I wanted to punch a wall.

I eased the car gently into the school parking lot, letting a consistent string of aggravated “Shit, shit, shit”s stream from under my breath. Oh, Alexis, can you pick up Molly from school? she said. I know you’re not busy or anything, she said. Oh, you wanted to drive out to the city with your friends and party? she said. That’s why you’re a deadbeat daughter two years out of college who doesn’t even have a job! she said! And several expletive-filled exchanges later, the little fucker wasn’t even outside.

Okay… okay…

I took a few deep breaths.

I may not be the ideal image of the eldest daughter, but that was no reason to take my frustration about it out on Molly, even in the sanctity of my mind. As much as it pained me to admit it, she was the perfect daughter, the perfect sister, even the perfect student if her teachers were to be believed. Her friends’ parents would always gush about her in the post-sleepover debriefs with nothing but smiles. And how could they not? Polite, funny, well-mannered, and the cutest little girl on this side of the county line. Not that a place this sparse had much competition, but regardless, that almond skin and those lovely dark-chocolate colored puff balls on the side of her head… it was one of my few points of pride and joy to be her primary stylist in that regard.

Molly… I’d been an only child for a long time before Molly came into the picture. All of a sudden, I had a sister. More than a sister, a confidant. A partner in crime. Someone who could catch me sneaking out to buy booze and keep her lips sealed. We may fight here and there… but I love her. And I guess… if it’ll help her out to pick her up from school, then I’m willing to put a raincheck on my time in the city.

But still. It would be nice if she actually showed up on time. In fact, that was becoming a theme, here. Between picking her up from sleepovers, from school, from club meets… for all the big vocab words she liked to throw around, I guess I know now why “punctual” isn’t one of them.

The parking lot was devoid of cars, buses, people. Which makes sense, I guess. It was pushing on five o’clock; most of the students had been picked up some way or other. I tapped on the horn, but it only sputtered out as a sad little whine.

“Dammit…” I kicked the undercarriage of the car… then I pulled out my phone and shot Molly a text.

Yo Mol-Mol. Im outside <3

I waited.

The shadow formed by the natural palisade of pines was lengthening. The afternoon sunlight was beginning to dip beneath the treetops, filtering its warm orange glow through the nettles. At the far horizon, purple was beginning to encroach. Stars were baring it all, one by one. And she still wasn’t here yet.

“Ugh!” I burst out the door and slammed it shut. Even Molly’s privilege only went so far.

The encompassing shadow of the three-story middle school was once an intimidating sight, but I guess the perspective of age was enough to make it seem quaint and trivial compared to what it once was. I marched up to the double doors and banged my knuckles on the window. “Molly!”

No response.

I peered through the aperture into the lobby. It was only partially lit. Nobody was there, no dejected sixth graders awaiting their late rides home, no jaded delinquents dismissed from detention. Everyone was gone.

“Shit…” I mouthed. I checked my phone again. No response. Where the hell was she?

I was just about to trod back to the car when from the corner of my eye, a figure appeared through the window. Coming in from the side, my savior, a janitor was wiping the fuzzy wide broom across the linoleum floors with headphones on.

I magnetized back to the window and tapped my palm on it, giving a few yelps of “Hey, hey!” for good measure. Something must’ve gotten through to him, because he noticed me, wide-eyed, and trotted over to open the door.

I tried to dart through him, but his wide girth disincentivized me from making the attempt. “La escuela está cerrada,” he said in a language I did not understand at all.

“Uhhhhhh…”

“Cuál es tu problema? Ahora, señora.”

I was almost taken aback by the sudden language switch, but I gulped. This was a mission. I couldn’t back down. “I’m looking for my sister? She goes to this school… Por… favor?”

The janitor looked like he was trying very hard to put words together. “Necesitas… tu hermana?”

In an act of desperation, I took out my phone and pulled up a picture of me and Molly together, and I brandished it.

Suddenly, it clicked. The man broke into a huge smile.

“Ahhhhhhhh, Molly! Una chica muy amable. ¿La estás buscando?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I think. Do you know if she’s… aquí?”

The janitor’s smile turned into a twisted expression. “No sé…” Then he stepped aside. I was in. “Rapida, senorita!”

“Thanks!” I dashed through, skidding slightly on the newly waxed floor.

