Malia

by P. S. Power

  Lies.

  Then they both settled, carefully.

  That was done on the floor, which was a bit awkward in a miniskirt. Not that Mal was going to care if she was flashed under the table.

  Once she was down, she took a sip of the hot chocolate. It was good. Incredibly so. The whipped cream on the top tasted of real vanilla bean, too. Her mother didn’t do that every day. Then, they had a special guest. That or a very quiet roommate. Either way, it was probably a nice touch, making the extra effort that way.

  “You know, Mal… I really do have a question or two. First though, how have you been? We haven’t really talked much lately. It’s been run this, trust no one that… Hardly great communication. Even if you are possessing me.” She said the words glibly, but they hung there for a second.

  Right until the ten-year-old looking girl snarled a bit. Shaking her head and smiling a little as she did it. Making the serious words sound like play.

  “I’m not possessing you. That’s the problem here. If I was, then he wouldn’t be able to do half of what’s coming. There are problems with that though. A true possession like that… It isn’t easy on the host. Even if I let you have your life most of the time, the stress of carrying a being like me… Well, it shows on you already and I carried myself, mainly. That first contact, when you were a child, it marked you.”

  Touching her right cheek, where her facial scar was, got the little girl to roll her eyes.

  “I don’t mean that. I mean in the way you think, act and react. You’re odd in many ways, Jess. People feel it, too. Some of them, the sensitive ones, they hate you for being too close to me. It’s pure fear really. My kind hasn’t always been the greatest of friends with your folk. Some of us have tried, but the others… Well, it would be best for all concerned if you people didn’t keep opening doors to my reality, you know that?” She sipped her cocoa then.

  After a moment there was a tiny, rather graceful, seeming shrug.

  “Which are all things that you have no control over, personally. Anyway, I anchored to you, which is what left you thin and edgy all the time. It works for now, but if I were to take you fully, you’d simply fade, inside a decade or two. That…” She struggled then, trying to say something. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. She shook her head again, then mouthed a single word. The same one.

  Lies.

  Even Jess got it, she thought. The girl wasn’t able to tell her the truth, just then. Probably due to being controlled. Carefully, locking eyes, Jess nodded once. Letting her know she got it. There was a half glance at the window. As soon as Mal did that, Jessica could feel that something watched her from there.

  The words got a raised eyebrow then.

  “So, I should die at the hands of… Um, him, was it? Does this person have a name, or… is me knowing that not allowed? Some kind of magic thing?” She could nearly see that being the case.

  There was a head shake then. It seemed annoyed. Tense as well. She didn’t mouth any words this time, but Jessica understood that what came next wasn’t going to be real. She just had to pretend it was. Because they were both being watched.

  “No name at all. My people don’t have them. We don’t need them, where we come from. Then, we don’t have language like you do, either. That took me… Hundreds, possibly thousands of years to learn. Time doesn’t exist, so… Well, I won’t bother you with that. He, has been away. I was with you, so for a while he couldn’t find you. Your parents have their own deals worked out. Protection from the curse. The bitter one does as well. No one even tried to earn that for you. I think…” There was a bite of cookie then, which was politely eaten before she went on.

  “I think, dear Jessica, that the plan was to use you as a sacrifice, to keep your family safe, in perpetuity. That’s ridiculous, of course. He cannot be placated. He is a lord of the dark.” She paused. It was dramatic seeming.

  Too much so, really. As if the little girl was in a play and over acting, pretty badly.

  Jessica shrugged. She could work with that, after all.

  “So, a demon, basically?”

  The dark-haired girl nodded then.

  “A demon, very exactly, in fact. One that wants you and your whole family line dead.”

  Then, very subtly, there was a tiny head shake from the little girl.

  Chapter eight: A world of lies.

  The news that had just been delivered, a thing that Jess couldn’t help but think might be just a bit late in coming, given Malia had, apparently, been right there with her the entire time, for over fourteen years in fact, wasn’t the only bombshell about to be dropped. In fact, Mal didn’t even wait five seconds to go on, simply doodling a little with her pen, on the white lined paper in front of her. Her gaze was wry seeming, her back to the window where the sense of being watched still lingered.

  “More to the point, he wants to enslave you all, in my world. That… Well, it’s not a good thing. You should kill yourselves, before he can do that. There are far worse things than simply not being alive any longer, Jess.”

  She thought about it for a second, then nodded. Getting the idea of the act they were putting on, if not the immediate need to off herself to avoid her fate. For one thing, she didn’t really feel like that was going to be happening. Hope wasn’t just an opiate for the masses, apparently. She was certainly feeling a desire to think her way out of the problem. That or to run away.

  Her little friend simply smiled at her, clearly having read her mind. It was spooky when she did things like that. Then, part of Jessica was almost certain that the girl, or the being that made herself look like one, wasn’t actually speaking to her at all. She was, in a very real way, simply imaginary, after all.

  Going on, Mal pretended to close her eyes.

