Time stopped.
His body was prepared for a blow, but not this. It was like preparing for an atomic bomb—there was nothing you could do, total destruction was inevitable. He heaved over in pain.
“Hey, Max, did you hear the one about the restaurant on the moon? It has great food, but no atmosphere!” The body let out a deep belly laugh that Max knew could be heard through the entire house, because he’d heard it before. For ten years, he lived with that laugh.
How could she?
Tears pricked at his eyes. He clutched his stomach, his insides, his every fiber to keep from unraveling onto the hardwood floors.
“Whatsa matta, Maxie-boy? You don’t like my jokes no more?” The accent was thick and the conversation real, like they’d had it before, many times.
“Stop. Just stop.” The agony in his voice couldn’t be helped.
“She’s not trying to hurt you. She’s trying to show you,” the girl said in a let-me-put-a-Band-Aid-on-that tone.
No. She didn’t get to talk to him right now. Max let go of his waist.
“Your soul is a manifestation of your existence that lives on in the universe. She sounds like your father, because it is your father. It’s his eternal force. She’s offering a gift,” she continued.
Max stood upright.
“Listen to the chick. She’s a smart one, that girl,” the voice of his father said through his mother’s lips. And she looked like she wanted to wink.
“Get out,” Max commanded, his voice strong.
“If you saw what we saw, if you let us explain, you could break free from your pain….” The stranger clasped his palms, pleading.
“Get out of my house!” Max exploded, charging toward them. He’d never punched anyone before, but if he was ever going to, it was now, in this moment, with his mother pluming smoke and stealing his father’s jokes. These lunatics, whoever they were, were not going to stand here and explain pain to him.
“Leave! Now!” He pointed a straight arm toward the door, and his mother let out a murderous cackle. Her head was thrown back, black waves falling all around her, perfectly styled. Her skin was radiant, and her hair luscious. The faint lines that sprayed from her eyes and crossed her forehead were Photoshopped away, making her body look ten years younger while her voice was a gateway to Hell.
She turned toward her visitors. “You may leave.” She sounded feminine again. Not his mother’s pattern of speech, but at least it wasn’t his father’s.
“Of course.” The girl nodded.
“Your enlightenment is an inspiration,” said the man.
“You cannot achieve enlightenment. You must be enlightened. And your time is coming. Soon,” Mom bestowed.
The peons took their orders and exited the room. Max listened as they marched down the hall, creaking on familiar floorboards and slamming the front door. Finally, a car drove off.
“This has gone too far,” Max spat through clenched teeth.
“I thought you missed your father.”
“Mom, how could you do this?” He appealed to the woman who raised him. She was in there, somewhere, and she was torturing him.
“I thought we were past pretending I was your mother.” Smoke gusted from her lips. “Mommy’s gone, but you can join her if you want, her and your father. Dying’s the easiest thing you’ll ever do.”
“My mother’s not dead!”
“You sure about that?” Her lips pulled at the corners.
He cradled the back of his head, pressing his bent elbows to his temples, chaos raging inside him. Then the sound of brakes in his driveway pulled his attention. He spun toward the window.
The peons were back.
Or it could be Vera.
Only, when the car door shut and he heard his sister squeal, all the blood left Max’s brain.
“No!” he hollered, spinning toward the door.
Footsteps charged into the house, along with the sound of a bag plopping on the carpet.
“Chloe, stay away! Get back in the car!” he hollered.
“What? Is Mommy awake?” she cheered, stomping down the hall.
“I said get out!” His head swirled with panic, and he reached for the wall to steady himself, but before his vision could clear, his sister was standing beside him.
“I wanna see Mommy!”
She pushed past his legs, and as his dizziness broke, he caught his sister’s face as she spied the smoke rising from the creature.
“Mommy?” Chloe’s head jerked back, puckered lips falling open.
“Come to me, sweetheart,” the voice hissed, arms extended.
“Don’t.” Max clamped his sister’s arm, probably too hard, but he would break her bone if it meant keeping her away from that.