My old stomping ground. I knew it well. It felt like a lifetime ago. I racewalked through the halls, noting teacher names old and new. Ms. Hemmingway must’ve retired. Good for her. The café vending machine was still busted, which figures. The bulletin boards outside the classrooms had an everchanging stream of new assignments, art pieces, murals. But no sign of Molly. I bounded up to the second floor – it was for seventh graders, but maybe she was hanging out in a club or something. I poked my head in the open doors, and I glanced through the windows of the closed doors. But no cigar.

This was beginning to go from frustrating to worrying. It was one thing for Molly to be a little late, but she was nowhere to be found.

As I trotted up to floor three, I stopped in the middle of the steps. I had to think. I could light one up right now… I had some papers in my pocket. But not here. Not in a school.

I ran through the options.

Option 1: she had gone to stay with a friend without telling anybody. Not possible. She was the ur Goodie-Two-Shoes. The Alpha and the Omega of Obedience. She would’ve called all of us twice for redundancy to make sure we knew where she was.

Option 2: she walked home. Technically possible… the house is only two miles from the school. But not probable. Besides, I would’ve seen her on the way.

Option 3: she was somewhere in the school. This option’s likelihood seemed to dwindle with each passing moment. I was looking up at the double doors that led to floor three with dread at what I wouldn’t find. The smallest and least populous level, housing only a rinky dink library and two paltry classrooms.

Those were the only options available to her. Realistically, at least.

Well…

There was a fourth option…

The moment I came to the realization – nope. Not thinking about it. That was too awful an idea to even entertain, even as a last resort.

And yet, it continued to gnaw at me, and before I knew it, I began to shiver. And shake.

I gulped. Molly just isn’t the type to get kidnapped. She’s smart enough to build rockets; she can tell when to say no to Free Candy.

But… she is small. And… it… wouldn’t be hard for… an older man to take her.

And she does fit the recent victims’ profi–

Nope! Nope, nope, nope!

Option 3. Right now, it was still the most likely one.

Jesus fuck… I needed a hit.

***

Molly hopped up, propping her arms on the parapet as she looked at the far horizon. She wasn’t tall enough to glance down to the parking lot, but she could at least tell that the Twilit Hour was well on its way. They would be starting soon.

Molly fell back down just as a strong wind arrived, sending her into a chill. She chattered her teeth, and she pulled her cardigan over her shoulders. She turned and called out. “Are you finished?”

“MMMHHH-MMMMMHHHHNNNNNGGGGGGG!!!”

Garnet looked up from her work. Her hands were pressed down on its mouth. “Almost… I could use a gag.”

Molly looked down. She didn’t have a gag…

She suddenly reached down and unbuckled the clasp of her Mary Jane shoe, removing it. She rolled her pure white sock down her ankle and removed it. It still smelled rather fresh.

She put her shoe back on and walked briskly toward Garnet, handing it to her. Garnet’s eyes glowed, and she took it before looking down in Vivian’s eyes, wild, desperate. “Time to shut you up…”

Her muffled screams were expertly navigated through as Garnet grabbed the duct tape, tying it in a bind around her head and neck, carefully nestling the sock in place. Now all she could do was send out desolate cries for help that couldn’t even pierce the wind.

Molly looked down at Vivian. Wrists tied, ankles bound together, face gagged and cushioned against the concrete in a pillow of dirty blonde locks. The fight had been drained from her, and the tears were her next best bet. She pleaded upward at Molly, shaking her head, No… no…

“This is some good work!” Molly said. Garnet beamed.

Molly then gazed to the other corner of the rooftop. Sofia was leaning against the parapet. In the dim light, her eyes caught Molly’s. Sofia smiled. Her fair skin made her seem like a ghost in the low lighting.

Molly walked over to her. “How are you feeling?”

Sofia looked to Molly’s skirted hip. There was a water bottle tucked into the pocket of her cardigan. “Good… Could be better…”

Molly saw this, and she gave a pleasant, understanding grin. “Be patient.”

“Just a sip?” Sofia reached out for the bottle. “Please, I won’t –”

SMACK!

Molly’s smile disappeared. She looked at Sofia’s wrist, suspended in place out of shock, now red. She looked up at Sofia, shocked, ashamed. “Wait. Your. Turn.”

Sofia nodded.

Molly walked away to an empty corner of the roof. She pulled the bottle out of her pocket. She swirled the clear liquid around in the container. She held it up to her ear. She whispered to it. It whispered back.

