The Haunting of Sunshine Girl

by Paige McKenzie

Another rumble of thunder. Rain begins splashing against the windows and the roof.

  Mom narrows her eyes. “Have we met?” she asks, holding her hand out to shake Victoria’s.

  “Not exactly,” Victoria answers with a trembling smile. It takes me a second to understand what she means. My mother has never met Victoria, but the demon living inside of her has.

  Victoria takes my mother’s hand and pumps it up and down enthusiastically. When she finally releases her I see that the edges of her long-sleeved sweater are wet where my mother touched it.

  Where the demon touched it.

  Mom leads the way back into the living room. On TV the ball is dropping in New York City; there, it’s already midnight.

  Here the seconds tick by. I sit in the center of the sofa, Nolan and Victoria on either side of me, like I’m the meat in the middle of a luiseach sandwich. I’m sitting on the knife. Whenever whatever is going to happen begins, I’ll reach for it and hope it does whatever it’s supposed to do.

  “How will we know when it’s time?” I whisper to Victoria, my mouth so dry that I can barely get the words out. I cough.

  “Believe me,” Victoria says. She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “You’ll know.”

  I can feel the cold of the blade through my jeans.

  At 11:48 p.m. Mom stands. In unison, like we’re performing some kind of carefully choreographed dance, Nolan, Victoria, and I stand and turn. We watch her go into the next room.

  “Should I follow her?” I whisper. Victoria nods anxiously. I slip the knife into my back pocket, blade down, so that the end is sticking halfway out, and I follow my mother into the kitchen.

  “Whatcha doing?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

  “I thought I’d make some popcorn for you and your friends,” Mom says brightly. She doesn’t bother turning on the lights as she reaches into the pantry.

  “That’s nice,” I answer. Mom walks around the countertop island in the center of the kitchen and puts a packet of popcorn into the microwave; the machine lights up and hums when she turns it on. The sound of kernels popping fills the room.

  Pop-pop. Pop-pop.

  “Why don’t you go sit down with your friends?” Mom says. “I’ll bring it out when it’s ready.”

  “It’s okay, I don’t mind waiting.” A fake sort of buttery smell wafts from the microwave. Normally it’d make my mouth water, but tonight my throat is dry.

  Pop-pop. Pop-pop.

  “Sunshine, really, don’t be silly. Go into the other room.” Mom leans back against the kitchen sink and the water begins running. The sink doesn’t drain; instead, it fills up. Like a small steel bathtub. “Your friend Nolan can help me,” she adds, her eyes gazing past me, focusing on something behind me.

  I turn around and see Victoria and Nolan, hovering in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, watching us. Hanging on every word. Mom locks eyes with Nolan, the demon’s intended victim.

  Victoria shakes her head slowly, keeping her eyes focused on Mom. Her way of telling me: Don’t take your eyes off her.

  The microwave beeps. The popcorn is finished. But neither Mom nor I make a move to get it out. The machine beeps again, reminding us that our food is ready. The buttery smell shifts; now it smells like something is burning. Water begins flowing over the edge of the sink.

  What happens next, happens so fast that later, I won’t be sure how it happens at all.

  Nolan is next to my mother on the other side of the counter. Mom’s arms are wrapped around him. Her eyes don’t look like her eyes at all; instead of almost gray, they’re dark black, so that the iris is indistinguishable from the pupils. Her hair is suddenly completely soaking wet.

  Nolan is several inches taller than Mom, but she’s holding him from behind with just one arm. He’s struggling against her, but he can’t seem to get free. She presses his head toward the sink, his face hovering just inches above the water.

  I guess this is what Victoria meant when she said I’d know when it started.

  I reach for the knife, but my hands are shaking so hard that I can barely wrap my fingers around it. My muscles are about as useful as a bowl of Jell-O. I manage to hold the blade out in front of me, but it still looks like just a rusty old knife. Mom lowers Nolan’s face into the sink. He struggles against her hold, water splashing up and drenching the countertop, but he’s no match for her strength.

  “Come on!” I shout at the ceiling, at the luiseach gods or my mentor or whoever is in charge of all this. I stare at the knife and beg, “Manifest already!” My hand is shaking so hard that I’m scared I’m going to drop it.

