by B. B. Palomo
“There’s no one there, Willow,” Adira insisted.
I didn’t acknowledge her. Instead I waited for Cora to say something. Tears collected in her eyes as she stared on, not denying what they were saying. My heart cracked as breath built in my chest, ready to beg her to say it wasn’t true. How could it be?
“I’m so sorry,” Cora finally whispered and it was the first time I’d noticed the slight glimmer surrounding her body.
“No.” I turned back to Noah. “No, no, no, no. This isn’t happening.”
Just let me in.
“We can get through this.” Noah maintained, but his words barely registered over the voice inside my head.
Let go. You can sleep now.
“Oh my—Willow.” Adira shuffled back, fear rearranging her features.
I can make it all go away.
“Shut up!” The scream tore from my body.
My skin tingled as I fought for the authority I didn’t know was capable of being lost. I flattened my palms to my skull, the itchy sensation of another occupant scratching along the surface. Noah took a step forward as I retreated with my hands raised in a silent plea for distance. I was sick. My skin crawled with the realization I was not alone.
Nothing made sense anymore.
My back hit the fridge, and I turned, catching my reflection in an old mirror that was hung up on the wall for decoration. I couldn’t control the gasp that left me as my fingers shot up to my face. My eyes were sunken in, surrounded by the blues and purples of pure exhaustion. Though that wasn’t what frightened me. What I now knew everyone else was seeing was the enlarged pupils bleeding out to the corners of my eyes, blocking most of the white that should be there. What little bit of color was left had turned bright red, making me look infectious. My face had started to hollow, as if I hadn’t eaten in a couple weeks, the usually plump skin of my cheeks inverting to touch each other in my mouth.
I looked back toward everyone, fear clutching me tight. They surrounded me as if I was about to bolt, and honestly, a part of me wanted to. I knew this was not how I woke up. These thoughts were not my own, the voice coming from my mouth coated with someone else’s vengeance, and I wanted out. The real me needed to be free, but just as I pushed back against the idea, the slimy claw of whatever had been following me, whatever had attached itself to my hip tried to take hold and pull me back into its clutches.
“Help me,” I cried out just as something shoved me forward, my hand barely making it in time to brace my fall, but it wasn’t enough. My chin cracked off the floor, splitting open immediately. I tried to roll away, but there was no way to determine which direction, if any, would be the right choice.
“Willow,” Noah yelled as I was yanked back and dragged down the hallway, the bitter tang in my mouth an aforethought.
My overgrown nails snapped as I tried to stop the motion and dig myself into the floor. The pressure on my ankle bent my bone, and I was positive it would burst from the strength of the force that clasped it. I reached out for Noah as he dove toward me. His strong hands wrapped around one of my wrists and then the other, locking me in a painful tug-a-war between whatever had me and freedom.
Almost unnoticeable in the commotion was the subtle snap of a band in my mind. There was no time to worry about the pain, even as a warm trickle of blood dripped from my nose. I summoned the courage to look behind me, the evil energy bringing vomit to my mouth. The mass I’d expected to see just like every other time wasn’t there. Replacing it was a creature even my worst nightmare couldn’t construct.
Leather skin covered the face of something that wasn’t quite human or beast. His eyes were black orbs, deader than the darkest night sky. Each side of his head had horns, facing upside down and curving toward his cheeks. Scales ran up his neck, some jutting out like barbs on a fishing hook. His body was lanky, each limb bending in a way that defied physiology. He sat like a crab, animalistic feet digging into the ground as clawed fingers matching the bruises I had on my leg held me, pulling me closer.
My chest paralyzed, only allowing thick tears to run down my cheek as the scream locked inside. The creature smiled, razor-sharp teeth filling his mouth at my struggle. I turned away as he tightened his grip and yank, sending Noah scrambling to adjust his grip.
“Please,” I begged as Noah and I started back down the hallway, his strength alone not being enough to stop the motion. “Don’t let me go!”