“Everyone!” Molly yelled.

Garnet looked up. Sofia turned to her, still stung from the light smack. Even Vivian, supine on the ground, tried to wriggle to see what was happening.

“It’s time.”

Sofia stuck her hands in her pockets as she approached the center of the rooftop, congregating with Garnet. Garnet was manic, wide-eyed, excited. She was jittering, and she didn’t know if it was from the chill or the anticipation.

Molly was last. She approached slowly, measuredly, taking great care not to go too fast or too slow. She held the bottle in front of her with great care, as though it were a chalice.

She reached Vivian. Her tied ankles were at Molly’s feet. Molly looked down. Vivian squirmed in a semi-roll and looked up at Molly. Her eyes were waggling from side to side, still dripping down tears.

Molly said nothing.

She turned to Garnet. “You’re our newest member. You’re allowed to drink first.”

“Ooooh!” Garnet chirped, taking the bottle. “Thanks, Molly!”

She unscrewed the cap and sniffed it. It seemed… normal. Smelled normal, at least. The label said Aquafina. She dipped a pinky finger carefully inside and then stuck it in her mouth.

Garnet’s eyes squinted. Her mouth puckered. Her grip on the bottle wavered – for a moment it seemed like it might fall. Molly was prepared to step in, but Garnet soon got ahold of herself. “Oh, oh man!” she swooned. And she began to chug.

Molly sighed as Garnet drank, expression only hardening again once Garnet passed the 1/3rd mark. “Alright, Garnet. That’s enough.”

Garnet did not listen.

“Garnet!” Molly lunged for the bottle, pulling it from Garnet’s grip in the middle of another big gulp.

“N-no! Please!” Garnet said, preparing to reach for it back, but Molly geared to chuck it over the parapet.

“Patience. Don’t make me regret letting you into our club.”

Garnet’s eyes watered, and she nodded.

Molly softened. She looked back at the bottle. There was a little more than half left. She grunted, then turned to Sofia. “I’m… I’m sorry. I hope this is okay.”

Sofia didn’t respond… she was too busy focusing on the bottle itself as she took it into her hands. She couldn’t care less about the fact that there was less to go around, she just needed more of it. She lifted the rim to her lips and gave it a few sips. Her empty hand twitched, clenching and unclenching.

Molly watched with satisfaction as Sofia’s stream lessened once there was about one fourth of the bottle left. Soon, Sofia stopped of her own accord. “Ahhh…” she said, and she handed the bottle to Molly, who took it.

Vivian on the ground had gone from abject fear… to utter confusion. She looked up at the three underclassmen. Was this some sort of weird… hazing ritual?

Molly clutched the bottle next. The plastic crinkled in her small fingers. There were only a few gulps left, but for Molly, it was enough. She placed it against her lips, and she drank.

Suddenly, she heard it. The voice. The whisper. It caressed her, nurtured her, gave her spirit, showed her everything. The world. Life. Death. The sun. The stars. As the water fell down her gullet, she realized the truth.

And then Molly stopped herself.

She pulled the bottle away and panted. Only a few droplets still rolled around at the bottom of the bottle. She wheezed. Sofia leapt to her side and stabilized her, and Molly managed to come to.

She offered brief thanks to Sofia before she turned to the bottle and thanked it. The water. The whispering. But she knew that thanks would not be enough.

She looked down at Vivian and smiled sweetly.

Now, it needed a sacrifice.

***

I – foolishly, might I add – already lit up before getting the idea of going to the school rooftop. The stairwell was private enough, but the smell would’ve been a dead giveaway, and since Molly was more likely than not the only student who would recognize the scent, I definitely didn’t want any of this coming back on her… or me.

I reached the third floor doorway, and I ignored it, turning straight into another doorway that led into a far more cramped stairwell. Only the faintest signs of lavender twilight streamed through the door’s window up above. I was already feeling more relaxed, but once I got to the rooftop I would really be able to unwind. Then… I would call Mom. The thought of being sober while telling her Molly was missing was almost enough to make me throw up on its own.

I was three steps from the top when I tripped, fell, and banged my head against the door.

“OUCH!” Two sharp stair corners jutted into my thigh and my stomach respectively. “Gch…!” I put a hand on my knee, muttering more and more swears as I gave thanks to how wonderful today had been going, especially since my joint had flown from my fingers to the floor below, a smoldering red candle in the otherwise inky blackness. “What the hell…?”

