Page 108 of Play Nice

I eye the opening to the attic again, return upstairs for the ladder. But it’s too heavy, and I’m not coordinated enough right now to maneuver it down to my room. Or to climb it.

I’m alone and fucked-up.

In the dark.

The sun has set, and I engage in my new routine, turning on every light in this house.

I sit on the couch and wait for something to happen.

When the nothing becomes intolerable, I get up for my phone. Austin said something about my Instagram stories, didn’t he? I don’t remember posting anything to my stories.

I swear I left my phone on the dining table, but maybe I didn’t, because it isn’t there.

The book is.

This stupid book. This funhouse mirror fiction.

But what’s the harm in finishing it now?

What more damage can it do?

How badly do I want to find out?

“Why would you say that?” I asked her.

“Everyone dies, Mom,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“We’re not dying in this house,” I told her. “Say it.”

“Whatever.” She returned to her drawing. She would no longer engage with me.

I asked her if she wanted a glass of water. She didn’t respond.

I went into the kitchen, and Roy met me there.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “The demon’s hold on this house is strong.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why this house?”

What I was really asking was: Why me?

Why had I, all my life, come up against such adversity? Would I never know peace? Was I cursed? What had I done to deserve my father? Or these cruel men I seemed to gravitate toward. The cruelty of my own body and the attention it garnered—so often unwanted. The restlessness of my mind. The ruthlessness of motherhood. What had I done to deserve these demons?

“It’s been here for a very long time. Even before this house was built. It lived in the woods. This is its home. Demons aren’t eager for change. That may sound surprising, since often they’re depicted in the media as entities keen to take possession of new bodies. Children, mostly. Corrupting innocence. An easy sell in Hollywood. For the Catholic Church, God forgive me.”

“I’m telling Father Bernard,” I said.

He smiled, and it was the first and only happiness I felt that day. “Tattletale.”

I mimed zipping my lips. Locking. Throwing away the key.

“Most of the demons I’ve encountered, I compare them to channel surfers. They stay in one spot, watching. If they get bored, they might sleep, hibernate. If they aren’t tired and they don’t like what they see—or, depending on their personality, if they like what they see—they might intervene. Communicate. Engage. Attach. They’ve been around for so long that they don’t understand or don’t care about the degree to which they affect us. They don’t have empathy.”

“Is this your way of telling me it’s hopeless? That it won’t leave?”

“It’s not hopeless. But it won’t be easy. It likes your channel.”

“That makes one of us,” I said. “So, what’s next? I move?”