by Ania Ahlborn
Despite her shot nerves, the fact that her parents were home gave Maggie more confidence to keep her eyes closed. Nothing bad could happen when they were home, right? That, and the repetitive nature of that tapping eventually lulled her in a trance.
Tap, tap, tap.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Just don’t look. If she didn’t see the shadow, she could pretend it didn’t exist.
It might have been an hour, or a minute, or just a few seconds of slipping away, but it felt like she’d been sleeping for days when her unconsciousness started to lighten around its otherwise dark edges. She shifted her weight, unable to feel the bed beneath her. She groped for the mattress, for her blankets, but there was nothing but air. In her mind—in real life?—she was floating, equidistantly suspended between the mattress and the ceiling, her hair cascading down toward the floor as hungry, twitching figures filled every corner of her room.
Maggie struggled against that still-clinging sleep, fighting to open her eyes. It’s coming! Somehow, she was sure that the moment they blinked open, she’d hit the mattress with a heavy thump. But that was impossible. It was that movie, that scary levitation scene. Things like that were nothing but Hollywood. They couldn’t happen in real life.
But her skepticism offered no comfort. Wake up! She bolted upright, miraculously seated upon her bed. With heaving breaths, she searched the walls of her room, pausing to stare into corners that were a little too dark despite the lamplight. The shadows felt alive, and the longer she gazed at them, the more it seemed like they were biding their time, waiting for her to look away.
The television threw out reassuring images that the world was as she had left it. Normal. Clearly lacking in the demonic department. But that closet door . . . she was sure there was something behind it. That wicked, lurking thing. The creature that smelled like smoke.
Go get Dad, she thought. But her mother would be annoyed. It would only prove that Brynn had been up to her usual tricks again, and that would inevitably lead to trouble. Maggie didn’t want that to happen. After all, it was Simon who had brought over that awful film. Bee had just wanted to impress him. She had protected Maggie when Simon had wanted to bring out the board.
With her teeth clenched, Maggie lay back down and tried to force herself to sleep, but it kept happening. Every time she managed to drift off, she was overcome by a sensation of rising upward like a helium balloon. Each time, she gasped awake, only to find the room just the way she’d left it. Untouched by the supernatural. Except for that light tapping. Incessant. Never wavering. Loose screw.
She could go sleep on the couch. Except that would give away her fear just the same. Their mom would know. Brynn would be held responsible.
And then, the mattress rumbled beneath her.
Her fingers dug into the sheets. She tried to scream, but the yell got stuck in her throat—nothing but an air bubble of panic as she scrambled off the bed. Except, when she hit the floor, she came to discover that it wasn’t the bed frame that was moving. It was her. She was shaking, as though in the midst of an epileptic fit. Maggie lifted a hand to look at it, crying out when she couldn’t get it to stop jerking back and forth. The tremors kept her from standing upright. A whimper escaped her as she began to crawl toward her bedroom door, unable to keep herself from picturing it: a long arm reaching out from beneath her bed, catching her ankle, and yanking her into the abyss.
GO GET DAD!
She wormed down the upstairs hallway to her parents’ bedroom door. And yet, even though she was trembling, she paused just before pushing it open, struck by the very real childhood fear of rousing her parents from their sleep. Her mom would demand to know what was going on, why Maggie was so scared. She’d find out about the movie, about Simon coming over. There was no doubt Brynn would be barred from seeing him for the rest of winter break, and Brynn would positively hate Maggie for ruining her life.
But Maggie couldn’t remain in the hall. The shock of not being able to walk was freaking her out. What if, somehow, she’d become paralyzed? What if she really was possessed? She had to go to the hospital. Or to a church, where the demons couldn’t get her, just like Brynn had said.
Maggie pushed her parents’ bedroom door open and crawled into darkness. She made it to her dad’s side of the bed, hesitated, and eventually placed her trembling hand on her father’s exposed arm.
