Chapter Twenty
“Mom?” I asked, voice quivering as I clutched the corded phone mounted on the back of my school’s gym.
“What do I hear?” she asked from the other side of the phone, and my heart plummeted. “In the background? What is that noise?”
This was supposed to be the best night of my newly teenage life. I was in lip gloss, a jean skirt, and a pink, sparkly top that I’d borrowed from Zoe—one of the few girls from my church who tolerated my weirdness from time to time.
She was hearing hit pop music and the high-pitched squeal of one hundred seventh and eighth graders.
“I didn’t know she would take me here, Mom. I didn’t know what was happening. As soon as we got here, I called you. I—”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she said, voice like ice. “Get out of that den of sin, now. Wait out front.”
I hung up the phone and looked helplessly at the teacher’s aide who’d volunteered as one of the school dance’s supervisors. From the pity in her eyes, she must have known the sort of trouble I was in. My family’s religious zeal was no secret.
I’d gone to Zoe’s for dinner with her family and a G-rated movie. Her father, an elder at our church, would be present throughout the evening, which would prevent things like sneaking through abandoned homes or surfing the internet for anything unholy.
Except Zoe’s parents hadn’t been there when I’d entered the house. Her aunt had been recruited to babysit. And that’s when I’d made my first mistake.
I should have called home the moment I’d walked in and spotted a stranger.
But I didn’t.
Zoe and I had eaten macaroni and cheese while her aunt had watched TV in the den.
After dinner, we’d gone up to Zoe’s room to play dress-up.
I’d only worn makeup twice, and both times had been stage makeup for church productions of nativity plays.
Getting to play with Zoe’s cherry-scented tubes of ChapStick and purple eyeshadow while she’d played Top 40s radio was fun.
It was rebellious. It would have been enough to give me a taste of anarchy.
She’d grabbed my hand and tugged me down the stairs. “Auntie, we’re going to the school dance. We’ll be back in an hour!”
“Okay,” the aunt had said without looking up from her program, “have fun.”
I must have blacked out while standing, because I didn’t remember exiting the front door.
I didn’t remember the three-block walk to the school.
I didn’t even remember making it to the gym.
The moment we’d entered, she’d grinned and said she was going to get us punch.
I’d walked directly to the aid and asked her for a phone.
And the rest played out like a horror film.
“Please don’t be mad,” I begged, shivering in the passenger’s seat after fifteen minutes of clutching my skinny arms in the cold.
“I’m not mad,” my mother said without looking at me. Yellow-orange streetlights became more sporadic as we exited the town limits and began our winding way into the trees. “I can just never trust you again.”
“Mom,” I begged. “Please, you have to forgive me. I didn’t do this on purpose. I didn’t know it was going to happen! The moment we got to the dance, I walked straight to the phone and called you!”
“Do not yell in my car, Marlow Esther Thorson.”
My heart was beating so fast it hurt. My eyes stung. I was still shivering as I began to cry. “Mom, why won’t you believe me? I didn’t do anything wrong. I called you immediately. Please, you have to believe me.”
Her hands flexed on the steering wheel. “Let me tell you about a little thing called ‘guilt by association.’ It does not matter if you did something bad. What matters is that you put yourself in a situation where your integrity could even be called into question. And that’s as good as doing it, whether or not you’re guilty. You’re guilty in my eyes.”
“I just want you to love me,” I cried.
“I do love you,” she said. “But I don’t like you right now. And I may never trust you again. Not unless you prove it to me.”
Tears pooled at my chin, dripping onto the borrowed shirt. I wiped at the itchy, uncomfortable salt as I tried to remember how to breathe.
My punishment was her disappointment. Every day I would ask what I could to earn her trust back, and every day she would turn her head as she withheld affection.
I wouldn’t be permitted to do anything social again for the rest of the year.
I would read my Bible every day. I would clean the house every day after school before I started my homework.
I wouldn’t ask stupid questions. I would never speak to Zoe again.
I would be good.
***
September 16, age 26
“Praise the Lord,” Lisbeth said, stepping around the vomit. There was no relief or joy in her sentence. She wrapped her fingers in an iron manacle around my upper arm as she yanked me to my feet. “He promised to do whatever it took to get you away from the demons.”
