JAYNAYAH

Six months after the Luna ceremony, the old cellar door hung in sunlight.

Not on the ground. Not at the end of a dark stairwell. Not with rusted hinges and blood in the cracks.

It stood upright in the center of the memorial garden where the cellar had once been, sanded smooth but not made pretty. We had left the scars in the wood. The gouges. The places where desperate nails had bitten into it from the inside.

Beside it, a wall of pale stone carried names.

Real names.

Liora’s was near the top.

She had asked to carve it herself, both hands wrapped around the chisel while Jackie...