by Nancy Holder
“An A-minus?” Mrs. Snyder asked.
Cecil nodded with a satisfied smile.
“It should have been an A-plus,” she said dismissively.
“But, you just—,” Cecil began.
“I hope you don’t think that with grades like that you’re going to get anywhere in this life, young man,” Mrs. Snyder continued. “An A-minus is not an A-plus, and you will be an A-plus student or you will end up digging ditches like your pathetic excuse for a father. How do you expect to do better than a measly fifth place in this year’s spelling bee if you don’t even know how to prepare for a test when you’re given the words in advance? I am so disappointed in you, Cecil.”
“I only missed the bonus words,” Cecil tried to defend himself.
“You’re weak, Cecil,” Mrs. Snyder went on. “You should be ten chapters ahead of everyone else in that class. You’re better than all of them, but you refuse to apply yourself. By the time I was your age, I had already been promoted two grade levels above my peers. Your stupidity is unacceptable. You will work harder if I have to stand over you with a belt every minute of the day until your grades improve.”
Cecil seemed to have lost his appetite. Buffy could easily understand why. Joyce would have rewarded Buffy warmly for academic performance such as Cecil’s. She always wanted Buffy to excel, but never chastised her daughter unless she thought Buffy wasn’t doing her personal best. That had always been Joyce’s only expectation of Buffy, and to this day, Buffy knew in her heart she had lived up to it, even if her current grades made that hard for Joyce to see.
“You haven’t finished your dinner,” Mrs. Snyder said with a hint of menace when she noted the same look Buffy had seen on Cecil’s face.
“I’m full,” Cecil said softly.
Buffy couldn’t help the ache that started to pound in her heart at his obvious disappointment. She knew he must have been thinking of his treasured fifth-place spelling bee trophy. She also thought she had begun to understand why he would have gone to such lengths to get it.
“You are an ungrateful worm,” Mrs. Snyder replied. “I slaved over that stove for hours today to make your favorite dinner, and this is how you repay my generosity? You will finish every last crumb of food on that plate and you will do it with a smile on your face or so help me this will be the last meal I will ever prepare for you.”
Wow.
Finally, Buffy saw clearly the monster she was about to face.
As best as Buffy could tell, Cecil was a pleasant enough child, despite his taste in comic books, and he obviously strove daily to please his mother in everything he did. But there never was nor would there ever be any way of pleasing this woman. People like Mrs. Snyder weren’t interested in accomplishment. They were only interested in power.
Buffy had been given a crash course in power once she’d become the Slayer. She’d already learned it was a difficult gift, one she tried to wield with respect and as much humility as she could muster. But Mrs. Snyder didn’t understand power. She obviously had needs that little Cecil could never fill, but she would ride him mercilessly in an attempt to force him to do so. She didn’t care about Cecil’s grades or his dirty hands. She fed off of the power she had over him. She beat him with it, running him down to make herself feel better and to ensure her place of dominance.
It was sick.
And it had undoubtedly made Principal Snyder the man he was.
Buffy had come here imagining all kinds of physical abuse that Snyder might be suffering. Instead, she realized, his punishment at his mother’s hands was infinitely more subtle and cruel. By transforming Snyder back into a child and forcing him to submit to her will, the evil demon was ripping apart his heart and tearing at his spirit, just as she had undoubtedly done every day of his young life.
Buffy understood emotional torture. She’d endured it for months at Angelus’s hands.
She’d heard more than enough.
Buffy raised the ax that rested in her hand and stepped into the entryway so that both Cecil and Mrs. Snyder could see her clearly. “Hey,” she said sharply. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”
Mrs. Snyder’s face turned quickly. Her mouth hardened into a sneer, and her eyes glinted. “Who are you?” she demanded. “You were not invited to this place and you certainly don’t belong here.”
“Hi!” Cecil said, smiling at Buffy. “Mom, this is my friend. Can she stay for dinner?”
“Your friend?” Mrs. Snyder said incredulously. “You don’t have any friends.”
“But, she …” Cecil trailed off.
