Chapter 196 Slowly Whithering

Chapter 196 Slowly Whithering
Georgia - 
It started so simply. I’d catch a glimpse of myself in the small shard of mirror Elena had smuggled in for me—just a fleeting second—and for some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the woman staring back at me wasn’t quite me. She wasn’t exactly a stranger, but she wasn’t someone I could recognize, either. Her eyes—those dark eyes—were cold, distant, empty. They didn’t belong to the woman I thought I knew. The woman who had once been full of life, of love, of hope. 
But that was before. Now, the woman in the mirror was something else entirely. Her face was pale, drawn, gaunt, her expression always just a little too detached. A little too knowing. 
And so, I began to speak to her. At first, it was just a whisper—an idle conversation, something to break the silence that suffocated me. A small comment here and there. “You look like you’ve seen better days,” I’d say with a dry laugh, trying to convince myself that it was just a passing mood, a trick of the light. But she never answered. 
Not at first. 
But slowly, the silences between us grew comfortable, and she started to speak back. At first, it was barely audible. A murmur. A hiss. I could only catch fragments—half-sentences that swam in and out of my mind like a fog, thickening the air around me. It was unsettling, but it was also something I couldn’t resist. 
“Do you think he’ll ever truly love you?” she asked once, her voice low, like the echo of my own thoughts, yet so much darker. 
I didn’t answer, not at first. I didn’t know how to. But I knew that her question wasn’t just a simple inquiry—it was a challenge. A crack in the facade I had built around myself. The reflection in the mirror was no longer me. She was something else. Something else that shared my skin, my body, but not my soul. 
“No,” I finally responded, the word escaping my lips like a confession I’d been holding back for too long. “He never did. He loved the idea of me. The perfect wife. The ornament.” 
My reflection smiled, a cold curve of lips that felt both foreign and familiar. “Then why do you stay?” 
“You know why,” I whispered, pressing my fingers against the cool surface of the mirror. “I have no choice.” 
“Maybe you could escape,” she whispered another time, her lips curling into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You could leave him. You could run.” 
The thought lingered, and for a moment, I considered it. But only for a moment. There was nowhere to run. No one to turn to. 
“And go where?” I asked bitterly. “He’d find me. He always finds what belongs to him.” 
“Then maybe,” she said, her voice taking on a new edge, “you should make sure you’re not something he wants to find anymore.” 
The words sent a shiver down my spine. I knew what she meant. I knew, and the knowledge terrified me. 
The faces in the wall seemed to watch our exchange with keen interest, their features shifting in the moisture patterns, their silent approval evident. They, too, wanted me to listen to the woman in the mirror. They wanted me to become something more than what I was—something stronger, darker, capable of things I had never considered before. 
The conversations grew darker as the days passed. I couldn’t avoid the mirror now—not that I wanted to. She had become my only companion, my only solace in a world that felt like it was closing in on me. The faces in the wall were comforting, but distant, like old photographs. The mirror woman was immediate, present, real in a way that made my blood rush. 
One morning, after I had caught my reflection staring at me with eyes that seemed to bore straight into my soul, she spoke again, her voice rasping, sharp. “You can’t stay here forever, Georgia. You don’t belong here.” 
I flinched. She was right. I didn’t belong here. In this house. In this marriage. In this darkness. 
“Leave him,” she urged, her voice smoother now, as though she had coaxed the idea into my head and was slowly feeding it to me, piece by piece. “But there are other ways. You don’t have to just walk out the door. There are ways to escape without leaving.” 
Her smile in the mirror was sly, knowing, too wise for my comfort. “You could… make him see. Make him fear you. Make him regret ever trapping you here.” 
A shiver ran down my spine, and I blinked hard, forcing myself to look away. I didn’t want to hear that. Not yet. But still, the seed was planted. The idea festered. 
