Page 36 of Play Nice

“It’s been here for a very long time. Even before this house was built.

It lived in the woods. This is its home.

Demons aren’t eager for change. That may sound surprising, since often they’re depicted in the media as entities keen to take possession of new bodies.

Children, mostly. Corrupting innocence. An easy sell in Hollywood.

For the Catholic Church, God forgive me. ”

“I’m telling Father Bernard,” I said.

He smiled, and it was the first and only happiness I felt that day. “Tattletale.”

I mimed zipping my lips. Locking. Throwing away the key.

“Most of the demons I’ve encountered, I compare them to channel surfers.

They stay in one spot, watching. If they get bored, they might sleep, hibernate.

If they aren’t tired and they don’t like what they see—or, depending on their personality, if they like what they see—they might intervene.

Communicate. Engage. Attach. They’ve been around for so long that they don’t understand or don’t care about the degree to which they affect us. They don’t have empathy.”

“Is this your way of telling me it’s hopeless? That it won’t leave?”

“It’s not hopeless. But it won’t be easy. It likes your channel.”

“That makes one of us,” I said. “So, what’s next? I move?”

“You could try. But you may not be able to sell the house. Not if it doesn’t want you to leave.”

—

I turn to the next page, and there’s a word scribbled in giant letters, in red Sharpie, rendering the text beneath it unreadable.

HOME

My phone rings somewhere in the house, throwing me for a second.

I look up to see that it’s right in front of me. It’s on the coffee table. I set the book aside and reach for it. Veronica’s calling me.

I hit ignore.

So many missed calls. Messages. Notifications.

Pressing my thumb down, unlocking, opening Instagram; I do it all with this calm detachment.

When I watch my stories, one with the photo of the cigarettes and vodka and sketchpads on the dining table, a dozen others with the pictures I took of my childhood house drawings, I don’t panic.

Why panic when it’s already too late? People have already seen them.

The last two stories feature photos I must have taken by accident.

One of the closet, more specifically, the opening to the attic inside my closet.

And finally, a blurry selfie of me smiling, my eyes bloodshot, mascara streaming down my dirty face, hair a mess, snake charm dangling toward the camera.

It takes so much to build an image. It takes next to nothing to destroy one.

There’s a thud . The sound tears through my body like an electrocution.

Heat surges, sweat pours, and then I’m empty. I’m freezing.

It’s terror and it’s relief. And it’s here. It’s here. It’s home.

“Hello,” I say, keeping my gaze straight ahead.

Another thud .

A moment of quiet. And then the dragging. The floorboards squealing underneath a creeping, ambiguous weight.

There’s a faint clink —contact with glass, followed by the abrupt arrival of pain.

Something just hit the back of my head.

The hot pink lighter. It’s landed on my shoulder, slid down to my lap. It rests now at the heel of my right hand.

“Hello,” says a voice. A disorienting, incomprehensibly foul voice.

My thoughts go sticky with fear, cling together, scream over each other.

What do I do? Turn around. Look. Don’t look.

Don’t move. No. Run. I’m cold. I’m so cold.

I’m sweating. I’m ruining this beautiful dress.

It’s ruined. You’re ruining your beautiful life.

It’s ruined. It’s been ruined. You ruined it.

You want to feel something. You feel too much.

You. You hate everything you feel. You need to feel something different. Something louder.

You should light yourself on fire.

The lighter is already in my hand. The flame is yellow with a dark core. It drifts. Dances. I watch it. All the different shapes it makes.

Mom in my head. It hurts right now, but by the time we get home, you won’t feel it.

I am home. And I don’t feel it.

That foul voice at my back. It will feel like nothing.

The flame meets my skin, my scar, my old burn. And I feel nothing .

But the smell.

The smell.

My gasp echoes through the house as I understand what I’m doing, as my skin smokes. I turn around and pitch the lighter into the living room. The lights have gone out in the hall, which stretches back like an open throat. Laughter rumbles out from it.

The door to Leda and Daphne’s room slowly closes itself, hinges singing at an earsplitting pitch.

As soon as it shuts, the pounding starts.

Whatever’s behind it, it bangs against the door.

Mom in my head again. I will bleed you out! I will bleed you out!

“Stop!” I cover my ears. Close my eyes. “Stop!”

My hands only muffle the sound. The hinges. The dragging.

I think about Jed. His headphones. Bleeding out of his ears.

Made up. Not true. Not real.

I let my hands fall. Open my eyes just in time to see a flash of something vanish downstairs, a shadow in darkness.

Not real. Not true. Made up.

There’s one person who could validate what actually happened. Who might be able to help me. Who will believe me. I don’t know if I can trust him, if I can trust a single word that comes out of his mouth, but he’s all I have.

I’m here for you, Clio. You and your sisters. If you ever need anything.

It’s time I take Roy up on his offer.