Chapter 50
50
We are outside by the beach.
A campfire blazes between us. The hot flames roar, kissing the night sky, tinting our skin with an orange glow. Violin and drums in the distance. Bouncing, sharp tones that strike crisp in my ears.
We are laughing about something when Viktor comes around with a box.
“Oooh!” say the girls as he goes around the campfire. Everyone grabs whatever is inside, hiding it in their palms, making kissy noises to the secret within their fingers.
I am last. Viktor lowers the box in front of me. I gasp.
A tiny mouse, fleshy and pink. I pick it up. It is warm in my hand, the size of my finger and terribly sweet. It’s still a newborn, its eyes not fully developed, black beads hidden behind a layer of translucent flesh. In this miniature form, it has little resemblance to its final shape. For now, it causes no disgust, not like its uglier rodent brothers, those fat and pesky rats that scamper desperately in dirty city sewers.
“Oh, you sweet little thing,” I coo. It wiggles on my palm, stretches its limbs wide. I must have woken it up. It flips onto its stomach and crawls feebly. Tiny, fleshy feet stamping, stamping, stamping, tickling my palm in its weakness as it corrals the strength required for a meager squeak. It strikes me that I was once this small, this innocent, this lovable, a clump of cells in a belly.
“Julie,” Bella Marie says, “we’re almost halfway through our trip and I am so sad.”
“So sad,” repeat the girls.
“So sad,” I say.
“I want to celebrate you, our newest family member. Share our bond, our secret. Tonight, we will let you into our world, a small step, to make us an even truer family. I remember when Chloe was in your position. It was such a beautiful moment.”
Though she had abandoned me, I am happy for Chloe, pleased that she was able to experience the true meaning of family, especially after uncovering the truth of her adoption. Everyone deserves this joy. These girls rescued her at the right time.
“Are you Christian?” asks Bella Marie.
“No,” I say.
“Buddhist?” asks Kelly.
“No.”
“Shinto?” asks Emmeline.
“No.”
“Muslim?” asks Ana.
“No.”
“Atheist?” asks Angelique.
“Mmm. Agnostic?” I suggest.
“Agnostic!” laugh the girls.
The mouse twitches in my hand. Alive and well. The air smells like ash. Burning.
Bella Marie strokes her mouse with her pinkie. “Do you remember Nikolai’s story?”
I nod. The pocket watch he traded for a wife.
“Well, I wasn’t being entirely honest. It wasn’t pure luck. He had sworn fealty to a holy being and prayed hard for a changing tide. A break from toiling peasantry.”
I understand why they asked about my religion now. If I am to be family, of course we need to respect the same gods. To worship the same spiritual being. I am okay with that. I will do anything to be family. I want to be one of them, body and soul.
“Which god?” I ask.
Bella Marie is delighted, eyes glinting with excitement. I have said the right thing.
“This is the beauty of Eto,” she says. “There is not one singular god. No singular entity. Eto shifts and flows with time, molding itself to best serve us.”
Eto. I’ve never heard of it, yet it feels familiar, as if it’s been whispered to me in the gauzy space of a dream, right before I woke.
“What does Eto take the form of now?” I ask.
The girls giggle.
“Eto takes the form of whatever empowers us,” Bella Marie says. “Have you ever wondered how we’ve reached the hearts of millions in the span of a few years? How we’ve solidified ourselves in positions of influence in the ever-changing zeitgeist? It is all because Eto has blessed us. And once the world tires of influencers—and such a thing is inevitable—Eto will empower us in different ways, ways we cannot even fathom with our simple minds now.”
“But how?” I ask, trying to piece it all together. Trying to make sense of this idea that seems so foreign, so silly, so impossible. Is this what Kelly meant by group synergy and manifesting? Were they simply praying to some god? “How can Eto do that?” I glance at all my girls, considering their legions of followers, how Kelly was able to have a comeback despite dipping into obscurity. Do they truly believe it was down to Eto?
Bella Marie shakes her head. “Eto is not for us to understand. Eto works in unknowable ways. You will see it soon. Once you’ve opened your heart and served Eto, Eto will repay you in kind.”
The girls all nod except for Angelique, who is staring at the mouse in her hand, holding it up to her belly so her baby can hear the squeaks through her swollen abdomen.
“Like Chloe,” Bella Marie continues. “She gained millions across each platform soon after swearing her fealty. It is all because of Eto.”
I find myself frowning, though I don’t want to. Is Eto really the reason for Chloe’s growth? Did Chloe once believe this too? I can’t imagine it. Chloe, my twin, who had felt so steady and solid since she was a toddler, believing in something as nebulous as this.
“Julie?” Bella Marie smiles at me, her eyes so warm and lovely I could drink from them and taste the humid summer sky. “Where have you gone? Return to us.”
Return to us.
My girls, who are all so beautiful and talented. Of course they’d be loved. Of course their followings are organic and true. Of course they are successful. I hadn’t ever considered anything else at play.
But I can read the frequency of their humming bodies, their curving smiles, the steady beat of their hearts. They truly believe some god is the reason for their success. That it is some amorphous celestial body that controls the numbers on their screens.
Us.
They believe in Eto. I can sense it now: their belief is a necessary ingredient to their synchronicity, their togetherness, their group synergy.
I must conform to become one of them. I must believe in Eto for me to become us.
