Chapter 241 begins with Patch approaching the Bleached House, a secluded and timeworn estate resting quietly just beyond the town’s edge. Surrounded by untamed nature, the landscape evokes both wonder and melancholy. Winding fences snake across the fields, and footpaths carve through thickets of tall grass, leading toward a glimmering river that reflects bands of silver and gold. Beneath its slow-moving surface, crappie swim lazily, casting brief flickers of light as they dart past smooth stones. With every quiet step, Patch allows himself to feel a kind of slow revival, as if he’s slipping back into the skin of a much younger version of himself. The path he follows—forgotten, overgrown, yet oddly familiar—feels like the remnants of a once-traveled rail line. It becomes clear that this isn’t just a walk through the woods; it’s a quiet reckoning with memory, solitude, and time’s patient erosion.

With the Bleached House growing larger in his view, Patch arrives at its rusted gates, which hang just ajar as if waiting for him specifically. There’s resistance when he nudges one open, a rasping complaint from metal long unused. He passes through and is enveloped by a canopy of interlaced branches that arch above him like clasped hands offering shelter. The wind rustles the treetops, scattering dappled sunlight across the green grass at his feet. That grass, a vibrant patchwork of nature’s resilience, reminds him of a painting—a specific one, the kind only Grace would have imagined, alive with the richness of childhood wonder. The feeling of time rolling backward intensifies. With each step, it becomes easier to forget the weight of years and betrayals, to exist again as that thirteen-year-old boy who once believed he could fix broken things with his hands and hope alone.

As Patch stands before the house, he sees it clearly for what it has become—a shadow of its former self. Although it retains echoes of the Mad House from memory, this structure appears more weathered, its facade stripped by years of neglect. The timber-framed windows sag beneath crumbling stucco, and the roofline droops where rot has hollowed its bones. Yet hints of life still linger—cobwebs sway in open corners, and a pair of boots sit beneath a windowsill, sun-bleached and cracked. The walkway leading to the door has buckled in places, making each step feel both uncertain and symbolic. His approach slows, as though the house itself were demanding reverence. And when he reaches the heavy door, he leans forward and rests his head against it—not in exhaustion, but as if listening for something long buried in silence.

Two towering pillars stand like sentinels beside him, their peeling paint revealing the chalky undercoat beneath. Overhead, the curved arch bears stained-glass fragments—once brilliant, now dulled to shades of deep ash and midnight gray. The house, though diminished, radiates a haunting kind of beauty. It’s not just the architecture that moves him, but the emotional weight it carries, the stories etched into its foundation. In its deterioration, Patch sees his own journey reflected—cracked but still standing. His breath steadies as he raises his fist to knock, the sound landing like a memory against the door’s worn wood. He steps back instinctively, as if whatever he’s about to face deserves space.

As he waits, the air thickens with tension, and yet there is calm in the stillness. Birds chirp from nearby branches, and somewhere, water continues to trickle faintly from the stream he crossed earlier. Though his thoughts remain private, there is a sense of gathering within him, a quiet emotional crescendo. It isn’t just a home he’s revisiting—it’s the ghosts of his past, the fragments of identity he’s never fully reclaimed. The threshold he stands before is more than physical; it marks the boundary between what he’s run from and what he must now face. Whatever lies beyond the door—be it forgiveness, confrontation, or closure—Patch understands that stepping through will demand more than courage. It will require honesty. It will ask for every piece of himself he has left.