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Rachel glimpses at Mercia as she runs down the porch steps, “Where’s my mom?”
“Exactly where we left her,” she says, breathless. “I confined her to the living room. So, yes, I did technically use magic, but not on her personally. It’s just a barrier spell, the same one witches use to keep toddlers from sticking their fingers in electric outlets and away from stairs.”
Rachel sighs and nods. “Thanks.”
“It’s not going to hold.” Mercia turns around to walk back to the house. “We both need rest and something to eat.”
“Yup.”
“I mean it, Rach. We can’t save the town when we’re running on fumes,” Mercia says.
“I know.” Rachel sighs. “Why are you suddenly being so nice to me? Not to mention, you’re helping my mom. What happened to the whole ‘this doesn’t make us friends’ thing?”
Mercia shrugs. “Your mom’s gone cray-cray, the guy you’re crushing on is being super weird, your only friend and his grandmother have basically been run out of town, and I’m pretty sure you have a serious stalker problem.”
Rachel closes her eyes and shakes her head. “What?”
“Isn’t that Greg’s car?”
Rachel opens her eyes and directs her attention to where Mercia is pointing down Griswold Road as Greg’s Mercedes appears on the horizon. Every alarm bell in her body goes off in unison, her fight-or-flight responses readying themselves.
“Can this day get any worse?” she mutters, not in the mood to deal with him right now.
“That’s a polite way of looking at things,” Mercia grumbles. “What do you want to do?”
“Play dumb?” Rachel says and Mercia nods, both coming to a stop in the driveway.
They watch as Greg slows down and turns off the road, the passenger side window lowering. He sits forward in his seat, tilting his head to see them properly. Greg frowns, before he says, “Mercia Holstein, whatever are you doing here?”
“Well, sometimes even I like to drive down backroads and see how losers live,” Mercia says. “You?”
“Where’s your car, Rachel?” Greg asks, ignoring Mercia.
“It’s not here, obviously,” Mercia answers for Rachel, then quickly adds, “I’m glad you’ve not gone blind yet, you know, from using your right hand excessively.” She makes a crude gesture, fluttering her eyelashes all the while.
It takes every ounce of strength to keep Rachel from laughing out loud, especially when Greg turns a deep shade of red.
He narrows his eyes at Mercia, but turns his attention on Rachel.
“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay out here by yourself,” Greg continues. “With Mrs. Crenshaw not around, I became concerned for your safety. The town’s gone completely nuts. On my way over, Mr. Morris chased my car on all fours, barking like a dog.”
Rachel shapes her mouth into an ‘O’, acting surprised. He must buy it, because his eyes soften as he regards her.
I should’ve taken drama class instead, she thinks.
“Well,” Mercia says, flipping her hair over her shoulder, “Rachel is not by herself, as you can see, and we have work to do.”
“What work?” Greg asks. “School’s been closed for days or haven’t you noticed?”
“Art project,” Rachel lies quickly. “The theme is ‘the world as we perceive it’,” she continues. Luckily Greg doesn’t have art as an elective. “I was thinking we should put a Freudian twist to it.”
“Ooh, that’s actually not a bad idea,” Mercia says, playing along. “Nothing says art like wanting to sleep with your mother.”
Even Rachel can’t help herself from frowning.
“Or your daughter, whatever.” She waves it off, unperturbed. “Anywho, we should probably get on with it if we actually want to do the project, so buh-bye, Greg.”
He glances at Rachel, who shrugs.
“Sorry, but this is due soon,” she says.
Greg’s expression smooths out. “Call me, okay?”
Mercia bursts out laughing and takes a step away from the car. “Can you be any more desperate?” She pivots and walks toward the porch.
“Can you be any more of a bitch?” he calls back.
She flips him off, and disappears into the house, leaving Rachel alone with Greg. Rachel puts her hands behind her back and smiles, still acting like some lovesick idiot.
Mercia’s nervous shout from within the house is enough to make her cut short whatever long goodbye Greg was waiting for.
“Gotta go, bye.” She’s already heading back to the house.
“Okay, bye.”
She rushes up the steps and makes her way straight into the house. Rachel shuts the door behind her. The entryway is fine, but as she walks toward the living room, the issue becomes clear.
Rachel stands there staring at the destruction. The TV has been pulled off its wall mounts and lies in pieces on the floor. The coffee table is upended and two of the legs have been broken off. The sofa has been torn asunder and foam is spilling from the deep gashes. Even the curtains didn’t survive, lying in large swathes on the floor. Confetti and glitter is strewn across the mess, which just feels like a slap in the face.
Her gaze moves up the scratched wall, deep gouges ruining the wallpaper and paint, toward a large hole in the ceiling.
“Where’s my mother?”
“Hell if I know,” Mercia snaps. “She climbed through the hole when I came in.”
Rachel moves back to the staircase and takes the steps two at a time. “Mom,” she calls, following the banging coming from somewhere on the second floor. The sound is muffled, though, coming from within the walls. “Mother?”
The bangs are replaced with a persistent scratching, like oversized rats scuttling about.
“Mom.” Her voice grows more frantic as she runs to the hallway wall, pressing her ear against the smooth surface. She moves quickly past the bathroom, searching for Jenny.
Please don’t get stuck in the wall. Please don’t get stuck in the wall. Please don’t get stuck in the—
A loud crash resounds, coming from inside her mother’s bedroom. Laughter follows—manic laughter, in a high-pitched, creepy tone. Rachel runs for the bedroom and bursts inside, only to find her mother sitting on her haunches on the wall. Not against the wall, not in front of the wall. No, no. Jenny Cleary has to go and defy both logic and gravity by sitting on the wall. Vertically. In her hands, she’s holding what appears to be some long dead critter, and there’s a massive bite missing from its side. Her mother stares back at Rachel through glazed over eyes, eerie giggles interrupting the sound of chewing. Fur spills from her mother’s lips, dropping to the floor.
