It was midnight and Briar still hadn’t changed from her cinched-up gown. But there she lay in bed, eyes fixed on the brown-ringed ceiling. It was crazy. There were no such thing as walking wolves, and she knew it. But she couldn’t erase the image of those fierce amber eyes, and those sharp teeth like ivory knives coming for her. How could they exist? Simple. They don’t.
But then she remembered the weird podcast with the gaunt elderly woman. It’s dangerous, she said. She called Briar by name. Dangerous? Briar wondered but only for a second. It was just too crazy. Neither of these things existed; they were evidence of her runaway imagination.
As she lay there, straining to doze, the dark muffled silence of the basement was disrupted by noises of shuffling shoes and kicked boxes. They seemed to come from the closet. What? Briar sat up, and she froze. Her mind became clear and taut, as sharp as the silence that now saturated the bedroom.
What noise? There was no noise. There were no wolves or any other creatures. There was no podcast calling her name. And totally no noise. Her gut twisted and told a different story. It was one that she wasn’t sure would end well.
She was about to ease back onto her squeaky mattress, when the entire closet door thumped heavily. For shit’s sake, now that was a noise. Briar caught her breath and heard heart throbs in her ears. “Dax?” she whispered, but no one answered. “Dax, you little creep. Very funny.”
Briar wasn’t sure which was worse, a response, or none. She clenched the edge of the mattress and eased herself off. She kept her eyes on the closet door as it slowly groaned open on ruined hinges.
“Dax?”
Nothing. The very air was dead. Her breathing stopped.
A white-gloved hand appeared from behind the door and gripped its edge.
Briar rolled her eyes. “By the way, your little ghost in the closet routine isn’t really working—but the gloves are very Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Still, whoever it was didn’t respond. Briar began to feel sick with fear.
She bounded off the bed, sprinted to a far wall and snapped on the light. She grabbed a baseball bat propped up on a wall. “I see you,” she shouted, “get out of there.”
Like a coiled spring, a tall man leapt out from the closet. He was tall, thin and had a short, cropped beard. He wore a shimmering bustled ball-gown that glittered in the harsh overhead light. The strapless dress left his dark wooly chest rather exposed. “Briar Blackwood—is it really you? Am I dreaming?” the man asked. He straightened up and then stared at her.
Seemingly unaware of his height, he nearly grazed the crown of his vertical powdered wig against the low paint-peeled ceiling. He had a curious look in his stare. His eyes beamed clear and bright. But there was another world behind that clarity. It was a world of secrets, mysteries and things that wished to remain unseen.
Briar could feel the rise of the familiar, strange, burning sensation in the pit of her stomach. She gripped the bat tightly and cocked it back.
“Oh dear,” the man said. His voice had the deep tone of a stringed bass. “A ball gown, yet again” he said. He looked down at his outfit, but seemed rather blasé about it. “That makes thrice this week.” He sighed heavily and reached up to discover the powdered wig. He scowled darkly. “This is absolutely ridiculous. Glamorous, yes, but ridiculous.”
Briar swooshed the bat to warn him. “Get back. I mean it.”
“I know how this must seem. But try to stay calm.” He tapered his voice to a whisper, but his resonance still hummed in her chest. He put a white-gloved finger to his lips. She opened her mouth to shout. But before she could issue a single sound, he speedily drew shapes—all geometric forms—in the air with his hand, finishing with a finger pointed toward her throat. That was when Briar felt something inside tighten. She grabbed at her neck with one hand and tried to shriek, but nothing came.
Her screams silenced, the man took a casual step toward her. But having little practice walking in high heels, he tilted to one side and steadied himself on a nearby table. “I’m so terribly sorry,” he said. “If anyone knew that I used mute-magic on Briar of the Black Woods…You won’t mention this, will you?”
She stared with her mouth open, still trying to speak, and the baseball bat to which she clung drooped toward the floor.
“Well, of course you can’t say anything just yet. But when you can, please don’t.”
Briar tried to force another sound, but her face just reddened and her neck tightened further. It felt like a Chinese finger trap for her voice.
“Straining makes things worse,” he said. “Now come with me. Spies are everywhere, and they’ve finally found you.”
He tottered across the basement toward Briar. She flattened herself like a board against the wall, taking a stranglehold on the bat again. “I’m sorry,” said the man, “but didn’t you get our message? We saw you watching through your device.”
As soon as he walked close enough, she raised the bat and swung at him. But he made another quick gesture with his white satin hand, and the baseball bat exploded into a flurry of white streamers and confetti that fluttered against his lacey ruffles like the first flakes of winter.
“Briar, please. Weren’t the wolves enough for you?” he said. He brushed the mess away. Briar stood agog at the explosion of confetti all around her, but the word “wolves” seemed to penetrate her stupefaction. Briar mouthed something. And the man, exasperated, touched her throat. “Only if you promise not to scream.” She nodded. He flicked his finger, as though he was turning on a light switch, and suddenly she could speak.
“Please don’t hurt me,” Briar said. She felt out of breath as her throat eased out of its cramp.
“Hurt you! Don’t be ridiculous. I am here to save you.” He turned toward an old cracked hanging mirror and adjusted his beauty mark. He teetered back toward the closet, like someone walking a tightrope, and he balanced himself against the wall. “Now, if you value your life, you will get into that closet with me!”