“Dad,” she whispered, not wanting to wake her mother. Maybe if she was quiet, her dad would keep a secret. “Dad.” But it was her mother who stirred, then opened her eyes and gasped. For half a second, Maggie was sure her own face was no longer there, replaced by the bloated and cracking visage of the devil himself. It was why her mom looked so afraid.
“Oh my God, what are you doing?” Maggie’s mom hissed, clearly startled by the fact that there, in her nearly pitch-black room, her daughter was writhing around on the floor.
“I can’t . . .” Maggie lifted a hand to illustrate what she was about to say. “I can’t stop shaking.” And then, the fear that had built up inside her became too much to bear. She began to cry. “There’s something in my room. My bed . . . I . . . I keep floating . . . I can’t—”
“Oh Jesus Christ.” Stella Olsen threw the sheets off herself, marched around the bed, and caught her daughter by the arm before yanking her up to her feet—pissed, but determined to be quiet. “Hush!” she whispered. “You’re going to wake your father.”
And just like that, Maggie was escorted out of her parents’ bedroom and back down the hall. There was no mention of her tremors, as though her mother hadn’t noticed she was in the middle of a seizure, and there certainly was no regard given to Maggie’s claims that her room was haunted.
“Back in bed,” her mom commanded. “Now.”
“But . . .”
“Enough,” she snapped. “I’ve had it with this stuff, Magdalene.” She stomped across the room and turned off the TV.
“No!” Maggie whimpered. “Please.”
Her mother gave her a stern look—You’re too old for this—but jammed her finger against the television’s power button regardless. The TV screen came back on.
“I’ll expect an explanation in the morning,” she said. “You better start working on it now, young lady, because I expect it to be good.” And then, she left Maggie alone in her room.
Somehow, her mother’s unadulterated annoyance wiped out Maggie’s fear. Whatever that shadow was, it was gone now, no match for the ferociousness of Stella Olsen, furious over being roused from her sleep.
The next time Maggie woke, it was morning, and the only terror she felt was for the retribution that would inevitably be handed down, the thousands of questions she knew she’d have to answer, all before breakfast.
. . .
When Maggie finally came downstairs, Brynn and their dad were sitting at the kitchen table while Maggie’s mother banged pots and pans next to the sink. When Maggie stepped inside, the air was sucked out of the room, as though she had been the subject of intense discussion and now that conversation had come to a screeching halt. Dad raised a curious eyebrow, as though already having heard the tale of the incredible crawling girl, weeping about seizures and paralysis and floating above her bed. The cookware settled into silence as Maggie’s mother turned to give her youngest daughter a pointed stare. Brynn—her hair a rat’s nest of tangled black—glared at Maggie from behind a plate of half-eaten pancakes. It was a look Maggie knew well. Brynn had been interrogated and was, perhaps, being handed her conviction.
Their father broke the tension. “Happy New Year, kiddo. You hungry?”
“Happy New Year, Dad.” Maggie shuffled toward the breakfast table with her head down and took her regular seat.
“So, what’s your excuse for last night?” Maggie’s mother leaned against the kitchen counter, awaiting a sufficient answer as to why she’d been woken.
Rather than making eye conta
ct with anyone in the room, Maggie swallowed and focused her attention on the half-empty carafe of orange juice in the center of the table. She reached over, caught it by its tapered neck, and poured herself a tumblerful. Maybe if she acted normal, her mom would huff and get tired of being mad.
But it seemed that, at times, Stella Olsen thrived off anger, and this morning was one of those times. “Your sister believes she can convince us that nothing stupid went on while she was in charge,” she said. “Though why I trusted such an immature child with the task of babysitting you, I can’t fathom. An immature child who’s supposed to be a young woman, by the way.”
Maggie’s eyes inched their way toward her unhappy sister. When their mom was fuming, she’d pelt them with endless underhanded comments, all of them actively suggesting that the child she was discussing was nowhere within earshot.
“Well?” Mom gave Maggie an expectant look. “Out with it, or you’ll both be grounded.”
That was it, then. Brynn had been sentenced.
