He leaned into the wind, squinting. The whooshing air dried the sweat on his forehead and brought a din of static, but it didn’t stop his hands from shaking or his body from shivering. The humidity was stifling, but his teeth were chattering. Why were his teeth chattering?
He wrapped his arms around his chest, curling in to stop the quivering. He thought he might vomit. A plop of liquid hit his forearm. He opened his eyes and stared at the little round droplet; it traced a path down the back of his hand toward the soft pocket between his thumb and forefinger. Another fell.
He touched his eyes. He was crying.
His house was smoking.
His hallway stretched like taffy and tried to gobble his feet.
His mother was a demon.
She spoke like his father.
She threatened to kill him.
Or did she threaten to kill everyone? Did it matter?
“Maxwell, Maxwell…” He could hear a voice calling to him. “Stay with me, Maxwell….”
His mother was possessed, sputtering nonsense, and collecting carcasses.
“Max, breathe. We’re almost there,” said the voice.
It was Vera. That was who he clung to now. Vera Martinez. The entire future of his family—his mother, his little sister, him—all depended on a girl he never before said hi to in the hallways. They said hi now. They said a lot more than hi.
“Max, you’re going into shock. Stay with me.”
There was a fog inside his house, swirling and pulsing. And the master bedroom grew three sizes. Ha! Like the Grinch. His mother’s room grew three sizes that day! But that wasn’t his mother.
Her voice never emerged. But his father’s did.
The car creaked to a halt. A hand tugged his arm. He didn’t want to move. He was safe in the car. Safe was good.
“Max, I get it now,” the voice said. No, she said. “I know how it lures people. I know why your mom bought the shrine, what she wanted.”
His head turned toward her. He parted his lips to respond, but his mouth was too dry to speak.
She pulled his arm again, and he let her.
He rose from the car and he followed her into the hospital.
* * *
He was given an IV drip of fluids, but other than that, Max was fine. So was Father Chuck, bruised but nothing broken. The only things really damaged were Max’s ego and his sanity. He almost wished he were having a medical emergency, because it would be a whole lot better than his current reality.
Vera took him home. Well, to her home. His house was currently under a dense fog advisory with an underlying demonic pressure system.
He sat on Vera’s floral sofa, which the demon inside his mother had accurately described. (What else did it see?) A pink fuzzy blanket was wrapped around his shoulders as he sipped a mug of mint tea. He was getting used to the taste, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
“Feeling better?” Aunt Tilda asked as she tidied the room.
She’d already made a chicken casserole, given his sister a bath, read her three books, and put her to bed. Aunt Tilda was a better parent than he was, but the demon was wrong about how that made Max feel. He wasn’t relieved to relinquish responsibility for Chloe, at least not in that way, and he didn’t resent the day she was born (he resented the day his father died—same day, different event). In fact, Max was relieved Chloe was finally getting the parenting she deserved, the kind he’d had before the explosion. For the first time in a long time, he and Chloe were both being taken care of, and Max appreciated that.
That meant the demon could be wrong.
“I’m as good as I can be,” Max responded, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders.
“That’s all we can ask for,” said Aunt Tilda.
Vera entered the room, her hair wet, forming black ringlets around her face. She was wearing purple plaid pajama pants and a white tank top, and she looked, well, really pretty. How had he not noticed this before? How did the whole school not notice?
Max was surprised the demon didn’t reveal those thoughts, because he had them. All the time.
“You’ve got color in your cheeks,” Vera said.
Yeah, I’m sure I do. Her skin smelled of vanilla, which reminded him of Delilah. She wore a similar lotion. When was the last time he replied to Delilah’s texts? Or spoke to any of his friends? He imagined the essay he’d write at the start of school in September: “On my summer vacation, I helped to perform an exorcism.”
Christ, I’m all over the place.
“Sorry I freaked back there,” he muttered, staring at his hands.
“Don’t apologize. I can’t imagine. That’s your…” She didn’t finish her sentence. Because it was too awful to say. That’s your mom. That person, saying those things, with that voice, is your mother.
“How come I heard my dad today?” he asked.
“That’s not your dad. It’s just messing with your head.”
“It’s working.”
Vera ran her fingers through her damp hair, her cheeks dewy from the shower. Then she exchanged a curious look with Aunt Tilda, who finished folding an afghan and placed it on the back of an easy chair. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”
Vera lowered herself beside him. “I had a vision at your house.”
“A vision?” His eyes crinkled.
“I’m not really sure what it was, I’ve stopped trying to understand, but I saw something.” Her voice was low and sounded as confused as he felt. “It’s never happened to me before. It was different than the dreams, the sleepwalking. When your mom, when it lifted its arms, when it took the shape of those wings and the light flooded in, it was like I was hit inside my mind. A scene unfolded.”
She peered at him, seeming worried about his reaction. Because he was the weakling; he was the one who went into shock and couldn’t handle what was happening. He tugged at his knotted neck, glancing at the floor and realizing he cared a lot about what she thought of him.
