Bailey
How did everything spiral so far out of control?
I ask myself that question for the thousandth time, but I still don’t have a good answer.
At least I can lose myself in my work. After rotting in bed over the weekend, I’m relieved to escape my childhood home and my mom’s knowing, silent stare. I don’t have any of my scrubs with me, but I’m able to track down a clean change of clothes packed away in a box in my old closet. My shoes are presumably still sitting in the hallway of the house I’d fled. I wasn’t about to go back to retrieve them, so I’ve settled on wearing a pair of borrowed flip flops.
One glance in the mirror reveals that I look more like I’m going to some backyard barbecue than a nursing night shift. Shame washes over me at the sight of my reflection. Professionalism has always been very important to me. I guess that’s just one more way in which I’ve failed.
My mom gives me a tight hug before I head out, promising to have some food ready for me when I come back early the next morning.
And then I’m sitting in the car, alone again, as I drive to the Wilsons’ house on the edge of the swamp. I pass by the shaded path to the old Gregory place on the way, but I keep my eyes fixed forward on the road ahead. Even so, I can’t help but wonder if Tanner, or the thing that isn’t Dalton, is there right now.
Or maybe they both are.
The thought chills me to the bone.
Shaking the feeling away, I try to prepare myself to act normal in front of the Wilsons. I have no doubts that my mom’s probably already called Helen, since they are close friends, and apprised her of the situation.
I dread to think what she might have told the Wilsons. I know my mother thinks that Tanner did this to me, that we’d had a fight that had gotten out of hand. She quizzed me over and over, but I kept my mouth shut, even when she drove me to the nearest urgent care to get my hand X-rayed.
How am I supposed to explain to her that I think an entity is possessing the man I love and made him attack me?
No, I’m better off saying nothing at all.
Helen is waiting for me on the front porch when I pull into the driveway of the Wilson home. Her features are creased with worry, dismal confirmation that my mom has already told the older woman everything.
“Hey, honey,” she greets me as I step out of my vehicle into the humid evening air. “How are you? Your momma told me you’re not feeling so great.”
I’m sure my mother told her a lot more than that, but I bite back the sassy comment and instead plaster a smile on my face, hoping it looks more cheerful than I feel. “Oh, you know how she is, always exaggerating,” I say, waving my hand in the air as though I can brush the comments away. “I’m fine, really.”
The older woman doesn’t seem convinced, especially when her eyes land on my injured, bandaged hand and narrow suspiciously. Dread pools in my gut as I wait for her to ask if Tanner was responsible for my pitiful state, but she subverts my expectations and instead breezes, “Well, let’s not stand out here in the heat. I’ve got the AC on. Come on in.”
She ushers me inside the house and out of the dusky driveway. I’m glad to be indoors. I don’t think I could stand being outside in the dark this close to the swamp. A shiver runs through me as I imagine a figure moving out there in the shadows of the cypress trees, slithering over the tangled roots and jagged gravestones fighting for space in the mire.
“Robert’s taking a nap,” Helen tells me as she leads me upstairs. “He’s been sleeping so poorly.”
“Even with the change in medication?” I ask, falling easily into my professional role. Discussing work is easy and comfortable, a welcome respite from the troubled thoughts that snarl through my mind.
Helen nods. “Actually, I think it’s gotten worse,” she admits. “He used to be able to get a few hours until the drugs wore off, but now he’s up every hour or so. Sometimes he talks in his sleep, but I can’t make sense of anything he says.”
“I’ll see what I can do for him tonight, and then I’ll call his doctor first thing tomorrow morning,” I assure her.
In spite of his insomnia, Robert is sound asleep when we reach the bedroom. I run down my checklist, noting his vitals and caring for the wound. Helen watches in silence as I gingerly clean around the healing skin before I dress his leg with fresh bandages. He’s not due for more medication for a few more hours, but I prep the supplies anyway.
Finally, when there is nothing else left for me to do, Helen and I retreat to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
As she places a mug down on the table in front of me, Helen gestures to my bandaged arm. “You must be relieved it’s not broken,” she says. Her tone is careful, as though she’s worried she’ll spook me.
I nod in response.
She purses her lips as she slides into the seat across from me and folds her hands around her own cup of coffee. “Tanner didn’t do it.” It’s not a question. Unease glints in her eyes.
“No,” I reply slowly, holding her gaze. “He didn’t. At least…I don’t think so.”
A sigh escapes the older woman as she shakes her head. “I was worried about this,” she murmurs, her eyes flicking down to the swirling depths of the coffee mug nestled between her palms. “I thought that maybe with the house being gone…”
“What?” I urge, fear surging through me. “What do you know?”