“I’ll never.” He promised and squeezed my wrists tighter. “Help me!” he called back to Adira, who stood shell-shocked, staring down what was probably to her an empty hallway.
Adira snapped from her trance and plunged forward. Her nails bit into my skin as she gripped my arm. Pure terror drained the color from her face when she felt the resistance still carrying us down the hallway. I cried out as talons scorched their way up my legs and gripped into my back for more leverage. I couldn’t bring myself to look again, imagining the demon crouched over my body. The skin across my back burned and broke as my friends refused to let go.
Noah’s eyes pleaded for an end, but his lips never moved, afraid it would break his concentration. They pulled harder, my spine stretching until I was sure I’d be ripped in two. I screamed as the clammy grip on my arms started to loosen. I knew if they lost their grip, it would be the end.
“Let her go!”
The claws in my back disappeared and we all fell into a pile. Cora stood over me, hand outstretched as if to say stop. She faltered, knees buckling under her body, unable to hold her upright any longer. I shook my head. She couldn’t leave me. As if she was able to read my mind she smiled reassuringly.
“I’ll be back,” she said before her body flickered and disappeared from sight.
“What the fuck is happening?” Adira screamed, righting herself and backing away from me like I could infect her next.
“Adira—” I tried to speak, but my throat closed up painfully.
“The board,” Noah said suddenly, a lightbulb going off in his head. “This started with that!”
“We need to get rid of it.” Adira looked around like it would magically appear.
At the mention of getting rid of the board, the pressure around my neck grew, closing off my windpipe. My hands flew to my throat as I inhaled, nothing more than a gurgle coming in or out. I clawed at the skin, trying to draw the oxygen around me into my burning lungs unsuccessfully.
“What’s wrong?” Noah panicked.
“Her face is turning blue,” Adira said.
I fell forward onto my hands, my heart slowing from the caged bat in my chest to a slow thud as my vision tunneled everything around me. I could feel the indent of the demon’s hand around my neck, those five long fingers easily able to encircle the length of it.
“I’ll find it,” Noah shouted, sounding like he had already gotten up and was on the move. “Watch over Willow.”
“I think we should burn it. That way it can’t be used again.” Adira sounded far away too, but I wasn’t sure if it was because she’d followed Noah or because everything around me was drifting away in a slow tide.
“Hurry.”
I attached myself to the light touch of Adira’s hand on my hair, praying it would be enough to keep me grounded. My face rested on the cool floor, no longer able to hold myself up. Everything I thought I knew about death was wrong. I felt cold but detached—neither afraid nor content. I just existed, waiting for the comfort of darkness to take me to sleep. To deliver me to my dad.
“You need to hurry!” She repeated.
“I got it,” Noah yelled.
“The sink.” Adira’s hand moved away from me before the faint smell of burning drifted to my nose.
The pressure grew loose at first before leaving completely like the battle had been won. I sucked in hungry breaths, greedily inhaling in-between the coughs that racked my body. Noah rushed to my side, rubbing my back like it would help me fill my lungs. I kept my hands at my throat, trying to protect myself for round two. It felt r
aw to the touch. Every breath in or swallow burned on its way down.
A deep, ravenous growl shook the house. The rage could be felt seeping from the walls as it swirled around us, doors rattling on their hinges. It was nothing like that night. This wasn’t a warning. It was the ferocity of something not close to being human, being robbed of its goal. Adira covered her ears, and Noah threw himself over my body like the house was about to collapse, not willing to let anything else touch me. Everything seemed to explode. The windows shattered, their frames blowing open as the shards of glass rained around us in painful slices. Every door in the house blew open, their locks doing little to keep them in place. Pictures fell from the wall, shattering against the ground as our personal earthquake grew around us.
Then, everything went quiet.