  “Don’t let go, Sunshine!” Victoria shouts from the doorway. Mom turns her eyes from me to Victoria, like she’s noticing the other woman’s presence in our house for the first time.

  Mom smiles, but her smile doesn’t look like any smile I’ve ever seen on her face before. In fact, it doesn’t look like a smile at all; smiles are warm, friendly, joyous—this is something else entirely. Her teeth are inhumanly white, practically glowing in the dark of the kitchen. Water drips out of her open mouth. Her eyes have turned an eerie sort of blue, like they’re not eyes at all but rather tiny swimming pools.

  She lifts Nolan’s head from the sink and smashes his skull against the counter. She releases him and he falls to the ground, unconscious. The mildew smell is so strong that I think I will choke on it.

  “Nolan!” I scream. I drop to the floor and crawl around the island, crouch over his body. Oscar appears at my side and starts licking Nolan’s face, a dog’s version of CPR. I can hear Lex mewing from the countertop above us.

  I put the knife down beside Nolan and lean down over my friend. I can feel his breath on my face—at least he’s still breathing. For once, being this close to him doesn’t make my skin crawl. Blood pours out of a gash in his forehead. He couldn’t run away now if he wanted to.

  Oh no, what if proximity to Nolan doesn’t bother me because he’s dying? What if whatever it is that made the awful wrong-end-of-the-magnet feeling kick in is fading away?

  Suddenly a terrible cracking sound makes the house shake. The ceiling above us is ripping away, as easily as if it were made of cloth. I scream as the second floor disappears and a blast of freezing air blows into the house. The rain from the storm outside—there’s no outside anymore, we’re all outside now—is drenching us. Oscar and Lex dash toward the living room, hoping to get away from this mess. I try to position myself over Nolan like an umbrella, but it’s useless. I shiver like a leaf; right now, being close to him isn’t making me any warmer.

  Across the room I hear a voice that sounds nothing like my mother’s say, “I didn’t expect to see you here.” She’s talking to Victoria, not me. I wait to hear Victoria answer her, but there’s nothing: only the sound of the wind and the rain, then a horrible laugh coming from my mother’s mouth. Then a splash as Victoria’s body falls to the ground.

  Another crack, and the wall between us and the driveway vanishes; more water rushes in. Nolan is lying in at least three inches of it, rising steadily around us. I turn his head, trying to angle his mouth and nose above the water line, scared that he might drown.

  At once I’m aware of the weight of a shadow hanging over me. I look up. There’s my mother with her strange liquid eyes, staring at me.

  “Young love torn asunder,” she says, but in a voice much lower, meaner, and uglier than her own. How strange to hear someone else’s voice coming out of her mouth. “What a tragedy.” She clucks her tongue.

  “What did you do to Victoria?” I ask desperately. I can’t see her from my place on the floor, behind the kitchen island. The demon just laughs in response, and I know that whatever it did, Victoria can’t help me now. I shiver, as drenched as if I’d just taken a shower.

  Nolan is unconscious.

  He can’t help me either.

  And my mother is absent, trapped somewhere inside her own body. Does she even know what’s happening? Is she watching this
from somewhere beneath the demon, screaming to be set free?

  I’m all alone. It’s just me and the demon and our broken-down, roofless house. Pellets of rain crash against my face and stream into my eyes, until my mother’s body standing above me is nothing more than a blur. I’m so cold that my teeth are chattering, banging against each other angrily.

  I’m not even holding the knife anymore. It lies uselessly beside Nolan’s body. So much for a weapon that’s supposed to manifest itself when you need it.

  With her superhuman demon strength, my mother reaches down and flips Nolan over with just her left arm. I try to crawl out of the way, try to grab the knife once more, but I slip and fall on my back beneath the weight of Nolan’s body, now pinned on top of mine, the knife digging into my back beneath us. At least I still feel Nolan’s breath against my cheek.

  I try to arch my back so I can slide my arm beneath it to reach for the knife. But I can barely reach it with my fingertips. I open my mouth to scream but water rushes in, choking me.

