Please don’t get stuck in the wall. Please don’t get stuck in the wall. Please don’t get stuck in the—
A loud crash resounds, coming from inside her mother’s bedroom. Laughter follows—manic laughter, in a high-pitched, creepy tone. Rachel runs for the bedroom and bursts inside, only to find her mother sitting on her haunches on the wall. Not against the wall, not in front of the wall. No, no. Jenny Cleary has to go and defy both logic and gravity by sitting on the wall. Vertically. In her hands, she’s holding what appears to be some long dead critter, and there’s a massive bite missing from its side. Her mother stares back at Rachel through glazed over eyes, eerie giggles interrupting the sound of chewing. Fur spills from her mother’s lips, dropping to the floor.
“And I’m out.” Mercia throws up her hands and backs out of the room. “I did not sign up for an exorcism, thank you very much.”
“I did not sign up for an exorcism, thank you very much,” her mother mimics Mercia in that same creepy high-pitched tone. She cackles, tears another piece of mummified flesh off the creature, and chews.
Rachel is too horrified to look away, only hears Mercia’s retreat back downstairs.
“Wow,” Greg says beside her. If it had been any other day, this might have startled her, but yeah. He’s the least of her problems. “This is ... Wow.”
“Go find Mercia,” Rachel says.
“She left as I came up,” Greg answers. “I can’t blame her.”
Jenny drops her half-eaten dinner and lies back against the vertical wall, before she rolls up. She comes to a sudden stop. Jenny gets onto her hands and knees, climbs over the hindrance, and scuttles across the ceiling.
“Mom?” Rachel’s voice quivers on the word.
“Mom,” Jenny mocks, crawling over the ceiling, moving closer to the door where Rachel and Greg still stand in shock.
“Mommy—”
“Mommy,” Jenny interrupts in an unnerving whine.
A sob wiggles its way out of Rachel’s throat as she follows her mother’s movements, until Jenny comes to a halt above the doorway and busies herself with scratching at the wallpaper.
“Mom, get down from there this instant.”
Jenny suddenly stands on the ceiling, coming face-to-face with Rachel, before an inhuman voice growls, “I’m not your mother.”
Greg slams the door in Jenny’s face, snapping Rachel out of her own fear. She spins on him and sees that his eyes are still fixed on the closed door. From how pale he is, she won’t be surprised if he drops out of school and drinks himself to death.
“Greg?”
“Yes,” he says.
“It’s okay.”
He blinks rapidly, before focusing on her. “That was not okay.”
Rachel scratches the back of her neck, grimacing. “I’ll admit it’s weird, but I can fix this. I can—”
“You need to call a priest immediately. That’s what you need to do.” Greg turns around and walks down the hallway.
“I don’t think a priest is going to be much help.” Rachel follows him, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the door hasn’t opened again. “I mean, I know what it looks like, but that’s not exactly what’s happening here. She’s not possessed or anything of the sort.”
He reaches the staircase and begins his descent. “Your mom literally climbed up the walls.”
“Yeah.” She can’t argue with him on that particular point, but this isn’t a religious problem whatsoever. It’s a Fae problem. A huge Fae problem. “Greg, wait.”
He comes to a grinding halt at the bottom of the staircase and turns to look at her. She stops on the step above the ground, right in front of him, and reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. After Rachel has gathered her thoughts, she drops her arm and stares at him.
Red flashes in his pupils, almost imperceptible, but this time Rachel is certain she’s seen it.
“What explanation can you possibly have for what’s going on with your mom?” Greg says. “It’s messed up beyond comprehension.”
“Obviously,” Rachel says, her mind reeling as she studies Greg, searching for whatever plagues him. “It’s just—”
She stops speaking as she spots the broken mirror propped up against an armchair. Rachel feels the muscles in her forehead contract into a frown. She turns to look at the mirror, which reflects Mercia lying half-conscious against the sofa. Mercia opens her eyes and looks directly at Rachel through the mirror.
She snaps her attention back to Greg before he can figure out what she’s seen.
“You’re right,” she says. She reaches out to hold on to the bannister. In her peripheral, she sees Mercia struggling to her feet.
“I’m glad you’ve come to your senses,” he says. “Do you guys still have a landline or—”
“It’s in the kitchen. We barely use it, but it works,” Rachel says. “I could be wrong, but I doubt there’s an Exorcisms ‘R Us on the internet.”
He smirks. “Leave it to you, Rachel Cleary, to make an inappropriate joke at the worst of times.” Greg begins to turn, but she quickly grabs him by the shoulder and forces him to look back at her. “You okay?”
“No,” she whispers.
It’s not entirely a lie.
Rachel leans forward into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Behind him, a royally pissed off Mercia stalks closer, a lamp in her hands. There’s blood dripping down her forehead, matting her blonde hair to her head, and a bruise blooms on her temple.
Meanwhile, Greg wraps his arms around her shoulders, squeezing her tightly against his chest, whispering sweet nothings into her ear.
Mercia raises the lamp over her head and nods to Rachel, who pulls away from Greg.
“Greg,” she says, gently running her hand over his cheek. He looks at her with those stormy eyes, so full of hope. Rachel smiles. “This thing between us ...”
“Yes?”
“It’s so over.”
Mercia brings the lamp down over his head, smashing the porcelain into a thousand pieces. Bits rain onto the hardwood floor, tinkling as they touch the ground. He crumples to his knees and drops onto his side, unconscious, lying amongst the broken shards.
Mercia’s foot connects with his side a couple of times before she