The very air surrounding our bodies stilled, the only sound coming from the downpour outside. It was the type of calm that comes after a tornado has ravaged a town, leaving nothing but the wreckage for survivors to pick through as they thank their God for the life that was spared. Slowly, Noah lifted his head to look around, all of us quickly following. The window’s remains littered on the floor, and as Noah helped me to my feet, I took care not to move too fast and cut myself. He didn’t let go once we were up, instead keeping a firm grip on my arm, making sure to tuck me under his shoulder, so I was close.
“Is everyone okay?” he asked, but looked directly at me, wincing at my neck before trailing wide eyes to search my face. When his face relaxed slightly, I knew my eyes were back to normal.
In fact, everything felt—normal.
The heaviness of the house was gone. The light from outside, though still cloudy, shined into the glassless panes like the windows had been boarded up for years. I sucked in a calming breath and released it slowly, expelling anything negative left in my body out with it. The weight on my shoulders was gone, along with the migraine I hadn’t been able to get rid of in days.
I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t know what to say, so I closed it and instead leaned into Noah’s embrace, hoping he’d feel how sorry I was for not seeing what was happening, for not trusting him.
“What the hell?” a shrill voice came from the front door. “Is that a fire?”
My mom bum-rushed the room, running to the sink to turn the faucet on and try and put out the flames that were still burning hot on the coals of what was left of the Ouija board. The gray smoke billowed up as the water extinguished the last of the embers. She swatted her hand back and forth to try to break up the smog, the wheels clearly turning heavily in her head. She looked back at us, eyes darting around her destroyed home and the state we were in.
“Someone needs to tell me exactly what went on here.” Her vision landed hard on me. “Now.”
Chapter Sixteen
No one took the time to clean any of the mess off the floor, instead opting to stand around in the kitchen, not quite sure what to do with themselves or the circumstance we’d found ourselves in.
Well, everyone except for me.
My legs could barely hold the weight of my body, having most of my energy expelled with that thing inside me.
The silence had a malleable presence, waiting for someone to shift it one way or another as Mom looked at us for an answer to why her home sat here destroyed. The rain had thankfully stopped, but puddles still quivered at each broken window every time someone transferred their weight from one foot to the other. They needed to be addressed before they soaked into anything substantial, but even as the final drops fell from the seals, it was the least of our worries.
“I used the Ouija board,” I said finally, feeling like it answered the fundamental question of how I got here.
Mom’s eyes bulged. She was furious at the admission, and I immediately wished I’d not broken the silence at all. Adira tried to jump in and save me, even now trying to pull me from the depths of the consequences of that night’s actions.
“We used it,” she said, drawing my mom’s attention. “It wasn’t just Willow.”
I was undeserving of her defense. Not after I’d thought such vile things about her and our friendship. It didn’t matter to me that those thoughts were influenced by something evil—I should’ve known better. My friends would never hurt me like that, and the moment I forgot, I hurt them instead.
It reminded me of what Mom had said before, about her wishing I’d died instead of my dad. The way her lips didn’t match up with the words circling in my head, and now, when I thought harder, did it even resemble her real voice?
So easily everything about the people I loved, about who I was, could be dismantled with a simple, devious suggestion. It even led me to seriously injury Timmy. Sure, he was an awful person and needed a lesson in right from wrong, but I wasn’t that judge. I’d almost executed someone and no part of me, the real me, wanted that on my conscience.
I ran a quick hand over my jeans, trying to rid the memory of how smooth the rock felt in my hand and how easy it was to swing against another human being. I kept my head down, afraid Mom could see the indiscretion as it played on repeat behind my eyes. I knew scrubbing that from my memory wouldn’t be easy.
“What on earth would make you do that? You knew I didn’t want you messing with that.” She splayed both hands firmly against her hips, tapping an irate toe against the floor.
“I know,” I said and glanced at Adira, who smiled for support. “I wanted to try and talk to Dad, and you never really said why I shouldn’t use it.”
“I don’t think I have to give you an explanation for everything,” she said.