I’d tripped on something. Something small. It was jammed up against my jean-clad butt. Once I caught my breath, I plunged my hand beneath me and scrounged around until my fingers clutched something cold and hard. I grunted and pulled it out. I couldn’t exactly see it, but I knew exactly what it was. A combination padlock. I’d opened it numerous times when I was still a student here to access the roof – first to hide when cutting class, and later so I could smoke uninhibited. And yes, sure, that was breaking the rules, I’m a filthy truant. You’ve got me. But, I mean, come on. The numerical key was 4-4-4-4. That’s just poor security on the face of it.

Luckily my secret was never found out. As far as I could tell, no other curious pupil was experimental or creative enough to try, either, so it was my little secret. Well, mine and Molly’s, though she’s way too much of a goody-two-shoes to sneak up there, even though I told her the combination.

I squinted at the lock as my eyes gradually traced out the silhouette in the darkness. If nothing else, it was the exact same make and model, and probably the exact same lock if I had to guess. It was mostly curiosity that led me to want to try the rooftop again. After all, if they can’t be arsed to fix a vending machine, why the hell would they care enough to keep students from sneaking onto a rooftop filled with nothing but twigs, Home Depot buckets, and old pieces of plywood?

I ached up to full height, wincing with pain. Maybe this was a sign from the universe that I should just give up the ghost and call Mom already.

Ughhhhh… the needles of shame were already piercing my brain, stomach, limbs…

I whipped out my phone and dialed her number, but I was met immediately with the tone for no service.

“Shit.”

Looks like the rooftop was the play after all.

I trotted up the final steps, holding the padlock, when I realized something.

If the padlock was on the floor… that meant somebody else was on the rooftop right now.

I crouched slightly, and I shoved my face up against the tiny little square window. It hurt like a bitch. Fall around here has the tendency to turn touching any outdoor-exposed glass or metal into a feat of tremendous strength, and this door was made of both. But I stomached it. I didn’t want to pop in on some construction worker, or even a fellow delinquent like myself. I know better than anyone delinquents value their privacy.

My eyes were already adjusted well enough to see out in the darkness. The sky was that inky purple hue it tends to be just before the stars come out. I squinted, and I locked my eyes on not one… not two… three people out on the rooftop, maybe a bit more than five yards out. They were in a circle… or, well, a triangle I guess, around a weird sack on the ground. Everything was so muddled in the darkness, and my breath on the glass only made it even more difficult.

But I wiped my sleeve on the window and looked through again. I still couldn’t make out any of their faces… but that sack on the ground was… moving?

It… it wasn’t a sack.

I ripped my face from the window. I took a step back, but forgot I was on a stairwell. I stumbled and reached desperately for the doorhandle, jangling the mechanism briefly.

I wobbled for a moment, but I didn’t fall. I peered through the window again. One of them was glancing in my direction, but she – for now I was quite certain it was a she – turned back quickly enough. I was in the clear, for the moment anyway. Another girl – they were all girls, I think – crouched, holding a bottle. She overturned it above the squirming girl on the ground. I felt something powerful clutch my heart seeing her writhe. I couldn’t see her face. I knew she looked terrified.

Should I do something? Probably. Was this a weed-induced hallucination? Yeah, let’s go with that. Even if it wasn’t, even if I wasn’t dreaming – especially if I wasn’t dreaming – there was no fucking way I was going out there. I’m no hero. But I am the type of bystander to shamelessly watch on and see the end of this story.

I couldn’t make out any liquid in the bottle; if anything spilled out, then it must’ve been only a few drops strewn haphazardly over their captive.

The girl on the ground spasmed. A lump was forming in my throat. I tugged at my jacket sleeves, and I pressed my eyeballs against the glass.

The girl – the hostage – her spasms increased. It looked like she was having a seizure. One of the others took a furtive step back, but other than that, there was no reaction from any of them. I couldn’t stand to look at it, this torture. I turned away. But my morbid fascination got the better of me. I turned back.

The girl on the floor was gone.

She’d disappeared.

One of the girls crouched on the ground again and scrounged around for something in the dust, until she stood up, holding something out between her thumb and forefingers. The other two leaned in to look at it. I couldn’t quite tell what was going on what with their heads all in the way. Eventually, they backed up, and I could just barely focus on the dangling thing in her fingers.