“With the people skills you’ve taught him, that’s almost hard to believe, isn’t it?” Buffy interjected.
Mrs. Snyder rose from her seat at the table and moved to face Buffy squarely. “Who are you?” she asked again.
“I’m the Slayer,” Buffy said simply. “And you’re done. I don’t know where you came from and I don’t really care. ’Cause you’re not going back there, either. In fact, I don’t think there’s a hell hot enough for momsters like you.”
“Then you’ve never seen hell,” Mrs. Snyder replied. “But I’ll gladly fix that.”
Buffy felt her hands start to tingle.
Then she felt the pain as the muscles in her arms and legs began to burn and pull.
Without thought she sent the ax in her hand spinning toward Mrs. Snyder. It embedded itself firmly in her chest with a satisfying thwump, and Buffy instantly felt the pain subside.
“Mommy!” Cecil cried out, rising from the table.
“Stay out of this, Cecil!” both Buffy and Mrs. Snyder shouted in unison.
Cecil replied by rushing to a corner of the dining room, where he cowered in terror, whimpering.
“Probably not a good idea to waste your only weapon so quickly,” Mrs. Snyder sneered, pulling the ax from her chest and splintering its handle in her grip. Looking up, Buffy watched as the face of the sweet, beneficent grandmother began to fade. Mrs. Snyder didn’t seem bothered by the boils and harsh red welts erupting all over it, spewing pus and yellowish bile. Buffy had to admit, however, that it made what had to come next a little easier. Finally the monster she was fighting looked the part.
“You might want to see a dermatologist about that,” Buffy said.
In an instant she closed the space between them and jabbed a quick kick combination into Mrs. Snyder’s chest. The demon fell back, crashing into her chair and breaking it to pieces before she hit the floor.
But she was on her feet again, almost before Buffy could recover her balance. Shrieking, she flew at Buffy, her arms outstretched, and grabbed the Slayer by the throat.
Buffy replied with a knuckle punch to the demon’s neck. It shocked Mrs. Snyder enough to loosen her grip. Buffy threw both arms up between the demon’s, spinning quickly to disengage herself. She completed the turn, crouching low and extending her right leg, and succeeded in taking Mrs. Snyder off her feet.
Once she was down, Buffy landed on top of her and began to pummel her ooze-caked face.
But Mrs. Snyder wasn’t going to be finished off that easily. She squirmed for a moment, then, catching one of Buffy’s punches in her meaty palm, grabbed Buffy firmly by the waist with her other hand and threw her over her head, sending Buffy flipping through the air and into the china cabinet. Buffy was caught for a moment in a rain of glass shards and splintered wood, but she quickly pulled herself up and, rounding the dining table, caught her breath with the table between them. Mrs. Snyder rose from the ground and began to slowly circle the table toward Buffy.
“Is that all you’ve got, girl?” Mrs. Snyder demanded.
“Nope. Not even close,” Buffy replied.
With that, Buffy leaped up on the table and, grabbing the chandelier above her head, swung herself back for a little momentum before pitching herself feetfirst into the demon.
Mrs. Snyder was thrown back clean through the dining room wall and into the entryway.
She recovered her feet quickly
and waited for Buffy to follow. The Slayer did so, landing a series of punishing jabs to her face and torso. Mrs. Snyder answered with a right hook of her own that pushed Buffy back toward the front door.
“You will leave this place!” the demon shouted. “You are not welcome here.”
“Oh, don’t kid yourself, lady,” Buffy replied. “No one is welcome here.”
“This is my home!” the demon shouted between punches.
“This isn’t a home,” Buffy replied with a jump kick that uppercut Mrs. Snyder’s jaw. “It’s hell.”
The insult struck Mrs. Snyder more heavily than any of Buffy’s blows.
“You’re just a child,” Mrs. Snyder replied, sucking wind. “You couldn’t possibly understand a mother’s love.”
“I understand that you don’t love your child even a little,” Buffy retorted, taking the advantage and knocking the demon to the floor, where she skidded back toward the staircase.
