In a flurry of frightened chatter we steal from the hotel as quickly as possible, jumping into Kayla’s car for the second time that day. When we pull up, Juniper is already standing in the doorway, waiting patiently for us. She looks especially frail when surrounded by the foreboding exterior of the house, the red oleander like fire consuming the borders and snaking up the wrought iron entry stair handrail.
“Did you text Erik?” Kayla asks me, staring bemusedly at Juniper.
“Nope, I was too overwhelmed. She didn’t know we were coming,” I say, watching Juniper, who has turned her head in the direction of the car. “She must just be getting some sun.”
I jump out and walk up briskly to greet Juniper, but she clearly already knows it’s me and why we are here.
“She came to you,” Juniper says, head held high, waiting for our response.
“Yes,” I confirm. “She also tried to kill Kayla. Apparently she doesn’t like hotel yoga.”
Juniper nods humorlessly and motions for us to follow her inside. We follow behind her silently, with only the clicking of Juniper’s cane echoing through the grand foyer. Erik appears from the kitchen, holding a towel and staring at us curiously.
“I told you they were coming,” Juniper says as she passes him, not waiting for a response. He throws up his hands and follows us into the sitting room, where we again assume our positions.
Erik sits next to me and turns his body towards mine intimately, his worried eyes searching me. “What happened?”
“We were both attacked almost immediately upon arriving in our hotel rooms,” I say without preamble. “I know you don’t generally believe in this, but it’s true.”
We tell them in depth of our experiences and Juniper lets out a long, disturbed breath once we’ve become silent again.
“She was able to visit you both simultaneously, she has grown much stronger. We cannot afford to wait any longer,” Juniper’s voice shakes with a furtive unease, and it scares me greatly to see her slip out of her sage persona. “She may disrupt our session, try to stop us—but we mustn’t be dissuaded from what we have to do.”
“Do we do this now?” I ask, trying to ready myself. Dread knots in my stomach as I recall Mary, knowing this will hasten another encounter with her.
“We need to make the conditions much the same as they were 11 years ago, so we will begin at 10pm,” Juniper answers quickly and adds, “minus the drugs.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” I say, blowing out a long breath. “Can you imagine me calling Mario now for drugs?”
The truth is that I haven’t done hard drugs since that night, and don’t plan to ever start again. It was the first and last time. While I had blamed Ecstasy for the entire incident incorrectly, it certainly had made the ensuing carnage so much worse. Seeing Juniper’s bleeding eyes, with gore in her hands, and then watching Erik hysterical after finding her while still tripping had been an exercise in terror unlike any other.
I’d had to speak with the police in that condition as well, the drug amplifying everything and distorting time. I’d been kept in an interrogation room, waiting for my parents, and as I sat there I’d begun replaying what I’d seen in multiples as though I were in a carnival funhouse. My skin had been crawling and drops of blood seemed to appear all over my body. Tiny specks of Juniper’s vision splattered on my blouse and my soul as I sat there trying to come down and calm down.
We hear a rap on the door, and I am grateful to be knocked from the memory of it. Kayla excuses herself and I hear her letting Cara in and the excited chatter at the door as I feel eyes upon me. I glance over and see Erik’s glacially blue eyes resting intently upon me. I muster a wry smile and he quickly squeezes my hand.
Cara is a rush of luminous sunshine in the abysmally shadowed house. Her bright blond hair bounces as she rushes into the room holding Kayla’s hand for dear life.
“I can’t leave this woman alone for a moment,” she cries out as she leans over to hug each of us absentmindedly. She stops at Juniper, taking her reserved expression in stride as she pumps her hand briefly before throwing herself forward to embrace Juniper’s rigid shoulders. I watch with a small smile as Juniper’s tension dissolves and she gingerly hugs Cara back.
“When I complain that some woman is gonna snatch Kayla up, this is NOT what I meant,” Cara says as she flops down on the couch and slaps her manicured hands down onto the cushions.
“I don’t think she’s Kayla’s type,” I say with a laugh, fiddling with my purse.
“Dead?” Cara answers. “I sure hope not.”
“I don’t think it’s wise to mock her,” Juniper says quietly.
“She certainly doesn’t seem receptive to kindness either,” I say defensively, regretting my unfortunate trait of joking when afraid or uncomfortable—a trait Cara clearly also possesses.
“Let’s just get this done so that we don’t need to worry about this any longer,” Kayla reasons, breaking up the tension hanging thickly in the air.
“We have hours left until we start, so let’s please all stay here and just pass the time,” Juniper tells us, her voice is soft but still wavering with stress. It’s been years, and she is a whole new person, but I can still read her. She is not only frightened by what Mary may do tonight but also by replaying that evening.
We all nod and I amble into the kitchen after Erik, anxious to see how upset he is by my decision to go along with this. He senses I’m behind him and stops short of the kitchen and turns suddenly, causing me to walk straight into his warm chest. I resist the urge to stay there and try to move away but he pulls me into