  Oh gosh, Victoria and Nolan were both wrong.

  I’m not the kind of person who finds hidden stores of strength when she’s faced with a crisis.

  I’m the type of person who flails around on the ground, splashing in demon rainwater.

  “Somebody help us!” I shout. Is my mentor watching me, even now? Can he hear me? Is he really just going to stand aside and let all these people die while I fail?

  “Please!” I beg, spitting water with each syllable, but no one answers. Tears stream down my face, mixing in with the raindrops.

  Mom—the demon—presses her foot against Nolan’s back, holding us both down. Blood from Nolan’s wound mixes with the rainwater and drips onto my face. I gasp, struggling to fill my lungs with air as the water edges ever higher. I know that no matter how deep it gets, it can’t really drown me—the demon can’t kill me. But it can drown Nolan.

  Writhing and twisting, I manage to wrap my fingers around the knife beneath me. It’s cold as ice, so holding it hurts. Wriggling beneath all this weight, I finally pull the weapon out from beneath us.

  It’s still just a knife, but I hold it up anyway, slashing at Mom’s leg. She just grins her horrible glowing grin. My arms aren’t long enough; I can’t reach her.

  Thunder rumbles above us, followed immediately by a flash of lightning so bright that for a second it blinds me. The storm is right above us. The wind is howling, but in between gusts I can still hear sounds of celebration from the TV in the living room. “All right everyone,” an announcer shouts, “ten seconds to the New Year!”

  The roof must still be in place in the living room. Maybe it’s still dry. Maybe I can drag Nolan and Victoria in there, get them out of harm’s way.

  A crowd begins chanting: 10, 9 . . .

  Who am I kidding? I can’t even get out from under Nolan, let alone drag two bodies into the other room. Mom digs her heel into his back, pressing down on us both. I gasp for breath and my mouth fills with water. It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted, rotten and sour.

  8, 7 . . .

  This is how it’s going to end. Everyone I care about is about to die. Victoria is helpless, unconscious across the kitchen. Nolan will drown just like Anna did. Will I feel his spirit when it leaves its body? My mother’s spirit will be destroyed. And Anna’s along with it. Nolan’s will be next, once the demon moves on to its next victim.

  Victoria will forget that she was ever a mother—she’ll forget every diaper change, every bottle feeding. Forget that she ever helped Anna with her homework, forget the first time her daughter read a book by herself, forget Anna’s hands and her laugh and her smile.

  6, 5 . . .

  I close my eyes, trying to blink the icy-cold water away. I will forget my mother. Not right away, like Victoria said. It will happen slowly, inevitably, even if I plaster the house with photographs. Maybe in a few months I’ll forget the sound of her voice, the way she laughed. Then I won’t know how she smelled. It could be two years before I forget pizza dinners and arguing over the remote. After a decade I’ll even forget why she named me Sunshine.

  I’ve failed completely. We lost, and the demon won. What happens to luiseach who fail their tests? Will my mentor keep testing me over and over until I pass? Or will he disappear and leave me all alone, a luiseach without her powers, just like Victoria?

  4, 3 . . .

  “I love you, Mom!” I shout up at her face as thunder and lightning explode in unison above us. She’s got to be in there somewhere, maybe she can still hear me. Maybe I’ll remember that I loved someone this much, even if I can’t remember who.

  Suddenly someone is wrapping her hands around my wrists. I open my eyes and glance around frantically: Nolan is still unconscious, and Victoria is out of my sight somewhere on the other side of the counter. The grip tightens; I’m being pulled out from under Nolan’s body, pulled up to stand by a phantom helpmate.

  “Anna?” I sputter, water dripping down my face. I hear a small, distant voice answer, “It’s me.” She squeezes my fingers into a fist around the knife.

  The house starts to shake, a localized earthquake. In the morning geologists for miles around will check their Richter scales, wondering what on earth happened.

  I squeeze the knife, feeling the cold steel prickle my skin.

  Wait, it’s not a knife, and it’s not cold. Not anymore.

  It’s a torch.