The stars were coming out. A stray cloud crossed out from atop the moon. The yellow streetlights activated, and the ambient glow increased, if only slightly. It was still hard, but I could finally start making out some details. A uniform button-up shirt here, a skirt there, one of the girls was of a fair complexion. I squinted. I felt dirty for taking such fascination in this, but if I went back to the car without doing everything I could to figure out what this was, I would never be able to live with myself.

I continued to observe. I was laser-focused on the object of their fascination. It was a tiny little thing, so small from this distance, I couldn’t quite tell. Or, well, I could make a guess, but the only hypotheses I had were beyond belief. But, considering the frankly inconceivable… disappearance… of the hostage… the little thing’s spindly form…

Even from here, I could just about make out the shape to be a teeny, tiny little human…

But… no. That couldn’t be. That was just crazy. It had to have been the weed.

I’d made out the faces of the two observers, but the one who held her seemed dead set on turning away from me. It was frustrating, and this was only exacerbated by the fact that from this angle, her hair looked just like Molly’s. It was uncanny. It was…

She opened her mouth. And she dropped the little thing – the little person – whatever it was… she dropped it inside.

She swallowed.

I couldn’t help myself. I let out a choked gasp. I threatened to stumble backward again, but my grip was ironclad on the door handle. My knees threatened to give out. What the hell was I watching?

But when, finally, I took one last look at the scene… I wished I hadn’t.

I let go of the door handle. I was clutching it so hard, it snapped back with enough tension for the metallics to echo and reverberate a few moments longer. And I ran. I ran down the stairs, back through the stairwell, down the hall, back down the other stairwell, and then through the lobby. I ignored the janitor yelling after me in Spanish. I burst out the double doors and trudged drunkenly to my car. I got in and sat there for a few moments before I let out the scream.

There was no way.

There was no fucking way.

But that girl…

was Molly.

Molly was in love with the feeling of her squirm. Her struggles against her impregnable jaws. The way her body was slurped down her esophagus, bulging out in her throat, before landing in her stomach to be digested away. A part of Molly did have to admit she felt a little bad; Vivian was always kind to her, and during Molly’s first day at school, Vivian offered to show her some of the ropes and talk to her during lunch. She was a good friend, and it was useful having a friend who was an upperclassman. But it was far more useful to have a friend willing to stay behind after school with Molly for a rooftop excursion, only to be jumped, bound, and gagged before she was made to serve her final true purpose. It made no difference, Molly thought. All the better to sate her master.

The Twilit Hour was already waning. A few clouds were drifting along the sky, obscuring the moonlight. Darkness was taking over. It was time to get home. Usually, Molly wouldn’t be out so late, however today luck was on her side. Her mother had to work late, and her sister had already confided in her that she planned to drive to the city with friends this evening. She was free and clear.

“Oh God!” Garnet arched her back as she cackled to the sky. “We have got to do that again! Where did you get that?! I wanna eat the next one! How did she taste? Tell me!” She grabbed Molly’s shoulders, and Molly giggled a bit at her touch. She politely removed Garnet’s hands before responding.

“I’ll show you later. Right now, I’ve gotta get home. It’s a bit of a long walk, but shouldn’t be too bad.”

Sofia was chewing a bit of lose skin off the edge of her thumbnail. “You know,” she said between bites. “I’ve got a cousin who would love this stuff.”

Molly cringed. “No, nobody else. Just us for now.”

Molly exchanged pleasantries and hugs with Garnet and Sofia before reluctantly shooing them away. Suddenly, she was alone on the rooftop.

She pulled out the bottle. It was now completely empty. Shrugging, she trotted to the side of the parapet and chucked it over, where she could only hope it landed in the recycling dumpster. Then she darted to the door, pulling it closed behind her, finally safe away from the cold and the wind.

“Ah…” Molly sighed in relief. She squatted on a step and felt around for the lock, but it was nowhere to be found.

“Hm?” Molly flattened her hands on the steps. She checked the top-most step, then the next one down. She swiped all along the dusty surface from top to bottom, yet there was no lock. She poked her head out the rooftop door, thinking she may have accidentally brought it out with her, but she saw nothing.

Well, this was a bit of a problem. She had stayed behind expressly to put the lock back on the door, after all. Cover their tracks, that sort of thing.

