About a month later, Adalyn decided to visit Brahms again.

Her last visit was supposed to be the only one, but that had been such a failure in every way that she couldn't just leave it like that.

However, she was stunned when she walked to Brahms's room and saw a woman standing outside of it with her arms crossed, staring through the glass window.

Adalyn slowly approached her. "Um…do you know him?"

The woman continued to look into the room as she answered, "Yeah, you could say that. I was, uh, employed at his house for a little while. The thing is, I didn't know he was there. The Heelshires pay me to play nanny to a doll, so I do even if that's kind of weird, and then it turns out, oh, just kidding, their dead son is actually alive and has been watching me all this time."

"…You're Greta."

"Yeah. You must be Adalyn."

"Yeah."

"I…I thought I'd killed him. I mean, on one hand, living with the knowledge that I'd ended someone's life, even in self-defense, was horrible and it's nice to know that I don't have to have that on my conscience anymore, but on the other hand, knowing that he's still alive…" Greta finally turned to her. "They told me what happened to you. I'm so sorry. After everything that happened inside that house, I wanted so desperately to forget it that I didn't tell anyone about it. Maybe if I'd gone to the police, then you wouldn't have…"

"…Did they tell you how I ended up at that house in the first place?"

Greta shook her head.

Adalyn sighed. "A cab driver took advantage of the fact that I was a tourist and drove me out to the middle of nowhere where two of his friends were waiting. The second I realized what was happening, I just started running. It was by chance that I happened to stumble across the mansion. He let me in the house, and he…saved me from them in his own questionable way. Maybe if I'd stayed there for another day or two, I might feel differently, but if I had to choose between those three guys and him, the answer would always be him."

Greta sighed and looked back through the window at the grown man she'd only had contact with for about twenty minutes. She wondered if spending time with Adalyn had changed his opinion of her or if he was still as obsessed with her as before. "I wasn't even sure I was going to come. My boyfriend, Malcolm, wasn't too thrilled about it either."

"Malcom, like the guy who made deliveries to the mansion? He's your boyfriend?"

"Yeah, we got close while I was working there, and I guess you could say the shared trauma kind of sealed the deal a little later."

"So that's why Brahms got so mad when I asked who he was. I still have so many questions. Do you think it'd be okay if we went somewhere after this and talked? I'll completely understand if you'd rather just walk away and never think about him again."

"No, I think…I think it might be good to talk this out with someone who…knows him."

One of the workers quickly came down the hallway. "Excuse me, ladies, there was a mix-up at the sign-in desk. The patient isn't allowed to have two visitors in the same month much less the same day. One of you will have to come back another time."

Adalyn smiled at Greta. "I think I'll concede today to you whether you decide to go in or not. You know that coffee shop about three miles from here? Want to meet there afterward?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Okay." Adalyn started to follow the employee down the hallway, but then she turned around and told Greta, "For the record, I think you should see him. It would be closure. For both of you."

"I don't even know where to start," Greta said as she nervously clutched onto her coffee cup.

"How about when you first arrived at the Heelshire mansion?" Adalyn gently suggested.

Greta took a long sip of her coffee. "The first thing I remember so clearly was that I entered the house and no one appeared to be home, so I took my shoes off and left them at the front door with my suitcase. When I came back for them a little later, they were gone. Mrs. Heelshire told me that Brahms was playful, and I didn't think too much of it because he was a kid so it made sense, but then she showed me that I was going to be taking care of a child-size porcelain doll. I thought it was a joke at first, but I quickly realized they were very serious. It probably would've been smart of me to just say I didn't want the job and leave, but…I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"I had been dating this guy back home, Cole. It was bad. I kept telling myself that things would get better, but they didn't. And then I got pregnant, and Cole promised that he'd change and that things would be different, and I believed him. That was my biggest mistake. Because one day he lost it…and I lost my child."

Adalyn gently put her hand onto Greta's, her heart breaking at this news. "It's no wonder you came all the way here for that job."

"Yeah. Anyway, the first day was fine, but then weird things started happening around the house, like my clothes disappearing, my shoes randomly showing up, and then I got a couple really creepy phone calls where a child's voice asked me why I wasn't following the rules. I started thinking the doll was alive or possessed or something." A small smile crossed her face. "But then there was a knock on my door and that same voice promised that he'd be good. When I opened the door, there was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich sitting on a tray for me because that was my favorite snack."

Adalyn smiled. Even with the knowledge of what had really been going on, she had to admit that was kind of cute.

"So after that, I decided to start treating the doll like a real little boy, just like Mr. and Mrs. Heelshire instructed. Things were fine for a few days, no more weird incidents, Malcolm and I even started to get closer, and I thought that things might actually be working out." She swallowed thickly and looked down at her coffee. "But then Cole showed up…with the intention of forcing me to go back home with him to the US. I traveled thousands of miles, and he still found me."

"I can't even imagine what that must've been like."