Maggie swallowed a mouthful of juice. Her attention shifted to her dad, searching for backup. He wasn’t offering any. This time, she was on her own.
“I just . . .” Maggie hesitated, her fingers working the hem of her sleep shirt. She could tell them everything, and maybe they’d believe her. Except, at this point, Maggie wasn’t sure what she believed. Had she been floating above her bed, or was it just her imagination? Had she really been shaking so terribly that she couldn’t manage to walk? The memory of crawling down the hall was vivid, and yet, as soon as her mom threw back the sheets and grabbed her by the arm, Maggie had miraculously recovered the use of her legs. Didn’t that prove it was all in her head; that it was, as Brynn would have insisted, her subconscious?
“You just what?” Mom was losing her patience. When she asked questions, she wanted answers, and fast.
Maggie glanced back to Brynn, who was now frozen in midchew. Brynn stared back at her with a look that transcended spoken words. Keep your stupid mouth shut. If Maggie spilled about Simon, Brynn wouldn’t just be grounded; she’d be dead and buried.
“I just didn’t feel good,” Maggie said. “I think I ate too much junk food.”
Brynn looked down to her plate. After a beat, she continued her breakfast.
“That’ll do it,” Dad chimed in. “My grandma always used to tell me, if you eat a bunch of crap before bed—”
“Gross, Dad,” Brynn cut in.
“Okay, we’ve heard it,” Mom said at the same time.
“—you’ll wake up with bugs in your butt,” Dad finished.
Maggie couldn’t help herself. She smiled, then chuckled, loving that nonsense belief. Her dad grinned back at her, then reached across the separating distance to ruffle her hair. That’s when Maggie decided that, no, none of that stuff last night had been real. It couldn’t have been. That movie had scared the hell out of her, but that was all it had been.
Except Maggie’s smile faded as she looked down to her empty plate. Because she could feel it again, that presence. The thing that had lingered in her room last night had now slipped into a sunny corner of their kitchen. The scent she had assumed was nothing more than a burnt pancake now smelled sharper, more pronounced, despite the stove being off and all the pans soaking in the sink.
And when she glanced over to her mother, she saw it. Nothing more than a blip of darkness, ducking around a door jamb to hide itself just as Maggie looked its way.
FOURTEEN
* * *
MAGGIE’S PHONE KEPT buzzing in her hand.
I’M GOING TO TALK TO YOUR PROF TOMORROW.
HOPE YOU DON’T MIND.
I KNOW YOU’RE UPSET.
TEXT ME WHEN YOU CAN, OKAY?
Dillon.
But she didn’t feel like talking. Not after what she’d seen in Brynn’s room.
She closed her fingers over her phone and pressed it to her chest as she lay in bed, unsure of why she was still in that house, of why in the world she would close herself up in that room again. Maybe it was an honest attempt at reliving the past, of getting back to a time when things had been okay. Repent. But all it got her was the inability to close her eyes the very same way she hadn’t been able to as a girl.
Lying on her side, she stared into the corner nearest to the closet door—the corner that had always seemed darkest, that still felt dangerous despite the time that had passed and all the renovations that had been made.
That doll, the way it had appeared back in her room after she’d tossed it out. She had heard the garbage truck rumble up the street, unless it had been the storm. She had been certain it was gone, and yet . . .
It was just the storm.
It was a prank. Someone was screwing with her. It had to have been Hope. She had asked what Maggie was throwing away, had snuck out there before the truck had come, dragged the trash bag out of the bin, and then brought that doll back into the house.
But what about that shadow? And that fucking board, the way Cheryl had found it in the closet despite Maggie having gone through all the junk before Cheryl had arrived? Was it possible that Maggie really hadn’t seen it?
“No way,” she whispered to herself.