“I saw you and your sister in your backyard, holding white balloons.”
Max’s head whipped toward her. How could she know that? How could she possibly know about that? He didn’t even discuss this with his friends.
“Your mother was inside, in her bedroom, and she was…sad. Max, she was so sad I felt like my ribs were cracking and stabbing my heart.” Vera grimaced. “She purchased the Angel of Tears the same day as the balloons. And it was like the moment she touched the statue, all the agony inside her went away—only for a second, though. I watched her set up the shrine in the closet, with some lilies. You and Chloe were outside waiting for her, and she mumbled that she couldn’t ‘go on like this.’ She wanted everything to go back to the way it was before. She wanted that tiny pain-free moment to last, to forget, or feel numb, all the time. She said she’d do ‘anything.’ ”
Max ground his teeth. She couldn’t go on. She, the parent, was having a hard time.
He’d been going to school, working at the restaurant, taking Chloe to playdates, talking to the other moms, and trying to pretend like none of this was happening. His hands balled into fists. A lot of people lost someone the day of the explosion or in the days since (including him!), but they weren’t worshipping demons, abandoning their children, or praying to forget their families. She did that, on that day.
“Are you okay?”
“No.” He huffed like “okay” was a concept in science fiction. “I can’t believe she bought a demonic statue on my dad’s birthday. She wanted to forget him on that day. Every year we each write a note to him and tie it to the string of a white balloon, then we release it into the air. We never got a real chance to say goodbye, so this is sort of our way.”
“That’s really sweet.”
“Yeah, for me and Chloe. Apparently not for her.”
Vera
reached for his hand and unfolded his fist, then she intertwined her fingers with his. “When’s his birthday?”
“May eighth.”
About a month before school ended. She said she’d do anything. Max repeated those words in his head.
“When I saw your mom in that vision, her grief was so profound it hurt to breathe.” Vera released his hand, palm on her chest. “I think that’s how the group goes from self-help to demon worship. Once the followers are good and brainwashed, swallowing all the crap the cult is shoveling, what’s a little statue in the closet? The cult says that leaving gifts might solve their problems, then they give them one little taste of relief from their pain. That numbness, it’s like a drug. Your mom would have done anything to feel that way again.”
“Well, she definitely did anything.” Max squeezed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, his body flooded with shame. His mother had willingly done this. Had she thought about him or Chloe at all? “So now what?” His tone was exasperated. “How do we fix this? How do we stop this, if it feeds on grief and half the town is grieving something?”
“Exactly.” Vera’s voice perked up. He looked her way, and her big brown eyes sparked to life. “The explosion happened after the storm, and I think it was the first event, the first big event, caused by the demon. The explosion sent the town reeling into despair and shock, and that’s how the demon started feeding, growing stronger….”
Wait. Max jolted, eyes wide. “You’re saying the demon didn’t arrive with the explosion, but it caused the explosion. That means this thing is not only trying to take away my mother right now, but it already took away my father.” He blinked, pegs falling into place. “It killed my dad. That’s why it talks like him.”
“I think so. Maybe.”
Time froze. A gnat stopped its flight in midair.
Max should have realized. When she’d mentioned the hurricane and the chalice, he was so consumed with what was happening with his mom, he didn’t fully deduce how it could tie into his dad.
All at once, something shifted inside him. All the desolation, all the confusion, all of the anguish he’d felt these past seven years, he now had a place to put it—in a sizzling pit of rage that burned with blue flames inside his chest.
This thing took his father—and seventeen other people from Roaring Creek. He thought of all the suicides, all the car wrecks, and all his dead classmates; they were brainwashed. It stole them. And now it was inside of his mother, gnawing on her and using her to infest the entire town.
“We have to stop it.” His voice was firm.
“I spoke to my parents. They booked a flight that will get them home, not tomorrow, but the next day. They will stop it. Until then, Father Chuck’s going to get some people to set up shop outside your house and make sure no one goes inside.”
“How are they going to do that?” he scoffed. A handful of churchgoers against a cult and a demon sent from Hell?
“I don’t know. They just will.” She shrugged. “And I have to get those shrines out of the hospital. Maybe instead of the higher-ups, I’ll go to the janitors, the orderlies, the food service staff. See if people will ‘accidentally’ dump the statues into the trash while patients are asleep. We have to stop this from spreading, at least until my parents get home. I feel so useless….”
“How can you say that?” he spat, forehead wrinkled at the absurdity. Without her, who knows what would be happening to him and Chloe? To his mother?
“You heard the demon. It knew about my dreams—everything. All the sleepwalking, the visions, could be coming from the demon.” Her voice broke, a touch of fear slipping through. Max noticed her hands were shaking. “I can’t believe anything anymore.”
Max placed a palm on hers. “That’s not true. I believe you.” His tone was certain. “The demon was wrong today. When it said I was relieved that your aunt took Chloe off my hands, that I wish she were never born, that isn’t true. Yes, I’m glad your aunt’s here and she’s doing an amazing job, but that’s not how I feel at all. And I’m not just saying that.”