“Why are you smoking? My teacher says it can kill you.” Her eyebrows rumpled.
“It was a gift, my dear. Like your gifts.” Dark amusement flashed in her eyes and sent Chloe creeping behind Max’s leg. “Tell me, how’s Sophie?”
“Okay,” she squeaked, hands wrapping tighter around his leg. She got it now. Finally.
I’m so sorry….
“Well, Sophie’s a little piece of shit,” the beast spat, head cranked. “Are you a little piece of shit?”
“Stop it,” Max snapped.
“Mommy?” Tears choked Chloe’s voice.
He turned to his sister, crouching down. “Get out of here. Go!”
“Go where? What about you? What’s wrong with her?” Questions spilled out.
“Oh, don’t go yet. Don’t you want to be with Mommy forever? I can make that happen. It’s easier than you think.”
“Shut! The hell! Up!” Heat lapped at Max’s skin; the room was burning, sweltering. He shoved his sister toward the door. “Run!”
Then the sound of another car squealed in the distance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Vera
As soon as Vera placed a sneaker on the curb, she felt the tension crackle through the sticky summer air. Standing on the sidewalk, the wrath from Maxwell’s mother pulsated from the home, across the weedy lawn, and onto Vera.
She sprinted across the too-long grass, and when she reached the front stoop, the door flung open. Chloe cowered in the entry with blotchy cheeks and snot oozing from her nose, shaking in hysterics.
Vera didn’t have siblings, not even little cousins, and no one in Roaring Creek dialed her number to babysit. A few days ago, she’d say she wasn’t good with kids. But it turned out she didn’t need prerequisite knowledge to know to throw her arms around a sobbing child and drag her to safety.
“It’s okay. I got you.” Vera cradled Chloe’s head.
She pulled her to the car and flung open the back door.
“Where is your brother?” Vera asked, guiding her onto a crumby seat cushion as the child gulped for air.
Chloe pointed, her mouth opening and closing like she wanted to say something, but Vera couldn’t wait for her to choke out the words.
“Stay here! Do not move! Do not open this door for anyone!” Vera locked the vehicle and raced across the lawn, heart thundering against her rib cage.
She tore through the front door, knowing where she’d find him. That smell…What was that smell? She spun into the hallway, a blanket of night cloaking the house in broad daylight. Even still, she caught Maxwell at the far end, a silhouette backlit by the dim light of the bedroom.
She thundered toward him, rattling the pictures on the walls, and the closer she got, the more she smelled it, the more she tasted it.
She skidded to a halt behind Maxwell.
“Are you okay?” Vera whispered, then looked around him to see his mother. Instantly, she wrenched backward.
Holy Mother of Hell.
Maxwell’s mom, or what used to be his mom, stood
in a long white sundress, the flowy kind you might wear to a fancy garden party, and she was smoking. Literally. Thick white plumes seeped from flared nostrils and a gaping mouth. The clouds coiled from within her, stunning all rational thought. The smoke traveled up. It didn’t exhale down from her nose then rise with a gradual drift. It was the smog of a chimney, swirling overhead.
Given Vera’s family business, she was familiar with fear. The winds of a hurricane, the chill of a creepy basement, the crash of a demonic artifact—those, she suddenly realized, were pulses on the outer veins of terror. Now Vera was staring at its heart.
“I am definitely not okay.” Maxwell’s words were clipped.
His mother locked eyes on Vera, burning bricks of coal searing deep within her until she felt the flames in her chest. Then, as Vera watched, the woman’s cheeks began to hollow, skin sinking and charring.
“I was hoping you’d show.” Her voice was venomous. No, its voice.
Vera clutched Maxwell’s biceps as they watched its hair morph from ringlets into oily black twists and its teeth brown with stains of unseen nicotine.
“I have Chloe. Come on.” Vera tugged his arm. This was beyond her ability. Vera was not special. She was not gifted. They needed her parents.