He opened the door and unsteadily lurched inward, doing his best to get his fluffed-up petticoats to cooperate. Briar rushed up and slammed the door behind him. There was a chair sitting beneath the window, and she jammed it between the knob and the floor, to brace the door shut.
Right on cue, the door at the top of the steps angrily scraped open, wood against wood, and Briar heard the unmistakable, unapologetic footsteps of Megan, Marnie, and Matilda, Briar’s foster mother, clambering down.
Matilda was a beefy woman with broad, rounded ape-like shoulders. She was a former prison guard who tried to offset her machismo with bottle-blonde puffy hair, a French manicure, and deep makeup layers. She stood between her two daughters with mannish hands set defiantly on her hips.
Briar tried to wipe the astonishment from her face at seeing Megan and Marnie both wearing fuzzy slippers and awful matching pink crocheted bathrobes. Briar had never seen the girls after dusk, and knowing what lengths they took to assure a cultivated daytime look, she was taken aback by their atrocious get-ups.
“Oh Jeez,” Briar said. She wasn’t sure if she should feel relieved or astounded.
She started across the room, but Matilda held up a hand. “Stop right there.”
“What? Stop? No you don’t understand—” Briar cut her words short. She glanced over her shoulder at the closet. She knew they wouldn’t believe her.
“Dear God. Here we go again,” Megan said.
Matilda flashed her sloppily mascaraed eyes. “Now that’s not quite fair, Megan.” She crossed her arms so that they balanced atop her preposterously enormous bosom. “Let’s give Briar a chance to explain.”
Briar swallowed hard. “There was—something down here. I was scared. You didn’t hear anything?”
“Well, that’s just sad,” said Megan.
“Pitiful, really,” Marnie added. She was distracted with texting.
Matilda ignored Megan and narrowed her eyes at Briar. “Something? Down here?” She advanced on Briar, looking left and right. “And just what did you see?”
Marnie chimed in, bored as ever. “Maybe it was her queer-bait friend.”
Matilda got red-faced. “We don’t talk like that. This is a Christian home. We pray for all sinners here, whether they’re gay, Jewish, or of Latin descent.”
“Mother, that was so divinely inspired,” Megan said.
“Thank you, darling. Now what the hell is going on down here?”
Briar knew she was screwed no matter what she said now. “There was a man in the closet,” she finally blurted out. Sounding crazy was easier than she thought.
“Oh, then it definitely wasn’t Dax,” Marnie said. She was still glued to her phone. “He’s been out of the closet since he could toddle.”
Matilda paraded across the basement, fists clenched, trains of yellow chiffon fluttering around her rump. “A man you say?” She pounded on the closet door. “Who’s in there? Come out!” But there was no answer.
“I’ll tell you what’s in there, mother,” said Megan. “Briar’s desperate cry for help. You know the rumors. For all we know she conjured up a demon.”
Matilda yanked away the chair wedged beneath the doorknob and jerked the closet door open. But it was empty, except for Briar’s few black outfits hanging lifelessly above some jumbled shoes.
Megan shook her head. “It just breaks the Baby Jesus’ heart.”
Staring into the emptiness, Briar felt a cold panic that started in her stomach. “I don’t understand…”
Megan inserted herself again. “There’s something more mother. I just didn’t want to upset you. But, at school today, Briar stood on stage in front of everyone and spoke in tongues. I was so frightened.”
Marnie picked her teeth. “Yeah me too.”
“A sign of the Beast,” Matilda blurted. Then she threw a hammy arm around Briar’s shoulder. “But we mustn’t give up on Christ’s lost lamb.”
“I pray every night for her soul,” said Megan.
“It’s true. She’s down on her knees a lot!” Marnie added.
Megan glared.
Matilda then noticed Briar’s phone on the bed. “What is this?” She snapped up the phone in her sweaty fist.
Briar’s heart dropped into her stomach. “I don’t know. There’s so much junk in this basement—maybe it belongs to one of you?”
Matilda powered it up and scanned the logs. “Well, what a coincidence. Whoever owns this phone also calls a so-called boy named Dax.” Her face tightened and her caked makeup flaked. “Who is paying for this phone Briar? Is it drugs? The Lord hates liars, and drug addicts, and cell phone users.”
Marnie shoved her own phone into her robe.
“I—I…” Briar dared not say.
“We’ve tried mother—you’ve tried. There’s no shame in calling Mrs. Poplar to put an end to all of this.”
Matilda stuffed the phone between her bosoms. “Are you crazy? What do you think will happen when Mrs. Poplar gets involved?”
Megan tried to look angelic. “Well, I suppose she’ll find Briar a more suitable placement.”
“And just where do you think the check comes from every month for your salon trips and your…enhancements?” Matilda snapped. “No. We must help poor Briar in her hour of need. It’s time to pray like never before. Girls, go bring down the kneelers and light the votives. We shall hold a night-long vigil to expunge the demons from this household.”
Marnie shoved Megan. “She’s talking about you.”
Matilda snarled at Briar. “As for Miss Blackwood, you’d better pray with us that I don’t change my mind.”
Briar suspected she’d never change her mind, as long as the support checks kept coming, which meant that Matilda didn’t have to go to work.
“Come along girls,” Matilda yelled over her shoulder. “We need to find the heavy crucifix.”
They were stopped in their tracks when three sharp knocks sounded from inside the closet.