Molly closed herself back inside, and she wondered. Technically, she hadn’t been the one to enter the padlock keycode. One of her friends did – Garnet, probably. They likely knew where it was.

Molly sighed, content again. And she trotted downstairs through a somewhat acrid scent but paid it no mind. She skipped down the hall, her cottony blue cardigan flowing like a spring dress behind her. She reached the lobby – Mr. Guttierez was just finishing up a final sweep.

“Hola Señor Gutiérrez. ¿Qué pasa?”

When he laid eyes on Molly’s skipping frame, the tough and hardened expression on his face as he wielded the broom melted. “Molly, ¿cómo estás?”

Then, he got an odd look. Mr. Guttierez started again: “¿Sabés que tu hermana te está buscando?”

Molly stopped skipping. “¿Q-qué?”

Mr. Guttierez pointed to the door.

Molly dashed up to the window and stood on her tippy toes to look out of it. Sure enough, Alexis’s car was right there in the nearest parking space.

Molly’s heart dropped. She reached in her cardigan’s pocket for her phone. It was silent. She hoped against hope she wouldn’t see the message she knew she was going to see: Yo Mol-Mol. Im outside <3

Molly glanced back at Mr. Gutierrez. “Gracias!” And she raced out, having to brace her shoes against the floor to get enough force to push the double doors open.

***

The lock.

I’d been staring at it for a long time. Or, it felt that way, at least.

The first waves of… whatever cocktail of emotions I was feeling at the moment… had only just begun to subside. But when I looked at the lock, it came flooding back. I hadn’t even realized it was still in my hands. But as far as I knew, it was an artifact. Proof that whatever that was… it was real. On some level.

The lock still felt cold.

I cupped it in both my hands. I rubbed them together with the lock in between, letting the vague metallic feel and smell of it intermingle with my fingers.

What was that? What did I just see?

I leaned back in the seat, staring at my own reflection in a crooked rearview mirror. Let’s start with the basics.

I saw Molly. There was no doubt about it.

Okay… let’s reconcile this. She’s Molly. Whatever she was doing up there, she must’ve had a good reason.

Well, idiot, what was she doing there, then? You saw pretty much everything, didn’t you?

My stomach churned the more I forced myself to recall. But it wasn’t something I could etch out of my brain. I saw them… Molly and two girls… I was already recalling. They were some of Molly’s friends. Sofia, the tall, blond one. Soft-spoken, and very pretty, but a bit of an alt vibe about her. And Grace…? N-no… Garnet. The shorter, excitable one.

Then I realized. That must’ve been it! That must’ve been the key! Those girls… those girls… whatever it was they were doing… they must’ve made Molly do it. Peer pressure! Nobody pressures my little sister into doing anything except me!

I was all ready to formulate a game plan and put an end to this madness when I felt another needle stick its way into my chest. I hadn’t even addressed the biggest issue at play, here.

Did I… just… see somebody… shrink?

Like, get small? Was that what I witnessed?

I wanted to say no, file this for later, and never worry about it ever again. But it was either that, or in the two seconds I looked away, that writhing girl on the ground quite literally vanished into thin air. It scares me that I didn’t know which one was the more terrifying possibility.

My mind was a shattered vase of a million different ideas and thoughts, fears. I had to reconcile all of these or else I’d go fucking insane. But the only person with whom I’d ever feel comfortable talking about any of this was…

The passenger side door opened.

I yelped, and the lock dropped from my hands onto the floor, sliding a bit on the weather mat.

“Heya!” came that sweet saccharine voice I knew all too well.

Molly slid into the passenger seat and closed the door behind her. She missed my slight scream in the noise. I sighed.

“Hey, Molly.” I tried my best to speak normally, but I let a single voice crack slip.

“Sorry… I was at a club meet, and I forgot to tell you.” She put on a truly remorseful, pouty face that made me want to confess to her every sin I’d ever committed.

“It’s fine, Mol… let’s just… go home.”

I put the car in reverse, backed out, and put her in drive.