“Cecil is my whole world.” Mrs. Snyder shuddered. Buffy couldn’t be sure, but she thought that the demon might be on the verge of tears. “I gave him everything I had to give. I even sacrificed the love of his good-for-nothing father so that Cecil wouldn’t be tainted by his bad example.”
Buffy paused.
I guess Cecil wasn’t wrong about that quail-hunting trip.
Mrs. Snyder pulled herself up and actually seated herself on the bottom stair as she continued. “All I ever wanted was his love.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” Buffy replied.
“He was such a timid child.”
“Gee, with you as a mother, I can’t imagine why,” Buffy snapped back.
“As long as he was mine, I could protect him. Push him to do better. Make him see that this world has no place in it for the weak.”
“And fun as this little trip down rationalization lane is,” Buffy retorted, “could you get up so I can kick your ass some more?”
“He betrayed me,” Mrs. Snyder whimpered weakly. Reaching into her pocket, she removed a crumpled piece of parchment, rough around the edges, and tossed it toward Buffy.
Equal parts wary and intrigued, Buffy picked it up and opened it. It was written in a script Buffy didn’t recognize, heavy black strokes and curls in an ancient and no doubt evil language. The only words that Buffy could clearly read were midway through the third paragraph: “Paulina Christina Snyder.”
Paulina! That’s it, Buffy thought, remembering Willow’s research.
“You know, my demon-translating skills are kind of rusty,” Buffy finally said, tossing the paper back to Paulina.
“He sold me to the demons!” Paulina shrieked with pain and rage. “My own son paid in his flesh and blood to have me banished to a demon dimension!”
Buffy did a little quick math in her head and realized that if Paulina was speaking the truth—and Buffy didn’t doubt she was—then Cecil would have made this pact with the forces of darkness well into his adult years.
Paulina had wound herself up into a full rant.
“I gave him my entire life. But that wasn’t enough for him. He lived with me for years, even after he’d finished college, and I never said a word. If he was happy here, I was happy to have him.”
Maybe we all need to look again at the definition of “happy,” Buffy thought.
“And what he gave me in return was an eternal existence in a place … I can’t begin to describe. No one understands how to make a bed or clean himself properly. They’ve never even heard of detergent. And the food …”
“Picked up a few tips there, did you?” Buffy asked.
Paulina replied with a glare.
“All I wanted was to have my life back to the way it was before Cecil made that terrible mistake. I know if he’d really understood what he was doing, he would never have traded my life so cheaply. I had a little boy who loved me. I just wanted him back here at home, where I could love him and teach him and know that he was mine again. Is that so wrong?”
Buffy couldn’t even begin to count the number of wrongs around her. All that she knew for sure was that Paulina Snyder had most certainly reaped what she had sown.
“Look,” Buffy said, “I’m not your judge or your jury. The demon dust you use to bring your son back to you every night through that gateway is seeping out into my world and putting everyone to sleep. You want to go back to whatever snake pit you crawled out of, make it quick and don’t ever let me see that incredibly ugly face of yours again. Otherwise, it’s fight to the death time.”
Paulina didn’t even take a second to consider Buffy’s more than generous offer. Leaping up off the step, she flew at Buffy, punching her hard in the chest and sending her flying back into the dining room.
All right, Buffy thought. Option two, it is.
They could trade blows like this indefinitely. Buffy needed to finish this, and for that, she needed a weapon. Her ax lay in pieces on the floor across the room. Though the blade was still intact, it was too far for her to reach with Paulina bearing down on her again. Turning to her left, she found her answer.
The face of President John F. Kennedy.
The image smiled up at her in all of his youthful, charismatic charm. With only a hint of regret, Buffy grabbed the plate, snapped it in half to give herself a sharp edge, and brought it swinging wide across her body as Paulina swooped down upon her. Putting all of her strength into the sweep, Buffy felt the impact of the clean, sharp porcelain blade as it met Paulina’s neck, severing her head in one motion.
