Surrounded by one of my saddest memories, I watch the Veil tear open. The forest around my old den bends into the hole. The crescent root above the entrance twists. The tiny bark doors I carved as a young fawn rattle in the roots overhead. Hundreds of them shaking at once.

The Shadow’s wearing my father’s face as it looks past me, through the opening it made to the Hallow, “Another door.”

My body goes cold. The tear widens between the crescent trees, a dark line splitting the pale white of the Veil. Through it, I can see the Hallow: the fireflies go dark, Prose speaks, Snow’s fear turns sharp and blue, my mother’s heart is nearly breaking open. And Rosemary is moving closer to the Veil.

“Leave her alone,” I say.

The Shadow turns toward me, still looking like my father. That’s the cruelest part. The scratch near his cheek. The silver moss at his hooves. The tired softness around his eyes. Every detail my memory saved, every detail I thought grief had blurred, the Shadow wears perfectly.

Except for the smile. My father’s smile was never cruel.

“Please,” I say, my voice small.

The Shadow studies me. “She heard you.”

“I didn’t call her.”

“Your fear did.”

It’s right. Some part of me wants all of them to hear me. Mother, Prose, Rosemary, the whole Hallow. I want them to know I’m still here. I want them to know I’m scared. I want someone to save me.

The Shadow moves closer. “It’s not fair you’re alone in here… why is it always your responsibility to save everyone?”

Our old den darkens behind me. Inside, I hear Rosemary as a baby, babbling in her sleep. I hear Mother quietly crying next to the indented shape of where my Father should be. I hear my own young voice whispering wishes into a den that feels too large without him.

The Shadow steps closer. “You stayed even though he left,” it says. “You became what everyone needed. You held your mother together. You helped raise Rosemary. And what did they do when someone needed to enter the Veil?”

The bark doors tremble.

“They let you sacrifice yourself.”

My Glimmers flicker. Pain moves through me so quickly.

The Shadow notices. “You’re allowed to be angry. To hate them even. This isn’t fair.” it whispers.

I am angry. The truth hits before I can stop it. I’m angry at Father for leaving. At Mother for losing herself in her grief. At Rosemary for needing me. At Prose for believing I was ready to enter the Veil. At the Hallow for needing someone to go first. At myself for wanting to be chosen.

The Shadow feeds on my thoughts before I can decide what to do. The tear to the Hallow widens. I feel Rosemary on the other side like a flame too close to dry leaves.

She takes a step towards the Veil. The tear opens wider. The light around it flares. Rosemary’s fear is feeding the Shadow, and so is my anger.

The Shadow turns back to me. “Victimhood is such an easy way to destroy a connection,” it says.

I lunge at the Shadow but it dissipates as I fall through it to the ground.

The Shadow’s voice echoes through the Veil in every direction. “They’re learning how to live without you.”

“That’s not true,” I say as I get to my feet.

Effortlessly the Shadow pushes me toward the tear into the Hallow, forcing me to look through.

“Look, Rosemary’s finally found her place without you holding her back”

I see Rosemary surrounded by her Order. Brighter than I have ever seen her. Surrounded by others who understand the shape of her fire. Something twists inside me. Pride. Relief. Jealousy. The Shadow presses into the last one.

“There’s a place for her in the Hallow without you,” it says. “Maybe even a better one.”

The Glimmers in my chest dim. That hurts more than anything. Because I want Rosemary to belong. I want her to be held. I want her to become strong. But I don’t want to be replaced or forgotten. The shame of that thought almost knocks me down.

The Shadow bends closer. “There,” it says pointing through the tear. “Go, stop her from forgetting you.”

The Veil pulses, stopping me from moving forward. I think it’s trying to tell me that if I cross into the Hallow, the Shadow will be able to follow.

The Shadow sinks its claws into every piece of me that wants to give up and go home. Pain radiates through my body. A voice in my head urges me to go towards the Hallow. Go towards safety. Run away from the pain.

I know that's what it wants me to do. I know it’s a trap.

It takes every bit of strength within me to turn away from the Hallow, back into the memory, towards the deepest pain of my life.

The Shadow’s smile fades. The Veil stills. I remember Prose’s teachings, the Shadow can use my pain when I run from it.

So I stand in my truth. “I would have done anything for my father to come back”.

The Shadow recoils.

“But running from the pain won’t change that you’re not him, and he’s never coming back.”

For the first time, my father’s shape blurs. Behind it, there’s no face or eyes, just darkness. The Shadow screams. A burst of red-gold light flares from the Hallow, from Rosemary.

The Shadow turns violently toward the Hallow as the tear stops growing.

Fireflies flare gold at its edge, small and defiant. The Veil brightens around me. Then the sky inside the Veil changes; Aurora’s light enters, violet first, then green, then gold.

The Shadow pulls away from the Hallow. Aurora fills the Veil. My Glimmers warm my chest, then flicker, as if the whole realm is giving part of itself to Aurora. Aurora’s light stitches the tear closed, piece by piece. Green, violet and gold braided into a single bright line.

The Hallow is disappearing, along with Rosemary standing in the moss, red-gold light burning steady at her chest. Mother standing at the boundary, alive with pain. Prose on the glimmer stone, afraid but unbroken.

Then I see what Aurora's energy cost. Fireflies falling into grass. Moss paths dimming. A fracture running through the glimmer stone. Aurora is driving the Shadow back by spending the Hallow’s light. Aurora can save us for a moment. But every inch of light she gives to stitching the Veil leaves it thinner around me.

I look toward the Hallow disappearing from sight. I want to call out. I want to tell them I am alive. I want to tell Rosemary I heard her. I want to tell Mother I’m scared. But love without boundaries feeds the shadow. Victimizing myself feeds the shadow. Rosemary’s fear helped open the tear from their side. My resentment opened it from mine. So I do the only thing I can, I accept that I chose to be here, and I am the only one who can save me.

Aurora’s light flares one last time as the tear is completely sealed and only a thin gold scar remains. The Veil is suddenly too quiet.

Surrounded by my memory, I stand alone on the path behind our old den. The bark doors I carved hang open in the roots above. My father’s gone, but the Shadow remains. Several paces away, without a face or body, just darkness hovering like a cloud.

The Glimmers at my chest tremble. Aurora’s light pulses, faint and stretched thin, hurt but alive.

In my periphery, a small intricately carved bark door swings open.

I walk towards it, while keeping an eye on the hovering shadow.

As I get near, I realize I’ve never seen it before. For the first time, I see a small bark door that wasn’t carved by me.