“Oh, don’t go so soon.” Its cracked lips formed a grisly grin.
Then it started barking—literally, like a tiny dog—yapping in short, high-pitched bursts that matched the ones Vera heard at least five times a day from her neighbor’s house.
“How’s the little dog?” it asked, smoke gusting with each bark.
Vera’s mouth grew dry, her tongue heavy. It knew about her neighbor’s dog? Maxwell couldn’t have told it. He’d never been to Vera’s house.
No, it knew her.
Mr. Gonzalez’s words rang inside her. It wants you. It wants you.
“Too bad Mommy and Daddy aren’t around. Tell them I said hi.” Its brow formed an unsettling V on its forehead, and it began to pace, staying inside a ring of small black votives, arranged as if for a séance.
“My parents don’t give a shit about you,” Vera spat.
Its eyes flexed. “I doubt that.” Then it cocked its head, neck tendons tight. “What about you? Are you ready for me? It would save us all a lot of time. My friends can’t wait to meet you—”
Vera’s mouth opened to speak, but then its body seized, arms flailing as its rotted face whipped from side to side. The smell of decomposing roadkill filled the room, and Vera gripped her nose, gagging reflexively.
“Maaaxweeelll, gggooooo!” That was his mother. His real mother. And dear God, Joan of Arc would have sounded less horrific in her final moments on the stake.
Vera squeezed Maxwell tighter, tugging with all her might. Only, he was a marble statue, anchored to the ground by rusted screws as he watched his mother’s arms rise, lifting the hem of her sundress. Wings. It almost looked like wings. A tornado of smoke spiraled faster as its eyes rolled deep into its sockets. “There is no peace to be found here. Only death will bring peace! Rest! Rest with me!”
It rasped the words, and a twister of smoke broke open the closet door with a violent crash. Vera stumbled back. A shrine, the Angel—a skeletal angel weeping black tears holding a skull-engraved torch, extinguished—facing his mother’s bed. It sat atop a swishing black tablecloth, and at its base were packs of crumpled cigarettes and a bottle of wine. Three burgundy glasses were filled to the brim, but they looked untouched. There were more candles, all onyx, some in jars and some not, some tall and some short, flames crackling too tall for their wicks, too hot for their size.
“Maxwell! Let’s go!” Vera carved her nails into the flesh of his arm and yanked him with a force she didn’t know she had. He shifted.
Then she barreled toward the doorway, pulling him, dragging him, tripping behind her, his head constantly swiveling back to see the person who used to be his mother, to see if it all might disappear.
No, Maxwell, I’m sorry. This is real. This is horribly real.
She heaved him through the house and to the front door, and as soon as he stepped outside, he gobbled the air as though it was the first breath he’d taken since plummeting beneath the surface of that malevolent fog.
Then the gargling sound of tears rang out and his head spun toward his sister in the back of Vera’s car. Her thin arms were wrapped around bent legs that were pulled forcefully against her chest as she rocked, wild black curls swishing with every sob.
Now it was Vera’s turn to follow after Maxwell as he sprinted to the car like the devil was on his tail.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Max
Max clutched his sister to his chest, her feet kicking Vera’s seat as she convulsed in sobs. His head throbbed, the smell of smoke still clinging to his clothes.
“My mother is still in there!” he shouted, rolling down the window. “You heard her! And before that, I heard my dad. My dad! We have to help them!”
“You heard Daddy?” Chloe screeched.
Shit, he shouldn’t have said that, but Vera wasn’t listening. She was driving, farther and farther away.
He released a hand from Chloe to shake Vera’s headrest. “Vera, we have to go back! I heard them! Vera, come on, can’t you get them out?”
She was a superhero, right? A demon fighter? This was what her family did.
He watched her knuckles tighten on the wheel.
“No!” she snapped. “I cannot get them out. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m not my parents! I did what I could. I put Chloe in a safe place, and I dragged you away.”