“Who did?” I asked, clutching my stomach. It didn’t matter that I was three months away from my twenty-seventh year on this rock. I was a punished child once more, shrinking against her wrath, terrified of her anger. My bones liquified around her.
“Dressed like a whore,” she said icily as she dragged me toward the couch. “The whole world knows that’s what you are, now. Lisbeth Thorson’s daughter: the whore.”
She released me as I stumbled backward toward the sofa. The TV continued playing, the anchor pointing and frothing as he gave his impassioned speech while the familiar faces of Poppy and Dorian remained frozen in a still image over his shoulder.
I got to my feet, arms out at my sides like a burglar caught with a spotlight against a brick wall.
“Sit back down,” she snapped. “They’ll be here to deal with you in a moment.”
The police? The church elders? My father? It was hard to imagine who my mother would call to punish and humiliate me, but they all triggered the same terrified child within me.
I shook my head tearfully as I headed for the exit, never turning my back on her.
I took several steps toward the front door, hand feeling for the knob once I bumped into it.
My hand closed around the knob, but it refused to turn.
I whipped to look at the thing and frowned in confusion.
There was no button for the interior lock.
There was a keyhole where the deadbolt should have been.
I wiped the tears away as I stared her down, confused.
“Two-way locks,” she explained from the far side of the room. “You see, Marlow, I’ve done all I can to save your soul. But at this point, it’s up to God to decide your fate.”
The blood drained from my face. “What did you do?”
Lisbeth Thorson, mother, wife, beautiful Nordic blond, unwitting fae, powerful psychic, and fanatical religious woman, smiled. It was not the smile of a parent looking at her child. It wasn’t even the smile of a human. She looked like the Cheshire cat.
“What did you do?” I repeated, but though the words were the same, what I meant was: How could you?
My hand flew to the place on my waist where the broach continued to press into my skin, but I had no idea how to use it on my own. I’d only ever been an unbound passenger with a free-range ticket. But there had to be another way out.
This was not the house I’d grown up in. This place, these people, were strangers to me. But I’d been here once before with Fauna. I struggled to remember my search of the house as she and I had torn the place up looking for the s?lje.
I took one step, then another as I moved toward the kitchen. There were French doors off the formal dining room.
Lisbeth stayed put, watching me with a mixture of ice and disgust as I ran from the living room. I stumbled past the table, nearly tripping on a chair as I grabbed for the French doors. The moment my fingers hit the handle, my face fell.
Heels clacked behind me as she slowly approached, but I couldn’t stop staring at the device. A hard, plastic sock engulfed each handle, holding the twin doors together with two separate metal rods. I didn’t so much as blink as my brain short-circuited.
“How long have you been planning this?” I asked breathlessly once the steps ceased.
“He promised me he’d get you back the day you left with that demon. And once I had you, I knew I needed to be ready.”
“…who did…?” I tried to ask. My mouth was so dry. My voice was so hoarse. As far as I knew, there was only one being who fit the description.
But he’d defected…hadn’t he?
I truly looked at her as I turned. There she was, sandwiched between tastefully framed 1920s movie posters in jeans, a white, long-sleeved shirt with a high neck tucked into her belt, a white-gold cross necklace, a full face of makeup, and stick-straight hair.
She shouldn’t have been ready for the day at twilight, whether it was the purple hours of dawn or dusk.
Not in the summer. Not even on a Sunday.
“You knew I’d come,” I said slowly. And I didn’t just mean the process of installing the locks. She knew I was coming today. Whether she’d had some through-the-veil vision or had been tipped off, I was certain: She had been ready for me.
“…fantasy author Merit Finnegan…” drifted the anchor’s voice from the other room.
“It’s been one heck of a week for you,” my mom replied, making a disapproving tsking sound as she did so.
“First, I see you on the news because of a senator. My church family mourned with me, washing away the shames of my daughter. But what did I see last night on the news before I fell asleep? Well, if that wasn’t my daughter once more at a concert in Las Vegas with the very angel who’d promised to bring her back.
I knew he was making good on his promise. ”
Whatever was left of my shriveled, terrified heart broke fully in half.
Silas, what have you done.