The ride home was nothing but Molly asking questions and me answering. Tersely. “How was your day?” “Good.” “Did Mom ask you to pick me up?” “Yes.” “Do you wanna go to Bruster’s this weekend?” “Maybe.” I could tell her plan – she was trying to wear me down. She thought I couldn’t resist those scrumptious cheeks and that toothy grin she liked to put on. And she was absolutely right. My responses were becoming less curt, and in that last leg of the trip I realized – quite spontaneously – we had a bona fide conversation on our hands. I felt my grip on the steering wheel slacken as we drove into the night. My heart was slowing down. I was pushing the images of what I saw out of my mind. This was my sister, the perfect sister. The most delicious human being in the whole entire world. Nothing could ever make me stop loving her. I was keen to believe it was a misunderstanding… maybe I’d ask her about it once we get home.

It wasn’t long before we did. I pulled into our carport while Molly was telling me about a joke someone made in class, and I felt more relaxed than ever.

I let out a long, hard-won sigh…

“So, Molly,” I asked.

“Mm hmm?” she replied, doing that thing she did where she purses her lips while waiting to answer a question.

“Well, I saw–”

BZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZ!

“Shit! Mom!” I said. When I realized my mistake, I looked at Molly guiltily. “Uh, I mean, uh, I –”

“I’m familiar with ‘shit’,” Molly said, with air quotes.

I smirked. “Alright you little pottymouth.” I reached out to pat her bundle of hair when my ears were pierced by a very different sound that accompanied my phone’s vibration. It wasn’t Mom at all.

“What the hell…?” I said to myself, and I reached into my pocket to grab my phone.

AMBER ALERT. VICTIM IS VIVIAN GRAY, AGE THIRTEEN, DESCRIPTION TALL WITH CHERRY BLONDE HAIR, GREEN EYES. SUSPECT UNKNOWN. LAST KNOWN LOCATION IS DALTON MIDDLE SCHOOL, IF OBSERVED CALL 9-1-1

I let the phone vibrate in my hands a few more times as I read it over and over again. And over again.

Molly’s phone rang too; she fished it out her cardigan and was greeted by the same alert. “Oh gosh!” Molly exclaimed. “I know her!”

“Do you?” I did not turn to look at Molly.

“Mm hmm!” She sniffed. “I hope she’s okay…” She looked back at me. “So, you were saying something?”

I glanced at her. Her face had returned to neutrality.

“What was I saying?” I asked.

“Ya knooow? You were saying you saw…” she waved her hands around for emphasis. She really wanted to know what it was I had seen.

I shook my head. “Shoot. I don’t know… slipped my mind.”

“Oh.”

We sat in the car, idle, for about a minute.

“You can go inside, Molly. I’ll chill out here for a bit.”

“You sure?” Molly shifted her eyes.

“Yeah.” I shut the car off. “Get in quick before you catch cold.”

Molly squinted, and she hopped out, trotting to the front door. She turned her key, then looked back at me briefly before ducking inside.

Once she was out of sight, I picked up the lock again, and I stuffed it inside the center console.

Something had happened tonight. I don’t know what… but I know Molly knows. I don’t know if she knows that I know… but I know she knows. And I was going to find out what.

***

Molly finished putting the bow in her hair and took a glance in the mirror. She did a little twirl, her denim jacket swirling outward. Matching sisters, she thought. She darted out of her room and into the hallway, illuminated by a bit of sun streaming through a window in the living room. She reached the end and rapped her knuckles on the door.

The muffled heavy metal on the other side stopped.

“Who is it?!”

Molly rolled her eyes. “It’s me! Molly!”

“Molly? Oh, shit –”

CRASH!!

“SHIT, DAMMIT, uh–”

The door unlocked, and Alexis poked her head out and looked around suspiciously. Intoxicant fumes wafted out from the opening. Through the slit in the door, Molly could see the tall speaker next to her bed had been knocked over, and it was easy to deduce she wasn’t wearing any pants.

“You ready to go?” Molly said.

“Go… where?” Alexis asked.

Molly felt something in her chip away. “To… the bakery? Remember? You said we were going to get some of those pound cakes? Remember?”

Alexis’s countenance flashed. She closed her eyes in a brief lament and put a palm on her forehead. “That was today… listen… I’ve… I’ve got… an appointment – interview. Today. I can’t go.”

She tried to close the door, but Molly planted her foot inside before she could. It was bare; Alexis yelped, and the door stopped nanometers away from crushing her delightful sister’s ankle.

“Even you don’t believe what you’re saying. We’ve been planning this since last week! Why are you doing this? Why are you avoiding me?!” Molly couldn’t help it. She started to tear up.