Paulina’s headless body fell across Buffy’s. She quickly pulled herself out from beneath it and clambered to her feet, standing to catch her breath amid the wreckage of the room and the lingering odor of garlic-infused meat loaf that would forever turn her stomach from this point forward.
The first part of her mission accomplished, Buffy started to hurry upstairs to retrieve the trophy and get out when she was stopped in her tracks by the sounds of Cecil whimpering behind her. He still sat in the corner of the dining room, rocking back and forth, his legs pulled to his chest protectively.
“Did you … did you see that?” he stammered.
“I had a pretty good seat,” she replied.
“Her … face,” he finally forced out.
“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when they run out of moisturizer in hell,” Buffy said simply.
“No one else has ever seen it,” Cecil said, looking up at Buffy in something close to awe. “My friends all think she’s so sweet, at least the ones she lets me have over. They don’t think much of her cooking, but I guess they just can’t handle the spice. Otherwise, though, they think she’s a perfect mother. I tried once to tell them about that face, how she changes so quickly when I make her mad, but no one ever believed me.”
Buffy paused for a moment, then crossed to Cecil and held a hand out to him. He took it and allowed her to help him to his feet.
“I believe you, Cecil,” Buffy said, surprised at the warmth in her voice. “Now let’s get out of here.”
Buffy turned to head upstairs, and Cecil was immediately right on her heels. “You’re not going to leave me, are you?”
“Nope.” Buffy shook her head reassuringly. “I just have to get something. I’ll be right back.”
Moments later, Buffy was back downstairs with the trophy in her hands. Cecil’s face lit up when he saw it.
“Oh, please,” he pleaded, “can I have it?”
“Sure,” Buffy said. “It’s yours, after all.” Passing it to him, she took his free hand and together they walked through the gateway and onto the porch.
To Buffy’s surprise, it was nearing dawn in Sunnydale. But it was a silent dawn, the same oppressive silence that had hung over Sunnydale the entire day Buffy had waited for Snyder to return to the house for the last time.
Cecil stood on the porch beside her, somewhat disoriented. “What am I doing here?” he asked.
Buffy turned quickly to face him. It wasn’t what he said that betrayed him, it w
as his tone that gave everything away.
“Miss Summers?” Principal Snyder asked incredulously.
There was now no doubt in her mind that little Cecil Snyder was once again buried in the adult Snyder’s subconscious, and the man she was facing was going to want an explanation.
She didn’t know where to begin.
Fortunately, she was spared the need to say anything as Snyder realized he was holding something in his hand. His confused concern gave way to something resembling faint delight as he considered the trophy.
“You know, it’s the damnedest thing,” he said. “I woke up the other day in my mother’s old house, and there it was, just like I remembered it, on my old dresser. I must have been carrying it around with me since then, I just don’t remember.…” He trailed off.
“My guess is, there will be a lot of that going on,” Buffy suggested.
“Where are my shoes?” was Snyder’s next question. “Do you know that’s the fifth pair of shoes I’ve misplaced this week?”
Suddenly, Snyder doubled over in pain. At first it seemed that he had been gut-punched, and Buffy instantly went on alert. Invisible demons were rare, but certainly not unheard of, in her experience. Seconds later, however, the source of Snyder’s pain became clear. Dropping the trophy, Snyder fell to the porch, both hands grasping his bare left foot. As Buffy watched in fascinated horror, his left pinkie toe was ripped from its rightful place on his foot and disappeared in a magickal twinkle of light.
“Owwwww!” Snyder shrieked in pain as blood began to pour from the small gaping wound.
Mystery solved, Buffy thought. No wonder he’s been wearing bloody bandages everywhere he went this week. He must have lost that toe each morning.… Oh, wait a minute.
“Don’t tell me,” Buffy said, growing queasy at the very idea. “The price you paid in flesh and blood to have your mother banished to a demon dimension was your toe?” she asked in disbelief.
Snyder was in too much pain to answer. He clambered onto all fours, trying to rise up on his remaining good foot.
Buffy started to help him, when another thought occurred to her, a thought that made the oppressive silence around her a little more understandable.