It doesn’t matter what I truly think, what logic or reason is ticking in my brain, holding me back. I must sacrifice it all into the fire, let it burn away. I can’t lose the chance to be accepted, to become inextricably linked, not when I’ve finally found kin who understand my faults, who hold me with affection, who love me as Julie and no one else. They are the blood running through my veins, the bones holding my body together, the heart beating in my chest.
I will force myself to believe if that is what they need. Even if it means putting faith in a god I’m not sure exists. I would do anything to be us .
I am ready.
“How do I swear fealty?”
The girls love my declaration. Their bodies vibrate with excitement, compulsive and electrifying. It strikes my chest like I took a bite of the sun, and I know this is the beginning of it all, a heady sign that I am being welcomed into us.
Bella Marie grows tall with a beaming smile. “Eto lives within us through our love. Our dedication. As long as we show Eto our heart and our devotion, Eto will love us back.” She sits down next to me and shows me the small mouse in her hand. The little pink babe. It yawns, opening its tiny mouth wide.
She takes one of my hands in hers, the other cupping her mouse. “Repeat after me.” She stares at the little creature. “You will grow to be strong.”
I do the same. We all do. Stare at our mouse, shower it with our intent, our affection.
You will grow to be strong.
Then, Bella Marie passes her mouse to me, and Ana takes mine. We each trade mice in a circle. A new pink creature twisting in each of our palms.
Emmeline is next. “You will grow to be beautiful.”
You will grow to be beautiful.
We trade mice again. We do this several times. A new mouse each time, a new wish for each trade. The little animals are showered with our devotion, our dreams, the lucky things, as they squirm in our hands.
You will grow to be rich.
You will grow to be loved.
You will grow to be safe.
You will grow to be brave.
You will grow to be adored.
You will grow to be successful.
Then it is my turn. My original mouse is back in my hand. I bestow it with my intent.
“You will grow to be worthy.”
You will grow to be worthy.
“And now,” Bella Marie says, “we must accept the love we gave Eto as ours. Absorb Eto into us.”
“Absorb?”
“Yes,” she says gently. “Watch.”
The violin screams. Its notes are sharp and cutting as Bella Marie parts her lips and places the mouse on her tongue. A tiny thing, barely a tenth of her glorious, beautiful mouth. I am enraptured as I stare into the mouse’s beady eyes, black behind a layer of skin, blind, as Bella Marie seals it behind her lips, as she chews, slow, methodic, as the bones crunch, crunch, crunch . I think I hear a squeak, but it might just be the fiddle. She swallows. Opens her mouth. The mouse is gone. Only tongue, gums, white teeth, and a pink uvula.
I stare at her open mouth. For a moment, I think it’s some magic trick, or a game like the pills on the plane. That the mouse is simply behind her back, not deep in her throat. But then her lips meet in a grin and I realize it was no ruse. She swallowed it. My breath hitches and I blink rapidly, as if a mosquito is stuck inside my eyelid.
“Now, your turn.”
My mouse twitches. It moves its head lethargically, as if craning, as if it can see, as if it’s not actually blind, but aware. Aware of the mouth that may eat him. My breathing is shallow, sweat shedding across my skin.
I don’t feel happy or good or beautiful. I don’t want to eat it. I don’t want to absorb it. I am scared.
“Don’t be scared.”
I glance across the campfire at Maya. How did she know what I was thinking?
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” says Lily.
“You have us now,” says Sophia.
“We are here,” says Angelique.
“We will protect you,” says Ana.
“We are family,” says Kelly.
“Family,” says Emmeline.
Then, they all pop their mice into their mouths. Chew, chew, chew, crunch, crunch, crunch . Swallow. They look refreshed, happy, aglow. I want to be like them. Happy and aglow. Not afraid.
Bella Marie kneels, her dress dusted with sand. She cups my hand, sidling close so her bony hips are pressed hard into my legs. Her breath, scented blood and flesh, wafts toward me.
“You will be one with us,” she says. “And I love you. Now eat.”
“Now eat,” they say.
Their eyes pierce me, poke holes in my skin, draining all the warmth in my chest until there’s nothing left but a vacuum of darkness. I need to do this, or they’ll hate me. If I don’t eat this mouse, they won’t consider me family. If I stop here, I will never be us . I will be cast out, ignored, abandoned again.
What’s a little mouse to eight beautiful girls, the family I always wanted?
There’s a hush in the air, a sudden lull. I stare at the mouse, my senses dissolving, dulling. I am not scared or happy. I feel nothing. The mouse is nothing. I need it inside me to revive. To become whole again. I need to eat the mouse to receive their love.
I lift it to my mouth, drop it on my tongue. It moves, tiny feet clambering to get out of my wet, sticky cage. I gag as I close its escape route. I feel its panic. The beat of its limbs on my tongue. The press of its head against the inside of my lips. I flinch and chomp hard, end its misery, iron coating my tongue, soft skull in my molars. I do not chew even though I might choke, and swallow it whole, though I’ve never done that before, not even with a pill. The mouse jostles my uvula. Slides down my throat. Tiny nails cut my trachea, as if it were still alive, desperate to escape, crawling up my esophagus. It passes through the tight channel of my throat. I can’t feel it anymore, disappeared somewhere inside my chest.
I open my mouth. Show my girls I’ve done it. I’m one of them. Family.
They explode toward me with precious screams and crowd their protective warmth around my body, patching up the holes they’d pierced just earlier. Bella Marie wraps her arms around my torso, pressing her face into my thighs. They are my chamber of affection, cooing, doting, filling me back up again with glowing love.
In their ardor, I forget about what we ate.