  “You probably think that the attack the other night was a big deal, don’t you? That you being used that way was traumatic or at least supposed to be? That, being raped that way, is your own worst fear. In the… Well, there is no name for it. It’s the place of darkness, near my original home. We can call it that, I guess. Anyway, in the dark place, you’ll be forced to live your deepest fears and most damaging moments, over and over again. Each time made just a bit worse than the last. Forever. Time doesn’t exist there. Here either, but your brain won’t allow you to perceive the truth of it.”

  It was tempting not to speak at all, but there were questions to be asked, if she ever wanted to hear the answer. In the moment she wasn’t really certain that she did. The answers would be lies, if she had the idea right. She tried not to think about that, in case the watcher outside her window was able to read her mind like Malia was. That probably made sense.

  “So, you didn’t stop that creature because there was a reason not to? I mean, maybe you couldn’t? It wasn’t in a body and was kind of just influencing my mind, right? So, real, but not at the same time?”

  Rather than give a simple answer, the little girl brushed at her long hair, and made a face. A sour one that seemed a little sad. That lasted for ten or fifteen seconds. There was no sound of note in the room, during that time. Just a hint of wind coming from outside. Whistling a bit, meaning that the storm that was coming was a real one and not just some dark clouds.

  Finally, her voice nearly a whisper, Malia spoke. Her head stayed down, as if ignoring that Jess was there at all. Like a real little kid might have done, if they were scared or upset.

  “There’s some truth to that. It was a real thing, but not, both at the same time. I could have stopped it though. At any time. I didn’t, because you needed to learn something from the experience.”

  She tried to think what that might have been, then she snorted, getting it.

  “To trust no one? Not even the person who said I should trust them?”

  The girl looked up then, her face seeming upset. There was another soft shake, and a bare hint of a mouthed word. Lies, probably. It was too hard to tell.

  “Yes. In part. You also needed to learn not to be concerned about your
flesh. That, thinking that you need a body, is a weakness. My kind suffers from it as well. That’s why so many of us grasp at human flesh when we come here. I’m as guilty as anyone in that regard. With us… well, I’m from where you’ll go when you die here. When we’re destroyed, my people, we move on to a different place. Nothing is static. There is no end. Not really.”

  The words were slow and soothing. Jessica rolled her eyes at them.

  “Wait, you just told me that you allowed me to be ass raped for a few hours to teach me not to trust anyone, then you come at me with a line like that? I’m supposed to kill myself so that… What? You can take over my body without me being in it? Something else that’s just as evil?”

  For the first time since Jessica had known the girl, she seemed angry. It was a sudden shift, and announced itself by the table in front of them being sent flying, to the right. It mainly landed on the bed. Safely, she noticed, without anything breaking, even if the move was dramatic. The cocoa that was left did that as well. Staining her bed spread, no doubt.

  Then the girl screamed at her. Fighting a grin from her face. It was still a bit freaky. Even getting what was going on, there was a thrill of fear for Jess in it.

  “Do you think that I have to trick you, to take your body, Jessica? I’ve been here for a very long time. This vessel is mine and I will not be denied. You will either accept that and give in to me, dying, or you will be treated to something far worse by your enemy! You have no other choices! You will be mine, or you will die!”

  The girl didn’t hit her directly, but instead waved a hand in Jess’s general direction. A flash of red light came into being, as she felt herself slapped by a force that hit over her entire body. Like a wave at the beach, washing over her. The floor not allowing her to stand any longer, she crumpled and was pushed back along it. Unharmed. It hadn’t even hurt at all, even though it had almost certainly looked pretty good.

  Then, crossing her arms petulantly, the girl vanished. In a way that, Jessica was almost certain, wasn’t her moving back inside of a shared body. The feeling of it was more toward the window. At least it felt that way in the half second before the girl was gone. The sense of being watched did too, shortly after that.

  This time, at the end of the event, she was still on the floor and there were damp spots, and mugs, on her bed. Cookie crumbs as well. Along with an upside-down end table. One that had landed nicely there, in the center of the thing. Almost as if it had been done that way on purpose.

  She growled a bit, standing up. Being knocked around, even in the soft fashion she’d been, wasn’t fun. Nothing felt broken though. Not that she could tell. The trick would be pretending that it was a bit more than it had seemed like to her.

  She didn’t straighten her whole room or anything, figuring that doing that later would be good enough. She was either going to be engaged in something more important for a while, or dead. That was how she felt at least.

  Because Malia had gotten one thing very wrong in what she’d said, near the end. Even if it was an act, meant to fool others.

  There were a lot of other choices, other than being possessed or being tortured forever. Picking up the note pad and then searching her floor for one of the black pens, she retrieved the low table from her four-poster bed and then used it as a surface to work on. Five minutes later, everything she could recall had been written out. Carefully.

  Half of her expected Malia to return. To throw her around more, or possibly to do something worse. The admissions of the prior moments shook her, of course. It was the kind of thing that truly left her feeling like running. It wasn’t so much that little Mal could actually hurt her, of course. That was in there, as was the fear of such pain, but the truth was that she felt bad about her old friend having betrayed her like that. Worse, Mal had, apparently, been setting her up all along. Unless, of course, she was still on Jess’s side and the rest of it was the act. That was clearly what Jessica was supposed to be running with.