Helen’s gaze meets mine again, and I’m surprised to see tears welling there. “I grew up in this house,” she breathes in a shaky whisper, barely audible above the gentle hum of the refrigerator. “One night, when I was a little girl, I stayed up late. It was a small act of rebellion, but I was always such a golden child. It was simply thrilling.” She turns her head to stare out the darkened window toward the swamp. “I was up in my bedroom, the room Robert’s in now. I had gotten this sense that I needed to look out the window, like my life depended on it. So I looked. At first I only saw darkness. But then, when I turned my attention out toward the Gregory house, I saw…”
“A man.” I finish for her. “A man that isn’t a man.”
Understanding settles between us, and she nods. “You’ve seen him too.” Once again, it’s not a question. “Back then, I thought my mind must be playing tricks on me. But I saw him again, and again, and again, until one day, I decided to investigate. One night, I snuck out the back door and waited at the edge of the marsh. Sure enough, he appeared over by the old cemetery. Every bone in my body screamed that I shouldn’t go any farther, but a part of me had to know who this man was. And so I waded into the swamp. But every time I got close, he would dance farther away, just out of reach. Before I knew it, I was chest deep in the mud, water closing in around me. It dawned on me then that I was in terrible danger, but I had gone too far.”
“It lured you in,” I gasp.
“It did,” she confirms somberly. “And it would have kept me there–except that my father had heard the door slam behind me when I snuck out. He came in after me and pulled me out. And the whole time, that thing laughed.”
Ice curls down my spine. I try to imagine being trapped in the mire, the putrid murk sloughing in around me. The stench that had clung to Tanner the night he grabbed me fills my nostrils, and it takes everything in me not to gag at the memory.
“Miraculously, I was okay,” Helen continues. Her eyes are glassy, lost in a time long past. “I was filthy, of course. And my father, who had never raised his voice to anybody, shouted at me to never, ever go into the swamp again, especially after dark.”
Silence falls in the kitchen as her story concludes. It takes me a moment to find my voice, but when I do, I ask, “Did your father tell you what it is?”
She shakes her head ruefully. “No,” she sighs. “He said it was against God. But that’s not to say I never found out. My nanny knew the truth. She told me what my father couldn’t. That thing out there is older than any of us. It was here when her grandmother had worked the land, and even she had grown up with the stories. They have a name for it.” She pauses and draws in a deep, shuddering breath. “Asmodeus.”
Something clicks inside of me as forgotten Sunday school lessons and old local legends fall into place. “A demon,” I whisper through my mounting dread.
Helen looks as sick as I feel. “My nanny said her grandmother had helped bind this demon to the Gregory family. They thought that by doing so, the entity could be controlled. But there was a price to pay, a steep price. Every Gregory who has lived in that house has paid since then.”
“Layla,” I realize.
“I don’t think it was a coincidence that the house burned down,” Helen says. She must not know that Penny set the fire, and I don’t tell her now. “I think Layla came face to face with Asmodeus. I had hoped that the fire would cleanse the property of the evil, but I fear that while it may have weakened the demon, perhaps it also freed it to prey on more than just the Gregory family.”
Horrified, I utter, “And now it’s got Tanner.”
It’s clear that Helen’s fears have been realized as I put the pieces together. “Tanner didn’t do that to you, Bailey,” she tells me, pointing toward my injured wrist. “Asmodeus did.”
At her words, my world comes crashing down. Bile rises in my throat as I wrestle with the terrible certainty that I’m not crazy, that all of these horrible things that have happened are real. After a moment, I choke out, “What do I do?”
“Wait here,” the older woman instructs. She rises from her seat and strides quickly out of the room, leaving me alone at the kitchen table. Fear, acid and irrational, bubbles up inside of me at her absence. I swear I can feel eyes burning into me, but I refuse to look toward the window overlooking the swamp. Just as I decide that I can’t possibly bear it any longer, Helen returns.
“Here.”
She places a yellowed, ragged piece of paper onto the table in front of me. It looks old, and it’s creased in a way that tells me it’s been folded and unfolded dozens of times.
“What is it?” I ask, squinting down at the words. It’s a language I don’t recognize, like a mix of French, English, and something else entirely.
“It’s a Voodoo spell,” Helen explains. “My nanny’s grandmother was a priestess, and that gift was passed down through the generations. She told me that if I were to ever encounter the demon again, that this incantation would destroy it. I memorized it as a little girl, and I still know it by heart to this very day.”
I stare down at the scrawled writing.
Would this really be enough to kill a demon?
There was only one way to find out.