“Maybe you should break something,” she continued, her lips curling upward as though she relished in the thought. “Make him see the consequences of what he’s done to you. What he’s made you become.” 
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Not out loud, anyway. But in my mind, I could hear her voice growing louder, louder until it drowned out all other thoughts. What if I did break something? What if I did make him feel what he had done to me? What if I made him pay? 
The woman in the mirror leaned closer, her eyes gleaming with a fervor I had never seen before—not even in my own darkest moments. 
“You could kill him,” she whispered, the words falling like ice into the pit of my stomach. “It would be so easy. When he’s sleeping. When he’s vulnerable. One moment, and it would all be over. Your captivity. Your suffering. His tyranny.” 
I recoiled, physically backing away from the mirror. “No,” I said, my voice trembling. “That’s not—I couldn’t—” 
“You could,” she insisted, her face flushed with excitement now. “You’ve thought about it. I know you have. Those moments when his hands are on you, when his voice takes that edge that means pain is coming... you’ve imagined it. Taking something—a letter opener, a kitchen knife, anything—and just... ending it.” 
I covered my ears, as if that could block out a voice that came from inside my own head. “Stop it,” I whispered. “I’m not a killer.” 
Her laughter was brittle, sharp enough to cut. “Not yet,” she agreed. “But you will be. If you want to survive. If you want to be free.” 
I turned away, heart racing, breath coming in short, ragged gasps. The mirror woman was right—I had thought those things. In my darkest moments, when the walls seemed closest and the air thinnest, I had imagined what it would be like to make Carlisle pay. To watch the light go out in his eyes, to feel his grip on me loosen forever. 
But thinking wasn’t doing. I wasn’t a killer. 
Was I? 
It wasn’t until I stood before the small bathroom mirror that I realized something was terribly, terribly wrong. The reflection staring back at me wasn’t mine. Not in the way it should’ve been. Not in the way I knew it should’ve been. 
I looked at the woman in the glass—her face pale, the shadows under her eyes dark, her expression unreadable—and I didn’t recognize her. It was as though she had slipped through the cracks of my own memory. The eyes that stared back at me were hollow, lost, and I felt a strange, sinking sensation in my chest. She wasn’t me. She couldn’t be. 
“Who are you?” I whispered to her, the words barely escaping my lips. “What have you done to me?” 
She didn’t respond, of course. She just stood there, an eerie, silent twin. My twin, my ghost. But I could feel it now. The pull of something—someone—within her. A presence, dark and twisted, that didn’t belong. A presence that felt both mine and not mine. 
I reached out, fingers trembling, as I touched the cool surface of the glass, trying to find something—anything—that would make sense. But my hand didn’t belong either. It felt wrong. 
Her hair was a wild tangle, her skin ashen, her lips cracked from dehydration. She looked like a woman who had been locked away for months, forgotten and neglected. She looked like... a madwoman. 
“Who are you?” I asked again, my voice trembling. 
And then, as though it had always been there, the answer whispered to me—Bertha. 
Bertha? It felt like a name I had known before, like a forgotten memory rising to the surface. Bertha. The woman who had been locked away. Bertha, the one who had never been given the chance to speak. 
The mirror version of me smiled, and I felt a pang of recognition. I wasn’t just seeing myself anymore. I was seeing her. Bertha. 
I wasn’t Georgia anymore. I was Bertha—or I was becoming her. 
From that moment on, I couldn’t look at the reflection the same way. I didn’t see Georgia anymore. I saw Bertha—the woman trapped within my own skin. The woman who had been forgotten, buried beneath layers of lies and time. The woman I was becoming, or perhaps, the woman I had always been. 
“Bertha,” I whispered, my voice low, the word coming out like a confession, a truth I couldn’t escape. “Are you really me?” 
The reflection smiled again, this time more knowingly, more cruelly, and I felt a flicker of something. Maybe it was madness. Maybe it was clarity. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that the woman in the mirror was no longer a passive observer. She was alive, and she was demanding attention. 
