The Good Demon

by Jimmy Cajoleas

  I was very good at it, and Gaspar would reward me. It was safe inside the children. I wouldn’t have to roam the dark world thirsting and alone.

  But even that respite became a burden, a pain. The slavery to Gaspar, to his wickedness. I felt what he made Her do, the guilt of it. Yes, She felt guilt, every creature does. She knew the horror of what She did, and it shivered Her down to Her core. There was a Bible verse about that, right? One Roy told me: “The demons also believe, and tremble.” That’s how it was for Her, that’s how it became, that’s how it would be forever.

  Yes, that’s what it was like. That’s exactly it. I knew you would understand me, I knew you could feel what it was like. That’s why I had to get away. When I was with the last boy—Kevin—a girl set us free, and we ran. I was blind with freedom, I wanted to escape, I would have run him so far from here, I would have kept him safe, I would have, Clare, it’s true. But we were struck down. And I roamed for a time, I did, years I escaped, but Gaspar found me, same as he always did. Gaspar called me back, chained me again, sent me out to seek someone new for him.

  “To find me.”

  To find someone, yes, She said. But I found you.

  “Because I was lonely and strange and afraid, just like Kevin. You chose me because I was so easy to fool, because I would believe anything.”

  But you weren’t easy, Clare. You were extraordinary. You were unlike anyone else in the world. Don’t you understand? It was you. You were good, and you loved me. I didn’t know what that was like, how that could feel. Don’t you remember, silly? Don’t you remember how happy we were?

  “Yes, I remember.”

  I loved you, Clare, with all of my being. I never had a friend before, not a real one. I loved you, and I made a deal with Gaspar, to save you. I promised that I would bring him someone else.

  “And you picked Roy?”

  Yes, She said. I picked Roy. But I did it for you, Clare. I did it so we could be together. You’re my friend, silly, the only one I ever had. You are my Only.

  I thought of Roy, tied down, Gaspar bent over him with the knife. No, more than that. I thought of me, tied up in a chair, my back to Gaspar, vulnerable to all the world, with no one there to protect me but myself.

  No one who loved me would put me in a position like that. No one who loved me would ever leave me in the hands of someone like Gaspar. I guess that meant I didn’t love Roy either, since I did the exact same thing to him. Even if he wronged me, he didn’t deserve that. No one deserved that.

  Maybe I didn’t know how to love someone. Not yet, anyhow. Maybe love’s not something you’re born knowing, it’s something you have to learn. It’s something I wanted to learn. I didn’t want to keep hurting people like I had, to keep being hurt all the time. It was too much. Something had to change, something permanent. There was no other choice. Not if all this evil was going to end. Not if life would ever get to be better for any of us.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think I want to go with You.”

  But this is what we wanted. This is everything we ever dreamed of.

  “It used to be what I wanted,” I said. The words hurt me, they stumbled out dumb and useless and irrevocably true. “But I’ve changed. I’m a different person now. When You left I had to change.”

  You want to go back to the boy, don’t you?

  “No.”

  You weren’t supposed to like him so much. I never thought you would, not like that.

  “Listen to me,” I said. “I don’t want him either. I want to be alone. I want to figure out life by myself for once.”

  I could feel Her hurt, I could feel Her heart shattering inside mine. I didn’t know if the tears on my face were Hers or my own.

  “I want You to leave me now,” I said. “I mean it.”

  Please, Clare. I’m your Only, you said so yourself. You did all this to be with me. We were going to be together forever.

  “I need You to leave.” I was crying, I could hardly speak the words. “I love You. I do. Even if You are a liar. You saved me, and I will never not love You.”

  Then let me stay.

  “No,” I said. “I’m my own now. I don’t belong to You anymore. I don’t belong to anyone but myself.”

  When She stepped out of my body it was like lightning ripping the sky in half. My eyes blinded and my ears screamed, it was like my bones splitting from inside the marrow. Nothing has ever hurt me so much, and I pray nothing ever will hurt like that again. It was the separation of something final, the death of a dream.

  And She stood before me, hazy but real. She was a little girl with long black hair and a white dress down to Her ankles. Her face was blurry almost, like when something’s moving too fast in a picture. But I could see Her eyes, and I knew it was Her.

  She growled at me, her mouth twisted into a black hole with fangs jutting from her gums. She could rip me to shreds if She wanted. She could pick me up and bash me into a tree until my skull broke open. I could smell Her breath, a stink of burning, of sulfur and decay. Her fingers twisted into claws, Her fingernails sharp as razors.

  I could slit you open, She said. I could spell words with your guts.

  I was crying, I was crying so hard.

  “But You won’t,” I said. “Because You love me, too. You love me, and You would never do anything like that to me. You would never hurt me.”

  She seemed to shrink then, to dissolve a little. The moonlight shone through Her clear now, as if She weren’t more than smoke.

  I only ever did what you wanted, She said. Everything I did was just for you.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  Who will take care of me now? I’ll be all alone.

  “No, you won’t.”

  Because behind Her stood someone else now. Cléa, eyeless and lovely, with a sad, smiling face. I knew Cléa had been with me, helping me from far off—she had been in the Wish House with me and Roy. A brave girl, and a powerful one, even in death.

  “Will you help Her?” I said to Cléa.

  Cléa nodded.

  I don’t want to go with her, She said. I want to stay with you.

  “Cléa will take good care of You,” I said. “Cléa will take You somewhere nice, won’t you, Cléa?”

  Cléa nodded.