“Why?” I asked softly. “If you knew the board could work, why wouldn’t you say that?”
“I-It can’t,” she stuttered, shaking her head. “It’s just a chunk of wood. I just don’t like them, that’s all.”
“Mrs. Harper.” Noah cleared his throat. “With all due respect, it did work—does work. Adira and I saw it with our own eyes. We let something in, and it attached itself to Willow.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She laughed without humor. Her eyes were wild, darting around the house as she checked for this thing we were talking about.
“It’s not.” Adira raised her voice and motioned around us. “How could we do this?”
Mom’s hands began to tremor. As soon as she noticed, she wrung them together, trying to conceal it. Her words said she didn’t believe us, but the way she acted spoke to a truth hiding just beyond her lips.
“That’s not all.” I gulped, unsure of how to continue. “I think I’ve been seeing ghosts—since the accident.”
“W-what?” she sputtered as my friends’ heads swiveled in my direction.
“The first time I noticed it was with Ms. Leonard. There was a man following her around and again with—” I didn’t realize I was crying until Noah squeezed my arm in a gentle attempt at consoling me without words. The silent affliction had slipped from my lids, encouraged by the raw honesty I still wasn’t overly comfortable sharing. “With Cora.”
Mom looked at me strangely, like she was seeing me for the first time. She didn’t scoff or tell me how wrong I was. I’d almost hoped she would, hoped she’d have some reasonable explanation. Instead, just kept her eyes plastered on me, willing me to understand something she hadn’t spoken.
She took an unsteady breath before coming to some type of resolution.
“Willow.” She winced at my name like the mere syllables on her tongue scorched the skin. “I think it’s time I shared something with you.”
“What haven’t you told me?” I asked, painfully aware that I wouldn’t like the answer. I didn’t need any more confirmation than the mist already coating guilty eyes. Mom pulled her lips in, lubricating them to spill the words that were going to unravel my world.
“You don’t remember this, but you were a sick child.” She fisted her hand as the memories flew back. “Late night hospital trips, weeks of being too sick to move, the doctors couldn’t figure it out. I thought you had made up imag
inary friends to cope with the loneliness of it all, but your friends, you talked like they were so real. One day you mentioned my dad. You could describe him down to the nevus under his left eye. You repeated stories you had no way of knowing.” She chuckled. “It scared me.
“Grammy knew after that you’d inherited the sight, a gift her mother had. I didn’t want that life for you—that fear. I’d asked her if there was anything we could do, so Grammy helped you suppress it.” Mom shook her head like she wished she could take it back. “It was an awful smelling tea, but after that, we never heard of your friends again.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“We took a piece of you away, Willow. There was no way to know how that would affect you, how big a piece it was. After that, you got sicker, like that was the only thing keeping you afloat. When you were three, your dad and I rushed you to the emergency room. We hadn’t been able to break your fever in days, and by the time we got there, you were unconscious. The doctors did everything they could, but your brain scans said it was too late.”
“But I’m fine,” I said, knowing I meant alive. My body screamed that I wasn’t even close to okay.
“Your dad loved you so much. We both did,” she continued like I hadn’t said anything. “He would have done anything to save you. He—he made a deal in exchange for your life.” Tears streamed freely from her eyes.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. If I’d ever thought I was the crazy one, she was proving me dead wrong and taking the cake. I guessed the apple really didn’t fall far from the tree. Grammy was nuts, Mom was certifiably insane, and I saw ghosts.
“How do you do that? Like, do a rain dance and call out to Satan?” Adira chimed in, most likely second-guessing her distance to the door and escape from us.
“Write a letter,” I added, still laughing at the absurdity.
“It’s not funny,” she snapped, sending me back against my chair. “He ran off with the help of your grammy, and the next thing I knew, you’d woken up, surprising us all. One minute we were told to start planning a funeral, and the next, you’re healthier than ever.”