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Prologue

Look at me.

She wouldn't.

Please. Look. I am here. Look at me.

She couldn't make them quiet. They are never quiet.

Mina. Mina. Mina. Mina.

Yes. Mina. That was her name. Why did they always say her name? It drove her crazy. Every day they called out to her. Begging for her attention. Crying for her to look, pay attention, listen, wait. She didn't want to wait. They were a sickness. A disease. Demons infesting her every thought. They needed to leave her. They were never meant to be there at all. But they were. Never leaving. Never fading away. They were always... always... always.

She first remembered hearing them after a clan of witches had found her. During that time, they needed to keep themselves hidden away. Their kind was not welcome anywhere in the world for fear of dark magics and possessions and demons. The devil danced happily above their heads in the eyes of the wary. Forcing illnesses on the young and naïve. The old and weary. The middle and stupid. He wasn't a kind creature to any one or anything. Even the witches were afraid. They certainly had reason to be.

Mina. Mina. Mina. Look. Listen. Listen to me.

The first memory she had was of being alone. Sitting in the dark in a pile of old clothes two times too large. Shadows everywhere circled her and reached out their frightening claws. A child, holding her head in her soft, dirty hands. She had nowhere to go. She didn't even know where she had come from. All that was there was the dark and the silence. But then the voices came. Quiet at first, but steadily growing louder until their screams filled her ears and her mind struggled to push them back.

"No!" Louder still, they said many things that made no sense. Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. "No! No! No!"

"Hush child." This voice was different. Heard through different ears. Softer, kinder. She didn't hear them approach. They circled around her and watched as a young woman reached out. Long fingers gently ran through dark red locks on the young Mina's head. "Oh, what have you done my dear?"

Mina now sat alone once more. It wasn't too different from then however. It was still dark, and her clothes were still too big. But she liked them that way. They were more comfortable and secure.

Why won't she look at me? Can't she see me? She's ignoring me.

She preferred to keep her mind occupied with other things. The crack in the ceiling. The spider making itself a home in the corner under the chair. The back of the mirror hanging crookedly on the wall. Why had she turned it around again? Was it the demons? Did they force her to flip it? Probably. They forced her to do a lot of things.

She's ignoring me!

The people moving about outside her door. The fact that her house needed to be cleaned. The unmade bed two doors down. She never made her bed. She had been told that the bugs hated the light. If her bed was always full of light, they wouldn't nest between her sheets.

She's ignoring us! Ignoring us!

Auden. She thought of him a lot. He recently said something about making his feeling clear. Feeling for who? She has forgotten. Mention of love. Mention of her. In love with her?

LOOK AT US!

Finally. Mina couldn't ignore them any longer. She moved steadily to the wall with the backwards mirror. She needed to make it no longer backwards. Flip it around. That's what she did.

Finally. Able to see. Able to be seen. Mina obeyed the voices. She looked. Looked at them.

Look at us.