Vera peered at him, her head tilted like she was trying to translate his words from another language.
“If the demon could be wrong about that, then it could be wrong about a lot of things. It could be wrong about you,” Max insisted.
Vera’s gaze turned to the carpet and Max could see the endless questions swirling behind her chocolate eyes. Somehow Vera was so certain in the abilities of her parents, the priest, and a group of random strangers the church was assembling, yet she was unsure of herself. Since the day they started speaking, Vera repeated again and again that she wasn’t special. Now she was having visions and dreams—that Max truly believed—while remaining remarkably calm in a house with the devil.
She had to realize how amazing she was. Max did.
But it seemed that after seventeen years of being treated like the outcast, Vera actually believed that she didn’t deserve to be noticed, that she lacked any special gifts. In reality, it was always girls like her, the overlooked ones, the misjudged ones, who changed the world.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Explosion
In a far-too-silent split-level home, a father watches his son. The child lies in bed, much too still. The time has come. The mother clutches his tiny hand, indigo veins popping beneath his nearly translucent skin. They are waiting on the edge of an hourglass, all the sand nearly slipped through. They pray. They beg.
He’s only had twelve years on this Earth. That’s not enough time. There’s never enough time.
The mother’s eyes are closed, hand clenched to her heaving chest, slick with tears.
The father’s lips are pressed in a firm line. If he parts them, he’ll scream. He’ll howl. He might never stop.
His boy gets worse. The lights dim inside him; his soul flickers on a low wattage. This is wrong, all wrong. His breath grows shallow. Is his chest still moving? Yes, the father thinks. The machine still beeps. They need the machine. He hears it in his nightmares. He wakes sopped in sweat with the eerie tone of the dreaded flatline ringing in his ears.
The home-care nurse says they must prepare. It’s weeks now. Maybe days.
They’ve done nothing wrong. This child has done nothing wrong. What kind of a God would do this?
Then he remembers: a friend from Chicago, years ago. He got a miracle. A dark, but oh-so-worth-it, miracle.
The father returns with a gift, telling tales of its power and beauty. He says it can heal.
They’ll try anything.
He sets the statue of the angel by the boy’s bed. Its wings point toward the heavens while the skeleton’s hands clutch the skull carved atop a torch, its unlit flame pointing at his son’s pale cheeks. Dark tears stain the angel’s face, matching the mood in the room. The air is stagnant from sealed windows and growing despair, yet plaid sheets are pulled high to the boy’s chin. The mother fears he’ll catch cold. She bathes him daily. She brushes his hair. She cannot handle this.
No mother should have to handle this.
The father places a hand on the small marble statue and shuts his eyes. “Take me. Take me instead. Please spare my boy. Give him more time,” he prays. But who is he praying to?
Nothing happens at first. So he does what he is told.
The next day he brings sweet red wine. Dessert wine. They can’t afford it; they’re buried under medical bills. What’s one more debt?
Then he brings bread, so fresh that flour films the pads of his fingers as the room takes in the welcome new scent.
Next he offers salt, thick grains from the ocean, a natural force greater than all of them, as great as the universe.
He digs flowers straight from the garden, potting them in rich dark soil.
The sea and the earth. He is offering the world.
His boy keeps breathing, but he do
esn’t improve.
The man needs more, a grander sacrifice.
Words whisper inside, wheedling into his brain and implanting themselves deep in gray matter.
You know what to do, they say. You know, you know…
He does. The answer is tattooed on his mind. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Etch, etch, etch. He has been chosen to do this. It is his purpose. It is how he will save his son. He can’t think of anything else. Anyone else.
This is his mission.
He wakes up for work. He eats crisp bacon and eggs scrambled with cheese, then swills a cup of coffee so hot it scorches his tongue. His last meal. It is bitter. He kisses his wife, his lips lingering longer than they have in years. The smell of her, sweet gardenia—somewhere in all of this grief, this torment, they’d forgotten each other. They’d forgotten to be people. He remembers her now in that red gingham dress the day they met, her long honey hair cascading over her shoulder. She smelled of gardenia then.
He says nothing, but somehow she senses. She knows him well, and she doesn’t stop him.
He joins his crew, as he has for twenty years. His tan coveralls are buckled on his broad shoulders. His work boots are laced. His white hard hat is firm on his head, though he needs no protection now.
They were hired to repair the one-hundred-year-old gas lines cutting below Roaring Creek and into the public buildings. The crews are massive, and no one notices when he slips away.
No one notices the fumes.
But he can smell them. Taste them. The power they give him, over life and death. His son’s life. Nothing else matters. Not anyone else, and especially not himself.
He waits on a concrete step, hands folded in his lap, cracked and rough from a life’s hard work. He doesn’t cry, nor does he leave to save himself. He stays. He is the offering, the ultimate sacrifice. This is his choice, his deal with the Angel of Tears—his life in exchange for his son’s. What parent wouldn’t make that trade? The others are merely a bonus—dessert offerings, a little extra sprinkle to sweeten the deal.
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