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The lines around Grandma’s mouth deepened as she pursed her lips and hummed in thought. “If they fell apart, your dough was too dry.”

“But I followed the recipe.”

“Your mama did too,” she said, lifting a finger. “But she always put too much flour on the counter and used room temperature butter until she learned better.” A fond smile played on her lips before sipping her tea.

“What does that matter?” My cooking wasn’t bad, but I struggled with the little details, like remembering ingredient temperature mattered in certain recipes.

“All it takes is a little too much. Your dough needs to be sticky, and your ingredients cold.” She patted my leg. “You’ll figure it out.”

“They tasted good when I tried them, but they were a crumbly mess. I ended up putting them in a bag to eat myself.”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Shoulda brought them. Your mama made some ugly biscuits for a while before they looked right. But it doesn’t have to be pretty to be tasty.” Her voice took on a faraway quality as she smiled and whispered, “They were always tasty.”

I smiled. “I’ll bring some next time.”

Hearing her laugh and recalling times from my childhood warmed my heart.

I looked forward to days like today. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. With every visit, I watched the woman I had always admired slip away. The weight on her mind stole my carefree, gentle grandma and replaced her with someone who spent more time afraid of her own shadow than smiling.

Although the doctors had been right about her cognitive decline, they were wrong about the cause. A lifetime spent seeing things no one else did—real or not—could break anyone’s mind.

When Patricia entered the house through the sliding glass doors, Grandma turned on the bench and grasped my hand. Her relaxed demeanor shifted to tense wariness.

“Something bad is comin’, Sweet Pea.” She set her empty glass aside.

“What?”

“The shadows are getting noisier.”

I closed my eyes and drew a slow breath.

This always happened.

Whenever we were alone, the subject always turned to things I didn’t want to talk about—what I tried to ignore.

But I was the only one who listened. Everyone else wrote her off, treating her words like the nonsense of a broken mind, not a terrifying reality no one wanted to face. A reality that slowly tore Grandma’s sanity apart. Did it matter if only one person experienced it? It angered me that others failed to see the toll it took on her—how the darkness stole the peaceful sunset years she should have had.

“They’ll come for you again.”

The melting ice in Grandma’s glass settled, a soft clink in the quiet that followed her ominous warning.

I loved Grandma more than anyone else in the world. I’d do anything for her, and I knew she’d do the same for me. Still, her talk of shadows overwhelmed me. I didn’t want it to be my reality.

“You need to be prepared.”

“Grandma, I don’t know what you expect me to do.”

“Don’t ignore the signs. Don’t ignore them the way my sweet Lillian did.” Her grip tightened on my hand when I stood, unable to sit still.

I looked down at the small, frail hand clasped in mine, studying the age spots on her weathered skin. That same hand had tended to skinned knees and provided comfort and protection when the monsters came for me as a child.

Despite my aunt and uncle’s attempts to label her mentally ill to isolate her from everyone, I’d never abandon her. It was my turn to protect and comfort her.

“I know you saw them.”

For years, she dropped vague hints about the shadows, but over the last year, her efforts to warn me rose to a fever pitch. The urgency in her words puzzled me. Why warn me now after all these years? I already knew they existed—in my head.

Thirteen years ago, my parents died during a home invasion. What I never told the cops—or anyone—was that the faces of the men responsible weren’t normal.