  An enormous wooden torch with a hot orange flame coming out of its tip. A flame that only gets stronger in the driving rain. I hold it out toward my mother but she jumps away, dancing out of my reach.

  2, 1 . . .

  The flames grow higher, warming me. Suddenly I am magically, magnificently dry. I hold the torch above me like an umbrella; it creates a bubble of warmth around me. A bubble whose edges are growing, inch by inch. Still, my mother dances away from it. The kitchen wall gone, she’s able to back into the driveway, well out of my reach. She grins her wet grin from just outside the bubble.

  “What good is a torch that can’t reach her?” I yell. How do I get to her?

  The sound of paper ripping makes me turn from my mother to the kitchen counter. Invisible hands are ripping open the bag that holds Nolan’s fireworks.

  I know exactly whose hands. “Anna, you’re a genius!” I shout. I reach for the sparklers and pull them into my bubble, where they magically dry just like I did. I use the torch to light one; it brightens the room, looking festive even now. I throw it at my mother. It hisses when it touches her skin. The flame brightens, but when she looks at it, it extinguishes immediately.

  I light a handful more and throw them all. Still, the sparklers extinguish when they hit her skin. Still, she is able to dance out of my reach.

  Lightning flashes again, but this time the thunder is almost a minute behind it. The storm must be moving away.

  It’s working!

  I light another sparkler. This one I throw into the driveway behind her. Despite the water all over the ground, it still burns—this rain cannot extinguish the fire from my torch. I light and throw another, then another, until there is a bright U of sparklers around my mother’s body, blocking the demon so it can’t back any farther away from me.

  I take a step closer, out of the kitchen and onto the driveway. Then another step, closer still. The demon hisses at me, but I don’t retreat. Instead, I get so close that my mother’s body is enveloped in my bubble of heat and warmth. Her wet skin sizzles as it dries. She crouches on the ground, wailing in pain.

  No, not she. It. This is the demon I’m facing, not my mother. I hold the torch over her body, and her skin is no longer sizzling. It’s boiling. Steam rises off her skin like a thick blanket; it’s so thick that I can barely see her.

  She screams. Now her voice sounds like her own: “Please stop, Sunshine! You’re hurting me!”

  My heart races at the sound of my mother’s voice. Can she feel what’s happening, even with the demon possessing her? Oh gosh, should I st
op—what if I’m hurting her every bit as much as I’m hurting the demon?

  I hesitate, and as I do I feel Anna pressing one last firework into my left hand. I look down at it; in the light that the torch gives off I can see the scar where my mother cut me, already fading away.

  This firework isn’t another sparkler—it’s a Roman candle.

  Victoria said that dark spirits are often those whose lives were taken too soon. They might have been the kindest humans, but the urge to stay here on earth twisted them into something unrecognizable, something evil. I wonder who this demon used to be. I wonder whether exorcising it will allow it to finally move on to where it’s supposed to be.

  I feel Anna’s fingers squeeze my shoulders, her way of telling me that I know exactly what I have to do. And now is the time to do it.

  Mom screams again, calls my name again. “Sunshine, please!” she begs, but I shake my head, tears streaming down my face. She told me once that the body can’t remember pain. I just hope it’s true.

  I light the firework and hurl it at my mother’s crouching body. It explodes in a fire of colors at my feet, the most horrifying and beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Drenched

  I lower the torch, but I remain dry. My hands are black with soot, my ears ringing from the sound of the explosion. I’m back in the kitchen with Mom’s body at my feet; it looks like she’s fainted. Above me the ceiling is back, and the second floor is above us, right where it’s supposed to be. The wall between the kitchen and the driveway is back in place, not even a scratch around its edges to show that it was missing just seconds ago. Water still drenches the floor, but the tile around my mother and me is dry.

  From the TV shouts of Happy New Year! echo through the house, which has stopped shaking. The mournful first lines of Auld Lang Syne drift into the room.

  How is that possible? It feels like I heard the chanting of 3, 2, 1 hours ago. Okay, maybe not hours, but at least several minutes. I look at the torch in my hand; it’s shrinking, turning back into a knife. I wonder what it might have manifested as if I’d been facing a different kind of demon.