Those letters carved into Brynn’s bedpost. The mirrors, all shielded but one. A white sheet on the carpet. The glitter of glass. The remains of her sister’s lifeblood nothing but a stain waiting to be torn out and incinerated. No, the board hadn’t been in the closet. She was nearly certain that Brynn had, at one point, found it and taken it with her down the hall. Maybe that’s what Arlen had meant when she said that Brynn had been sick; perhaps that’s why Brynn had stopped going downstairs for meals. She’d been holed up like a hermit, her fingers upon that planchette, watching that plastic pointer glide over a board. She had been doing exactly what Maggie had done. It had become an addiction. A calling. An all-encompassing desire that could not be denied.
And now, it was starting all over again—boards vanishing and reappearing out of nowhere; the doll, tossed in the trash, only to be back in its place. All repeat performances of when she was a kid: pencils, school notebooks, once her entire backpack full of homework gone without a trace. She’d spend hours looking for them, eventually blaming Brynn for playing her dumb tricks. Their mother would yell. Their father would give Brynn the look: Be a grown-up. Brynn would scream: What do you want me to do, pull it out of thin air? I didn’t take it! Maggie would cry, in a panic because she hadn’t finished her assignments and there was a quiz on her missing notes the next day. Sometimes, during the drama, Maggie’s mom would burst into Brynn’s room with the intention of finding the missing items, only to discover them in Maggie’s room instead, exactly where they should have been. Those were the days Maggie got in serious trouble. And while the grounding was bad, her big sister’s resentment was worse.
Then there was that closet door, having a penchant for not staying latched. Maggie never left it open; she was afraid to, always making sure it was closed by pulling on the handle thrice before going to bed. And yet she’d wake to it wide-open. That, or she’d leave her room only to return to the closet door ajar. She’d complained to her dad about that the same as she had about the tapping, and there went her father with one of his tools, with his sound logic. Just a bad latch, he’d say. No monsters. Just a big chicken sitting on her bed.
That shadow, though? She’d never told her dad about that. It felt off-limits, like maybe, if she told him that much, he’d genuinely start to worry; like maybe, if he thought she was seeing ghosts, she’d get sent away. She’d watched enough scary movies to know that sometimes, when kids were crazy enough, they had to go to big hospitals out in the middle of nowhere. And those hospitals? Those places were even more haunted than her house.
That shadow continued to creep into her periphery. Reflections in the bathroom mirror, in the giant wood-framed heirloom in the hallway; sometimes the mere r
eflection in the turned-off television screen. There was something lingering beyond those twin images, something deeper than reality. Back then, she’d been sure it had all been an illusion, that constant buzz of nerves playing tricks on her. Just a loose screw . . .
But now . . .
Maggie sat up.
Had Brynn felt that same sensation? Was that why she had so many reflective surfaces in her room?
She shoved the sheets aside.
Had Brynn’s initial fascination turned into terror? Was that why she had covered the mirrors, why she had sought sanctuary within a church?
About to swing her feet over the edge of the mattress, Maggie was suddenly gripped by childish fear. Her eyes darted back to the closet door. Still closed, but refusing to offer solace. The moment her toes brushed across the carpet, that shadow would grab her ankles. It would drag her down, lurching into the room from inside that closet to finally swallow her whole.
She nearly shrieked when her cell phone vibrated against the palm of her hand. The screen lit up, illuminating the darkness in an eerie blue glow. Goddammit! Couldn’t he leave her alone for a few hours, at least? She flipped the phone over and squinted against the glare of the LCD screen, ready to ask Dillon to give her some space.
Except . . .
Maggie stared wide-eyed at the phone, her head registering miniscule shakes of denial.
No.
Her breath escaping in tiny gasps.
No.
Brynn’s raccoon eyes and purple-smeared mouth smirking at her, as if amused. The teenage sneer.
No.
HI MAGGIE HI, it said.
MAGGIE HI. Again.
FRIEND WELCOME HOME.
She threw the phone onto the mattress, leapt off the bed, and darted toward the door before stumbling into an equally dark hallway—one that felt far longer than it should have. And as she stood there, swathed by night, she wondered what, exactly, she intended to do now that she was out of that room. Leave? Abandon her sister, her sister’s children, in the house that was haunted by her own doing?