"I remember…putting the doll to bed like I was supposed to and lying next to it and pleading the spirit of Brahms to…just help me. If only I'd known what I'd done by asking that."

Adalyn had a pretty good idea of what that meant, but she asked, "What happened?"

"Cole got upset, Malcolm rushed into the house which made him even angrier, and then he smashed the doll."

That would explain why the doll had looked like it had been pieced back together.

"And that was when I realized the truth behind the doll. Brahms was alive and living inside the walls. He burst out and the first thing he did was kill Cole."

After hearing everything Cole had said and done to Greta, Adalyn didn't really feel sorry for the guy but she felt like she probably shouldn't say as much. Greta probably had her own mixed feelings about Cole's death.

"Malcolm and I tried to leave the house, but with all those passages behind the walls, Brahms was always one step ahead of us. So we had no choice but to go into the walls ourselves to try to find a way to escape. We ended up stumbling upon his secret room. I, uh, try really hard not to think about all the things we'd found in there."

While curious, Adalyn didn't push. She'd been inside Brahms's secret room herself, and she figured she'd seen enough to get the picture.

"We found a hatch, but it was jammed and I couldn't get it open before Brahms caught up with us and knocked Malcolm unconscious."

"He only knocked him out? Why didn't he just kill him?" After all, if Brahms had seen Malcolm and Greta starting to get intimate, then she was sure Brahms hated the guy for stealing what he believed was rightfully his.

"I think he was using him as leverage against me. He knew how much I cared about him and he threatened to kill him if I didn't stay. He said he'd kill him like he killed the others."

"Others? Who else was there?"

"Malcolm told me that when Brahms was a child before the fire, he used to have a friend named Emily Cribbs. And one day, she disappeared and they found her body in the woods with her skull crushed."

"Did Brahms do that?"

"I don't know. Probably. When the police came to question Brahms, the house was up in flames and Brahms was trapped and presumed dead."

"Wait, are you saying the fire was intentional? As a way to keep the police from questioning him?"

"I think so."

"Who set it? Brahms or his parents?"

"I really don't know. Judging from the note I found in Brahms's secret room, I think it was his parents, as a way to protect him. But after doing that for twenty years, they just couldn't live with the guilt anymore. They…gave me to Brahms. They knew they were never coming back and they just left me there with that…psychopath."

Adalyn didn't really consider Brahms a psychopath, but she and Greta had clearly had very different experiences, so she didn't voice her thoughts. "So do you think Emily and Cole were the only people he'd killed?"

"…It was never confirmed, but Mrs. Heelshire said that several potential nannies had come through, but Brahms rejected them all. I don't know if that meant they were sent on their way, or…if he permanently rejected them."

"I don't think that's the case. I mean, even if that house is in the middle of nowhere, eventually someone would realize that people were going into that house and never coming out. If he got rid of them, it would raise too many questions, and it sounds to me like Mr. and Mrs. Heelshire were trying hard to stay out of the public eye."

"Maybe."

"And maybe Emily's death was an accident. I don't know how something like that could've happened accidentally, but I'm sure it's possible."

"Then why would Brahms's parents have faked his death?"

"I don't know, maybe they panicked and thought the police wouldn't believe it was an accident. Maybe it wasn't an accident at all and they panicked even more."

"I don't know. Anyway, I ended up being able to escape through the hatch, but went back to the house to make sure Brahms didn't kill Malcolm. I tucked a screwdriver into my back pocket, and then decided to use Brahms's love for the rules to my advantage by telling him that it was time for bed. Imagine my surprise when that actually worked. Well, it worked up until Brahms asked for the usual goodnight kiss, and he got a little too forceful."

Been there, Adalyn thought.

"I was afraid he was going to take things further, so I stabbed him in the abdomen with the screwdriver. He got angry and almost choked the life out of me, but I managed to grab the screwdriver and dig it just deep enough that he released me. I…thought he was dead. I found Malcolm, left the house, and then tried desperately to put all of that behind me."

Adalyn had always wondered how Brahms had gotten that huge injury on his stomach, and what he'd done to make Greta hurt him in the first place. Even if some part of her had a soft spot for Brahms, she couldn't fault Greta for stabbing him. It was entirely possible that Brahms had gotten tired of waiting around behind the walls and decided to just skip to the last step of their weird one-sided relationship. Had Adalyn been in her shoes, she probably would've done the same thing. At least she'd known about the secret passages right away. Greta had lived in that house for weeks not knowing that someone was constantly watching her every move. Who wouldn't be freaked out and stab the guy watching them?

"So yeah…that's what happened. Can I ask what happened to you?"

"Um…I know that we both dealt with the same guy, but…my experience was a lot different than yours."

Adalyn told Greta what happened after she'd arrived at the mansion in an effort to escape from her three pursuers and how she'd had to deal with human-Brahms from the very start. While Greta clearly hated Brahms based on her own limited interaction with him, she also seemed very intrigued by this entire other side of him that she'd never gotten the chance to see.