Chapter IV

This is an excerpt from A Short Walk Through the City of the Dead, a self-published guide:

People say the Mary has two faces.

The first face is a normal face. It could look like any face. It could look like your face. Actually, it will look like your face if you were to look at the Mary. It always looks like the person who is looking at her. People have said that it's like looking into a reflection, except there are subtle differences. Their cheekbones are slightly higher, their eyebrows a bit farther apart, their hair a shade lighter. When they look at the Mary in her first face, they are looking at a better version of themselves.

The second face is the red face. The second face is the face that nobody wants to encounter, that everyone who knows about the Mary, who really knows about her, wants to avoid. There are some who have only a vague idea of what the Mary is and want to see her red face out of curiosity, out of desire. They are nearly always disappointed. They expect it to be something scary, something gruesome. They expect the red face to be like if someone pulled the skin off of a person's face and exposed the muscle underneath - that's what they want it to be like.

The red face doesn't look like that. The red face isn't gruesome, not like that.

The reason why those who know about the Mary never want to encounter the red face is because it changes you.

The first face is like looking at a different version of yourself.

The second face, the red face, is like becoming a different version of yourself.

You can call up the Mary and ask to be changed. You can promise her everything you own, your life itself, and she will not show you her red face. To see her red face, you call upon her during a hunter's moon and the only thing you have to promise is your love. Promise to love her with all of your heart and she will show you her red face. Some people scoff at that idea, but it is true: love is all you need.

Those who see her red face wander the streets at night. Their faces are gaunt, their eyes are wild. The sniff the air, as if they can smell meat like bloodhounds, and they roam the red light district, their smiles always half hidden in the darkness.

There are some who say that the Mary has a third face, a face so secret that only one person has seen it. Those who say this are ignored and eventually disappear.