“But my mom—”
“Needs more help than I can give you!” she blurted, smacking the wheel. Then she sucked in a breath louder than the breeze from the window. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make this worse. I’m really sorry for what you’re going through. And I’m going to get you help.”
From where? Barcelona? They didn’t have time to wait for her parents’ case to wrap up.
Their level of hell changed in that room. This was no longer some potential sleepwalking and a little creepy babbling. There was an inferno with seven rings in there. His mother was breathing smoke! She was speaking in his father’s voice! She tried to lure Chloe!
They pulled in front of Vera’s home—a big white Victorian—and her aunt stood on the front porch like she was expecting them, long gray hair whipping in the breeze. Max stepped out of the car to the sound of yapping in the distance. His head spun to the neighbor’s house, a white puff in the window. The dog. His mother knew about that dog. She’d sounded just like it. His eyes blinked, shock coursing through him as he cradled Chloe’s tall, lanky body in his arms like a newborn. Then he marched toward the house.
“Bring her upstairs,” the aunt instructed.
He hoisted his sniveling sister up the staircase, her long legs dangling past his knees, as he followed Vera into a guest room with a four-poster frame and a lace doily bedspread.
“I’ll take it from here,” said the aunt as she entered the room.
He lowered Chloe onto the mattress. The aunt sat and hugged his sister’s sweaty head to her chest, singing a song that might have been Gaelic. Before Max got back to the first floor, his sister’s sobs had lessened.
About a half hour later, Chloe was still upstairs. Max was in the kitchen clutching a steaming mug of spearmint tea that he in no way wanted to drink, but that Vera’s aunt insisted he finish.
“Every drop. It will calm you,” she said.
Max grimaced at the minty herbal taste. The only warm beverage he liked was hot cocoa with mini marshmallows, but that felt inappropriate under the circumstances. He slumped in the chrome-framed chair, the black vinyl cushion squeaking beneath him.
“Chloe seems calm. I washed her face and gave her one of Vera’s old stuffed animals,” said the aunt.
What was her name? Aunt Tilly? Tully?
“Greenie is in capable hands. He’s my mint-green tiger.” Vera grabbed a plastic teddy bear of honey from a cornflower-blue cabinet. The counters were butcher block, and they had one of those big white sinks that sank super deep. His mom would have loved it. No, she will love it. She’s not dead.
“I should check on her.” Max stood.
“Sit,” Vera’s aunt instructed.
He dropped back down. It had been a long time since he’d been parented. And now his remaining parent…he didn’t know who she was. Or what she was.
“How are you?” Vera sat beside him.
“Freaking out.”
“The spirit’s demonic,” the aunt began, tucking a gray hair behind her ear. “I don’t have my sister’s gift, but I can sense evil, and there’s evil in this town.”
“Aunt Tilda, I said go slow,” Vera whined, as if Aunt Tilda (that was her name!) had broken some sort of agreement. But after what just happened in his mother’s bedroom, they could skip the honey and go straight to the heavy ingredients.
“Just tell me.”
Vera sighed, setting down her tea. “Okay. That shrine, the one we saw in your mom’s closet?” She paused as if needing to jog his memory. No, he was good. The whole thing was hard to forget.
“It’s called the Angel of Tears,” she went on. “It’s the same one I saw in my patient’s room. Remember I asked you about it that first day?” He nodded. Vera continued. “It’s popping up all over the hospital—a Grim Reaper with wings and a burned-out torch. People are praying to it.”
“That’s why those strangers were in my mom’s room?”
“Probably. And by the way you described them, it sounds like they’re—”
“One flew over the batshit nest?”
Vera almost chuckled. “More like brainwashed, or hypnotized—”
“Or possessed?”
She nodded. “And they likely left the offerings.”
“What offerings?” His forehead tightened.
“The wine? The cigarettes? I’m pretty sure that’s where the smoke was coming from.” Vera sounded calm, the perfect tone for a future doctor. It’s stage four, metastatic and inoperable. Can I get you a tissue?
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