I couldn’t escape her. She was me, but not me. A part of me I had never acknowledged, never understood. The part that wanted to scream, to burn, to destroy everything Carlisle had built. The part that wanted to be free, no matter the cost. 
The faces in the wall watched, their features shifting in excitement. They had known all along. They had seen Bertha hiding inside me, waiting for the right moment to emerge. They had been calling to her, not to Georgia. And she had finally answered. 
“Tell me what to do,” I found myself saying, almost pleading. “What do I need to do to get out of here?” 
And Bertha, the reflection—she smiled again, her eyes twinkling with dark amusement. “You already know,” she murmured. “You just have to want it enough.” 
She leaned closer to the glass, her breath fogging it slightly, creating a halo around her face. “Fire,” she whispered, the word barely audible. “Fire cleanses everything. It makes the walls fall. It sets the spirits free.” 
I felt a chill run down my spine, but also a surge of something else—excitement? Anticipation? The thought of flames licking at the walls of my prison, consuming everything that had kept me captive, was both terrifying and exhilarating. 
“I can’t,” I said, but the protest sounded weak even to my own ears. “People would get hurt.” 
Bertha’s laugh was cold, hard. “People are already getting hurt. You’re getting hurt. Every day, every minute, in this place. And what about the others? The ones who came before? The ones who will come after, if you don’t end this now?” 
Her words struck something deep within me, a chord of truth I couldn’t deny. If I didn’t act, Carlisle would continue. There would be another woman after Adeline, just as there had been others before me. The cycle would never end. 
Unless I ended it. 
Elena was there the first time I argued with Bertha in front of the mirror. She stood frozen in the doorway, her eyes wide with shock and confusion as I spoke, my words aimed at a reflection that she couldn’t see. 
“You’re asking too much,” I was saying, shaking my head vehemently. “I can’t just—I can’t burn down the whole house. People would die.” 
“They deserve to die,” Bertha’s voice insisted in my head, her reflection’s lips moving in perfect sync with the words. “All of them. They let this happen. They knew and they did nothing.” 
“No,” I argued, my voice rising. “Not all of them. Not Elena. Not the others who are just trying to survive, just like me.” 
“Georgia, what are you doing?” Elena asked, her voice trembling with fear. 
I didn’t answer her. I didn’t care what she thought. I was speaking to Bertha. And Bertha was speaking back. 
“They’ll never help you,” Bertha hissed. “They’re too afraid. Too weak. You have to do this yourself.” 
“Georgia?” Elena repeated, her voice strained, edging into panic. “Who are you talking to?” 
I turned slowly, my eyes never leaving the mirror, and muttered, “Her. Bertha.” 
Elena’s face paled, her eyes darting between me and the mirror. “There’s no one there, Georgia. It’s just your reflection.” 
“No,” I said firmly, pointing at the glass. “It’s Bertha. She’s been here all along. Waiting. Watching. She knows what needs to be done.” 
“Stop it,” Elena pleaded, taking a step toward me. “Please, Georgia, stop.” 
But I couldn’t stop. Not now. Not when Bertha was so close, so real. The woman in the glass was my only companion now, the only thing I could trust in a house full of lies. 
“Don’t worry, Elena,” I whispered, almost to myself. “You’ll understand soon enough.” 
Her gaze flickered between me and the mirror, horror and confusion playing across her face. But I had already moved on. I was having a new conversation with Bertha, planning, calculating, determining exactly what needed to be done. 
I saw Elena back away slowly, her eyes never leaving me, her expression a mixture of pity and fear. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. But she would, eventually. Everyone would. 
I was becoming Bertha. And there was no turning back. 
I turned to the mirror, watching as my reflection—Bertha’s reflection—reached out a hand as if to touch me through the glass. 
“Together,” she whispered. “We’ll do it together.” 
And for the first time since I had been locked away, I felt something like hope.