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Lights started flashing, blinding me.  I shielded my eyes and tried to find a way to escape when I felt an arm on me.  All’s I could make out was a vague shadow.

“Follow me,” a raspy voice whispered.  I obeyed.  We walked down several streets away from the flashing bulbs down an alleyway.

I took my arm away from my eyes, and they took a minute to adjust, but when they did, I found myself focused on the old woman from earlier tonight.

“You!”

“What do you want?”

“To enlighten you. Don’t you want to know why all this is happening to you?”

“You know?”

“Oh yes.”

“Why then?”

“First let me ask, do you remember me?”

“No,” I said, brows furrowed.

“Twenty years ago, it was my life you ruined with the same accusation your niece is now using to ruin yours.”

I gasped. “Aunt Tilly?” I said the words, barely audible.

“Yes, boy.”

“I’m sorry.”

She let out a haunting laugh.

“‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t cut it. When you ruin someone’s life, you must pay the same price,” she said in a shrill voice. “I went to jail for something you made up, you must do the same. That’s how you make it up to me, boy.”

“What does my novel have to do with this?” I asked.

“It’s the secret you were itching to tell, now it needs to be told in its entirety. It’s time for me to leave,” she whispered.

“What’s going to happen to me?” I asked, scared.

“Payback, boy.”

Aunt Tilly left.  I stood shivering in the cold, the snow had begun to fall.  I wrapped my coat around me tightly and walked home thinking about all that had transpired.  Upon arriving home, I was relieved to see there were no reporters outside my house.  I walked to the door and went inside.  Her words rattled through my brain. Payback, boy.