  “Come along, little one,” said Cléa, her voice like someone humming a song. Cléa took Her hand and She didn’t fight, She didn’t scream or pout or holler. She held Cléa’s hand and was brave. Oh, I would miss Her so much. I would miss Her so much I thought it would kill me. They began to walk away from me now, hand in hand.

  “I love You,” I said again, but She didn’t look back at me. Together She and Cléa walked toward the woods and vanished into the black.

  The smoke from the burning Wish House floated high above the trees, and in the far-off distance I heard the sound of sirens coming. I had done it. She was gone and She was never coming back. Blood dribbled from my fingers, dripping softly on the leaves. I had never felt more alone in my whole life.

  I hadn’t realized how bad my hand was cut. It had bled all over my dress, mixing with Gaspar’s blood. There, too, on my leg—a deeper cut, one I wasn’t even sure how I got. In the Wish House, I guess. When I—when we—leapt on Gaspar, during all that. Or maybe when I crawled out the window. But there it was, my leg gushing up blood, my hands torn. It was funny how quick and easy flesh tore, how you could wound yourself so deeply and not even know it. I felt sick, woozy, tired all of a sudden.

  I lay down in the cool leaves and let the moonlight cover me like a blanket. I couldn’t stop crying, the rain falling again, soft on me, the warmth of my own blood sticky on my arms, on my thighs. I curled up in the leaves and earth and shut my eyes—it felt good to shut my eyes, it felt good not to think, it felt good to lie there on the earth all alone.

  I don’t remember much after that.

  Just little snippets of things, moments.

  The sound of tires on a narrow road, brush and small branch
es snapping, voices hollering, “There she is.”

  Two sets of hands on me, lifting me up, sitting me down somewhere soft.

  The soft murmured prayers of voices, a man’s and a boy’s, the wind through the open truck window cold on my bare skin, my blood caked thick and fat all over my legs and spilling down the car seat.

  They came back for me, I thought. They didn’t leave me to die.

  The blood hot and sticky on my hands, the pain in my leg.

  The moon and the stars. Black streaks of thunderclouds off in the distance.

  I woke up in the hospital. Mom was there holding my hand. She looked like she hadn’t slept at all, like she’d spent the whole night crying. The IV hurt, my head hurt, my legs hurt, and my whole body felt beaten and mangled.

  “How you doing, sweetheart?” said Mom.

  “Been better.”

  “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

  I felt that way, a little bit. I was alive. But so empty too, vacant, like an unused wing of a house. It was hard to feel alone in your own body. It’s hard to feel safe in your own bones.

  I looked around for Roy and his dad, but they were gone.

  “Where’d they go?” I said. “Roy and the reverend, I mean.”

  “They didn’t stay, honey. The boy wanted to, but his dad wouldn’t let him.”

  “Figures.”

  Mom put her hand on my head, brushed my hair aside. It’s the kind of loving gesture moms are so good at, the kind that comes less and less the older you get.

  “They aren’t bad people, honey,” she said. “They’re just too severe sometimes. They try so hard to do the right thing they wind up hurting about as much as they help.”

  Maybe so. My head throbbed. I hate breathing that fake, clean stench of hospitals, how they just smell like chemicals, all the dirt and sickness scoured and burned away. The white color of everything, the beeping noises, the blank TV screens that exist for no other reason but to kill time. Hospitals scare me. They always have.

  There was no one here, not a doctor or a nurse, just my mom. No one but my mom . . .

  I shot up in the bed, afraid.

  “Where’s Larry?” I said. “Is he going to take me to the mental home? Are you going to lock me away?”

  Any minute I expected Larry to come barging in the door, police officers at his side, for them to handcuff me for arson and straightjacket me and throw me where no one would ever come see me again.

  I tried to climb out of the hospital bed and run, but Mom held me, she grabbed my face in her hands and stared at me, her eyes red-rimmed and sad, my own mother heartbroken.

  “Larry’s gone, sweetie,” she said. “I told him he had to leave. I told him he had to leave and he could never come back.”

  I stared at her in wonder. Had she done it, really? Was this still my mom, always so small and terrified? Had she finally changed, become brave? Or had she just done what she had to do, to keep me?

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said.

  “Me too,” she said.

  Mom began to cry, and I did too. In the hospital room, amid the antiseptic stink and beep and thrum of hospital machinery, Mom reached for me, and we held each other and we wept and we clung together. And we were not alone.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Mary Marge Locker, for reading this a million times. Your faith and love keep me going every day.

  Mom, Dad, and Chris. Your love and support means everything. The brilliant Jess Regel, my agent, my guide, my confidant. Thanks for sticking with me.

  Maggie Lehrman, for her faith in this book and for editing it with so much love, compassion, and understanding.

  Emily Daluga, for her patience, kindness, and skill.

  Will Stephenson, my genius Terror Tuesday buddy.

  Megan Abbott, the world’s actual living greatest.

  William Boyle, the brave and strong.

  True hero Jack Pendarvis.

  Liam Baranauskas, the realest heart on earth.

  P.S. Dean, who I trust the most.

  Len Clark, for the faith and friendship.

  Suzanna Best, who loves scary movies as much as I do.

  Tom Franklin, for giving me hell about the original short story, pushing me, and challenging me until I wrote it better (and then I still had to start over twice).

  Thanks be to God, always.

  To all my friends. I wouldn’t be anything without y’all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jimmy Cajoleas grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. He earned his MFA from the University of Mississippi and now lives in New York.

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