Page 115 of Play Nice

So dramatic. I wonder how good of a demonologist he is. How good of a demonologist can one really be?

“Yeah,” I say. I try using lingo I think he’ll understand. “It’s made its presence known.”

“It’s communicating. How?”

“Writing. Drawing, mostly. It says hello,” I say, digging my bare feet into the dry mulch.

“Don’t engage with it.”

“We’re past that, Roy.”

“Has it made physical contact?” he asks.

I stare at my burn. It’s hideous. “I don’t think it wants to hurt me. But it’s okay to watch me hurt myself.”

He’s quiet.

“Roy? Are you still there?”

“I am. I’m…We were afraid of this.”

“Then why didn’t Mom just sell the fucking house?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Explain it to me, then, Roy. Because I’m starting to think it was you.” I know I shouldn’t alienate the one person who could potentially help me with the demon, the one person who I know believes me, but I can’t stop myself. My anger is in control and I’m just a puppet on strings, a doll in a kid’s tight, gummy grip.

“I’m sorry, Clio. I don’t follow.”

“I think she held on to the house because of you. Because you wanted access to the demon. That’s your whole thing, right?”

“That is not true,” he says, an edge to his pretty voice that gets my attention. “Alex knew as well as I did that the demon was attached not only to that house but to her and to you. The demon didn’t want Alex to sell the house. Even if we could have successfully off-loaded it, there was a chance it would find her. Follow her. Or you. All these years, she tried to appease it for fear of that scenario. She did what she could to keep it happy. If it was content, it would sleep. Go dormant.”

“Was that why she was there when she died? Trying to keep it happy? What does that even mean? And where were you, Roy? Why weren’t you there?”

“We…we’d hit a rough patch. She wasn’t in good health, wasn’t taking care of herself. She was…she was drinking a lot. Another relapse. We’d agreed to take some time apart.”

“Ah,” I say. I remember what Mom wrote in the book, in one of her footnotes. Alcohol was never my problem. It was a response to my problems. Either she was in denial or she just had too many problems.

The birds squawk. A squirrel dashes across the yard. The neighbor’s dog barks.

“What would you like to do?” Roy asks. “I can come down. Walk through. Call in my team.”

“Your team,” I say, wriggling my toes in the dirt. “Jed and Ruth and Father Bernard?”

He goes quiet again.

“Sorry,” I say. “I just…I just read Mom’s book. So…”

“They’ve all passed on.”

The sun disappears behind a cloud, and the day goes gloomy. “To different professions?”

“To the afterlife,” he says. “They’re all dead.”

“But…nothing in the book really happened. It’s all bullshit, right? I don’t remember any—”

“Father Bernard had cancer,” he says. “Jed drowned in a swimming pool. Ruth fell prey to addiction. Working in this field, it takes a toll. What happened that day was not exactly as it was described in Alex’s book. She had to embellish some of the horrors we endured to get publisher interest. But the demon is real, Clio. You know that now. And it’s dangerous. It’s attachment to you is profound.”