“And I’m out.” Mercia throws up her hands and backs out of the room. “I did not sign up for an exorcism, thank you very much.”
“I did not sign up for an exorcism, thank you very much,” her mother mimics Mercia in that same creepy high-pitched tone. She cackles, tears another piece of mummified flesh off the creature, and chews.
Rachel is too horrified to look away, only hears Mercia’s retreat back downstairs.
“Wow,” Greg says beside her. If it had been any other day, this might have startled her, but yeah. He’s the least of her problems. “This is ... Wow.”
“Go find Mercia,” Rachel says.
“She left as I came up,” Greg answers. “I can’t blame her.”
Jenny drops her half-eaten dinner and lies back against the vertical wall, before she rolls up. She comes to a sudden stop. Jenny gets onto her hands and knees, climbs over the hindrance, and scuttles across the ceiling.
“Mom?” Rachel’s voice quivers on the word.
“Mom,” Jenny mocks, crawling over the ceiling, moving closer to the door where Rachel and Greg still stand in shock.
“Mommy—”
“Mommy,” Jenny interrupts in an unnerving whine.
A sob wiggles its way out of Rachel’s throat as she follows her mother’s movements, until Jenny comes to a halt above the doorway and busies herself with scratching at the wallpaper.
“Mom, get down from there this instant.”
Jenny suddenly stands on the ceiling, coming face-to-face with Rachel, before an inhuman voice growls, “I’m not your mother.”
Greg slams the door in Jenny’s face, snapping Rachel out of her own fear. She spins on him and sees that his eyes are still fixed on the closed door. From how pale he is, she won’t be surprised if he drops out of school and drinks himself to death.
“Greg?”
“Yes,” he says.
“It’s okay.”
He blinks rapidly, before focusing on her. “That was not okay.”
Rachel scratches the back of her neck, grimacing. “I’ll admit it’s weird, but I can fix this. I can—”
“You need to call a priest immediately. That’s what you need to do.” Greg turns around and walks down the hallway.
“I don’t think a priest is going to be much help.” Rachel follows him, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the door hasn’t opened again. “I mean, I know what it looks like, but that’s not exactly what’s happening here. She’s not possessed or anything of the sort.”
He reaches the staircase and begins his descent. “Your mom literally climbed up the walls.”
“Yeah.” She can’t argue with him on that particular point, but this isn’t a religious problem whatsoever. It’s a Fae problem. A huge Fae problem. “Greg, wait.”
He comes to a grinding halt at the bottom of the staircase and turns to look at her. She stops on the step above the ground, right in front of him, and reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. After Rachel has gathered her thoughts, she drops her arm and stares at him.
Red flashes in his pupils, almost imperceptible, but this time Rachel is certain she’s seen it.
“What explanation can you possibly have for what’s going on with your mom?” Greg says. “It’s messed up beyond comprehension.”
“Obviously,” Rachel says, her mind reeling as she studies Greg, searching for whatever plagues him. “It’s just—”
She stops speaking as she spots the broken mirror propped up against an armchair. Rachel feels the muscles in her forehead contract into a frown. She turns to look at the mirror, which reflects Mercia lying half-conscious against the sofa. Mercia opens her eyes and looks directly at Rachel through the mirror.
She snaps her attention back to Greg before he can figure out what she’s seen.
“You’re right,” she says. She reaches out to hold on to the bannister. In her peripheral, she sees Mercia struggling to her feet.
“I’m glad you’ve come to your senses,” he says. “Do you guys still have a landline or—”
“It’s in the kitchen. We barely use it, but it works,” Rachel says. “I could be wrong, but I doubt there’s an Exorcisms ‘R Us on the internet.”
He smirks. “Leave it to you, Rachel Cleary, to make an inappropriate joke at the worst of times.” Greg begins to turn, but she quickly grabs him by the shoulder and forces him to look back at her. “You okay?”
“No,” she whispers.
It’s not entirely a lie.
Rachel leans forward into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Behind him, a royally pissed off Mercia stalks closer, a lamp in her hands. There’s blood dripping down her forehead, matting her blonde hair to her head, and a bruise blooms on her temple.
Meanwhile, Greg wraps his arms around her shoulders, squeezing her tightly against his chest, whispering sweet nothings into her ear.
Mercia raises the lamp over her head and nods to Rachel, who pulls away from Greg.
“Greg,” she says, gently running her hand over his cheek. He looks at her with those stormy eyes, so full of hope. Rachel smiles. “This thing between us ...”
“Yes?”
“It’s so over.”
Mercia brings the lamp down over his head, smashing the porcelain into a thousand pieces. Bits rain onto the hardwood floor, tinkling as they touch the ground. He crumples to his knees and drops onto his side, unconscious, lying amongst the broken shards.
Mercia’s foot connects with his side a couple of times before she spits onto his chest.
“That’s what you get for knocking me out, you A-grade piece of—”
His eyes shoot open before she can finish her sentence. She shrieks and jumps back. This time, Rachel takes point and kicks him upside the head with as much force as she can muster.
“I’m getting real tired of guys acting like they can get away with treating girls like dirt,” Rachel says through gritted teeth.
Greg goes limp and his eyelids shut a second time.
“We need to tie him up before he wakes again,” Rachel says.
“No,” Mercia says in a stern tone. “We need to get out of here now. We can go to my aunt’s house and—”
“I’m not stopping you from leaving, Mercia. If you want to go, then leave.”
