too soon for what?”

The candles went out.

A sound came from the corridor.

Footsteps.

Slow, deliberate footsteps approaching the bedroom.

Adrian stood, pulling Lily behind him.

“Whoever comes through that door, don’t let them touch you,” he whispered.

I stared at him.

“Who is coming?”

He didn’t answer.

The footsteps stopped outside the room.

Then a man spoke.

“Adrian Vale?”

Adrian went rigid.

The voice was calm, professional, almost bored.

“It’s time to return what you borrowed.”

I looked at the doorway.

A man in a white coat stood in the corridor, his hands folded neatly in front of him. His face was older than the one I remembered from the fragments, but I recognised him immediately.

Dr. Samuel Whitmore.

He smiled at me.

“Hello, Elena.”

My blood turned to ice.

I stepped forward, placing myself between him and Lily.

“What do you want?”

He glanced at the child.

“Her, I’m afraid.”

I felt Lily’s fingers tighten around mine.

“Why?”

Dr. Whitmore sighed, as though I had asked a question he had answered too many times.

“Because she’s not supposed to be here.”

I looked at Lily.

She was crying silently.

Then I looked at Adrian.

He had gone completely pale.

“Tell her,” Dr. Whitmore said to him. “Tell your wife what the child really is.”

Adrian shook his head.

“Don’t do this.”

The doctor smiled.

“You’ve had long enough.”

He stepped into the room.

And every mirror on the wall reflected a different version of Lily.

One was laughing.

One was crying.

One was lying at the bottom of the staircase.

And in the largest mirror, a little girl stood beside a hospital bed, holding the hand of a woman who looked exactly like me.

The woman in the bed opened her eyes.

I recognised her face.

I recognised the ring on her finger.

And I recognised the words she whispered to the doctor.

“Take my memories. Take everything. Just don’t let me remember what I did to my daughter.”

The woman in the bed was me.

The doctor in the reflection turned towards the glass.

And for the first time, I understood why Adrian had been so afraid of the mirrors.

They weren’t showing me the past.

They were showing me what was happening somewhere else.

Somewhere I had never truly left.

Dr. Whitmore extended his hand towards Lily.

“Come along, child.”

I pulled her behind me.

“No.”

His smile vanished.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand your situation, Elena.”

“Then explain it.”

He regarded me with the cold patience of a man who believed he owned the truth.

“You have been unconscious for a very long time. Your mind has created an elaborate world to protect itself from the circumstances of your daughter’s death. Adrian is part of that world. The house is part of that world. Even the woman you see in the mirror is part of that world.”

I stared at him.

“No.”

“Yes.”

He glanced at Lily.

“And the child is the most dangerous part of all.”

My heart pounded.

“Why?”

“Because you cannot accept that she is gone.”

I tightened my grip on her hand.

“She is standing right here.”

Dr. Whitmore’s expression softened with something that looked disturbingly like pity.

“No, Elena. She isn’t.”

I looked down.

Lily’s hand was still in mine.

Her fingers were warm.

Her face was wet with tears.

I could hear her breathing.

“She is real,” I whispered.

The doctor shook his head.

“Then tell me something only your daughter would know.”

I turned to Lily.

She looked up at me, trembling.

I opened my mouth to ask her a question, but before I could speak, she leaned close to my ear.

“Mummy, don’t let him put you to sleep again.”

My blood ran cold.

I stared at Dr. Whitmore.

He was no longer smiling.

Behind him, Adrian had begun to cry again.

And the other Elena, the woman who carried all the memories I had lost, whispered the one truth I had spent my entire life trying to escape.

“He isn’t here to wake you up.”

She looked directly into my eyes.

“He’s here to make sure you never do.”