Page 133 of Play Nice

I pull back, and it snarls.

Its pale eyes watch me. They narrow as I struggle.

“Let me go!” I tell it. But my resolve is waning, and it knows. It laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs, and it tightens its grip.

I look around at all the mouse parts, at all the stuff. The photographs, the jewelry box, the bottles. The books. The cups. Why is this shit in the attic?

Did Mom put it up here?

She tried to appease it…She did what she could to keep it happy. If it was content, it would sleep. Go dormant. That’s what Roy said.

My pain kept it occupied. Kept it happy.

I understand now, as the demon drags me into shadow. Mom couldn’t figure out how to beat it, how to exorcise it, so she tried to live with it. Give it everything it wanted. Everything it could possibly want. She played along. Played nice.

“Stop,” I say. “Wait.”

I reach up around my neck, unclasp my necklace, my snake charm.

“For you,” I say, dropping the charm into its claw. “An offering. A gift.”

It closes its fist around the necklace, then leans in close again, its tongue prodding my cheek.

Now is the time to turn on my tears.

It recoils. Spits. Growls.

It knows I’m faking. It can taste it.

My inner rebel is reluctant to give in, but what happens if I don’t? Will it keep me here forever, its claws around my throat?

So when I do start to cry, to really, sincerely cry, I don’t cry for it.

I cry for my mother. I cry for my sisters.

I cry for myself.

I cry for everything it’s taken from me that lives here now. With it. In it.

It drinks until it’s satisfied, laughing again as it retreats into the dark of the attic.

It allows me to climb down the ladder, to replace the panel.

It allows me to leave, but I’m not sure it will ever let me go.

“Clio? Clio! Where are you? Come on.” Daphne.

I find her on the landing. She throws her arms around me and practically pushes me out through the front door, down the wooden stairs to the pathway, to the yard, where Roy is splayed on the weedy grass, arms out wide, legs together, very “Jesus on the cross.”

Leda paces up and down driveway. When we get to her, the three of us embrace, hold each other, as the sirens approach, without saying a word.

—

There are two police cars and an ambulance.

There are neighbors in the street, necks craned.

“Clio?”