Page 79 of Succubus

I hear Al cry, “You say it is only a single instrument? Playing like an entire symphony?” He seems to be overjoyed. He declares, “This modern music is so full of courage! It is madness!” Just wait, Al, until you get to rock and roll. Which Mom does shortly. I cover my ears. I want to climb out my window. It would only take me a few minutes, sprinting, to get to Joel’s. Maybe I can kidnap him. Maybe I can take him away with me to an island somewhere. And. And what? First things first. I need to stop him from harming any more of my father’s children. After that—okay, I don’t want to think past that. I’ll just do that. Then we’ll talk, brain. Then we’ll talk.

And abruptly, I know what I need to do.

CHAPTER 25

Time passes even more slowly as I wait for Al to return to his RV in the driveway. Dee and Ella come home, and all four of them end up playing what sounds like a rousing game of Go Fish. Ella explains the rules to Al again and again, and he never seems to learn them. Al asks Ella if she’s ever seen a pee-ah-no.

“A what?” she asks.

“A piano,” I say from the hall upstairs, where they can’t hear me. I am pressed against the wall like I’m in a spy thriller. Like I maybe have a tiny dagger in my sock. I think of my hunting knife, which now lives on a shelf in my closet. Would I really have stabbed Joel with it? Was that really my plan?

“A what?” everyone says downstairs, still confused.

Al tries again.

Finally they figure it out.

“Of course!” Ella sounds happy to have superior knowledge to an adult. “That’s one right there!”

“Mother of the sky!” shouts Al in his raspy voice. “That is one of them? Why didn’t you tell me, Carol Dunlap? It was right here in the room with us the whole time!”

What follows is some very unskilled attempts at plunking out a tune. I’m the only one who can play at all.

“Not exactly like the music before,” Al says, kindly, I think.

“Let’s get Tempest,” says Mom, and I shrink back farther against the wall, banging my elbow. “She can do that one song. . . .”

“Ouch,” I whisper.

“No, Mom,” says Dee quickly. “Let her rest.”

Dee brings Ella upstairs to bed. I retreat to my room. I hear something beeping in the kitchen.

“Can we do it again?” Al asks.

The microwave hums to life. It beeps.

“Burning like fire!” Al exclaims. Then, “Ooh, ooh, this is much better, even, than fish!”

I have the strong sense that Mom is introducing him to Hot Pockets. Sure enough, moments later she is referring to mozzarella cheese with an exaggerated, pretentious Italian accent, coming very close to dropping the final a. I hear him earnestly try to say it the same way.

Dee pokes her head into my room. “Are you okay? Ella’s still awake, but I wanted to check on you since I’m probably going to fall asleep if I have to lie there with her much longer. Big day for her, she’s doing her crash and burn.”

I know it well: Ella often gets sad and stressed at bedtime after a long day, and she lies in bed listing all her fears, which are many, and all the things she thinks she might have messed up that day, week, or year.

“I’m okay,” I say. “I just don’t really want to deal with . . . whatever is going on down there.”

“He’s actually kinda nice,” says Dee. “He’s basically from another planet. Mom is showing him her dumb phone games. She’s been pretty down since Barry.”

I stare at her. I’d completely forgotten about Barry.

“Mommy!” Ella cry-commands.

“You sure you’re okay?” Dee asks.

“Yes! Go!” I smile.

“Sheesh, I’m going.” She rolls her eyes.