  Making throwing a fit like that a stupid thing to do. If she could have held to her story, Jess probably would have ended up accepting her help to fight off that other being. Even if it wasn’t real. Now she was going to have to wonder if that part of things was even a good fake story at all. There was a very good chance that Mal had been behind everything, all along. That or her master was.

  Him.

  She still tried not to think about it, just in case someone could work out that she was a step ahead of where they thought she was. It might not help her and could be a trick, of course. Really, it came down to one factor. If Malia was really her friend or not. If she wasn’t, then Jessica was well and truly going to die.

  Out loud, she muttered, standing as she did it.

  “Well, trust no one means trust no one. Then, if she’s behind it all, or part of it, maybe I shouldn’t trust what she told me?” The idea of randomly trusting everyone came to mind as a backlash to that, but that wasn’t going to work very well.

  After all, most people were assholes. That had been her life experience at least. True, that was because Malia had been linked to her, if she had that right, but… well, that didn’t mean she didn’t need to be careful with them, even if that wasn’t a factor.

  She walked to the door of the room, and almost absently, flipped the light switch off as she passed. Even if things were messed up for her, using too much energy didn’t help anyone. That thought reminded her to start recycling. Even if she died, then at least she would have tried to help someone else.

  Jess knew she wasn’t going to do that, though. Recycle in any meaningful way. It was always too hard to find a place to put things like that, other than the trash can.

  Walking out into the living room, she grinned a bit, her face feeling almost off, when she did it. Everyone was looking at her, as she hobbled in. She wasn’t broken or anything, which probably meant that Malia wasn’t trying to kill her. Not for real. No, she wanted Jess alive. That had always been the case, she was willing to bet.

  Rather than speak, she passed the notebook over to her father, so that he could see what had happened, without having to talk about it. Her mother stood up, which had Nick doing it as well. Her dad just read, then a few seconds later, nodded.

  “I see. Well… At least part of that isn’t true. I mean, she was trying to link your mother and I with what happened to Roxy and her family. There’s nothing like that going on.” He looked at his wife then, who hugged their daughter, closely.

  Megan cleared her throat before speaking.

  “What? Of course we’re not… What did she say?” That was addressed to Jess, but Reid passed the papers over for her to read, instead. It took a lot less time.

  Finally, her mother took a very deep breath.

  “Holy crud.” After a moment, she said it again. Then a tight smile came. “Well! It seems like this entity is trying to play games with you. She must want you pretty badly to do that. On the good side, we know what we’re dealing with.”

  Jessica shrugged then, as something occurred to her.

  “On the bad side, Malia knows all about me. I mean, she’s always been there, inside of me. The flashbacks… Those had to have been designed to mess with me. She seemed pretty convinced that I should kill myself to avoid going to the hell dimension or whatever. Except…”

  That part got waved away, by her father.

  “Except that isn’t real. If she wants you to die, then the best thing to do, given this, would be to try and stay alive. I… The episode the other night…” He looked at Meg, his wife then.

  Who had clearly filled him in on things well enough for the man to feel uneasy over the topic.

  Jess glanced at Nick.

  “I had a dream or vision, last night. An invisible creature doing me up the hind end for a couple of hours. It wasn’t pleasant. It also seemed totally real, until I woke up in bed and wasn’t requiring a trip to the emergency room. I don’t know if that was Malia actually doing it or something else, but…” There was also
a chance that it had really just been a dream and the being was capitalizing on it.

  Using that to warp Jessica into something useful to her.

  A puppet to play with. A child to mold into being whatever it was she wanted.

  If that was the case, then… Well, one thing that had been said was basically correct.

  “Malia has always been with me. Even if she isn’t really inside of me. I see her at least once a week. The flashbacks I have? In the mirror as well, occasionally. So, I never forgot her. I couldn’t. Still, that kind of thing might be a trick…” She didn’t know if that was the case at all.

  Reid got what she was going for and nodded.

  “We tried to use magic to remove the memories from you, but if they were coming from the outside, not from within, then what we needed to be doing was blocking them. It will take a full working, but we should be able to stop this from happening again, now. Until then… Well, Malia won’t attack you again. Not like that. You didn’t fold and won’t, which she’ll understand about you. I think she made a mistake, to be honest. She worked on you for years, trying to wear you down with those visions. Forcing you to relive that one moment. Instead, it made you stronger.” For some reason he seemed just a bit troubled by that idea. Then, a bit oddly, he glanced at Nick.

  There was a snort from her mother at the words.

  “Which will just make her more attractive to the being. We should have done something else. We were the ones who brought her to you.” Her mother went cold then and turned away. “Not on purpose, but we, our old group, called her to us, for aid. Then she provided it. Sinking her hooks into our child at the same time. We’d all hoped that she was gone. That this kind of thing wasn’t going to happen.”

  Except that it seemed to be what was going on, regardless of what anyone had asked for or wanted in the first place.