“M-molly!” Alexis tried to explain. As much as she wanted to take Molly inside to console her, Molly knew she wasn’t allowed in while Alexis was “lighting up”, quote unquote. “Why would you think that? I’m not –”

“Yes, you are…” Molly sniffed. “Y-you were gone all day yesterday. You said you were going to take me to a movie… but by the time you came back, the theater was closed…”

“Well yeah, I’m sorry! But–”

“And Friday, after we got home, I wanted to play some Mario Kart with you, like w-we always do, on Fridays, together… I wanted to cheer you up since you couldn’t go out with your friends…” Molly wiped her face on her sleeve, perhaps as a preventative measure. She hadn’t loosed a single tear quite yet. “But you just went to sleep. You didn’t even say anything when I knocked on your door.”

“Okay, Molly… I’m sorry, but –”

“A-and… when I… enter the room…” Her beleaguered grievances were broken up by intermittent sniffles. “You… you… always… leave… even when I… go to the porch… and sit next to you… you always…” Molly trailed off and looked down at the carpet.

“I… seriously?” Alexis sounded genuinely confused.

Molly nodded.

“I never noticed that…” Alexis pondered. “Look… Molly… I just need a bit of time. I’m trying to handle some things. And try as I might, I just can’t focus when you’re around being so dang funny and adorable.”

Molly cracked a smile.

“So, wait for me, alright? I’ll be back before you know it. And… next week, I’ll make sure to take you along with me to the bakery so you can pick out an extra-large poundcake. My treat.”

Alexis gave a soft smile, and she closed the door gently. The burnt smell dissipated in the air.

Molly stood at her door for a few moments. Then, she sullenly turned in place and trodded back to her room, sore, rejected, and dejected. She closed her door behind her and turned the lock. She took off her denim jacket and hung it up in her closet before plopping on the made twin-sized bed with her feet suspended off past the edge.

Molly pulled her phone out from beneath her and opened up her texts.

Garnet had sent her several over the past 48 hours.

• HEYYYY BESTIE THAT WAS SO FUN LETS DO IT AGAIN :DD

• my body has been shaking sooo much.. its still inside me i think

• pleeez we have to do one this weekend!! i dont thinnk I can wait a hole school week.. i can go myself if i i have too.. just tell me were it is

• my head hurts

• help

• i took some advil so i shoud be good.. is this how u felt the first time you did it??

Molly flipped face-side up and put a hand on her tummy. Molly could almost trace the exact moment in her life when she felt the beginning symptoms of withdrawal. She was in her Mom’s car on the way home from a perfectly uneventful day of school when suddenly, it felt as if the world had been about to collapse inward, and Molly was the only one who could sense it. She had to pull her hood up over her face – in that way children sometimes do – so her mother wouldn’t suspect anything from her distraught expression. The moment the car was put in park, Molly bolted out, launched into the house, and locked herself in her room waiting for the pains to subside.

Molly shook her head. She’d warned Garnet, of course, but either way, she wouldn’t wish the sensation on her worst enemy. All that mattered now though was that as long as they reconvened in a timely manner, the feelings of withdrawal would lessen. At least, that’s how it worked for her and Sofia.

Speaking of which…

• Hey. Garnet texted me. Shes kind of freaking out. Check up on her soon.

• Im feeling it too, by the way. But I should be fine. How are you holding up?

• Also, whats your schedule like for next week? We should hold off on picking out more students, but I can probably trick some travelers at the hotel into following me. Should be easy enough :)

Molly sighed as she locked her arms in place, holding her phone above her. The girls were okay, at least.

She sat up. At least they were still acting normal. Relatively.

Molly slammed her head into her pillow. She tried to put Alexis’s behavior out of her mind. She’s an adult; Molly’s a child. It wasn’t an ideal scenario for either of them, and Alexis has a bunch of weird adult needs and feelings that Molly’s only read about in books. For the moment, Molly had to focus on herself.

She thought about Friday night.

She thought about the way she lowered Vivian onto her tongue.

She thought about her spindly body, squirming between her fingertips.

She thought about the way her tongue sampled her taste, how utterly delicious she was before it enveloped her, and sucked her down into Molly’s guttural esophagus.

Her sweet taste, so immaculate. She was a sweet girl, after all. Strange. Molly’s greatest fear was the guilt. The idea that she’d hate herself after performing such a thing to someone who had once done her a great kindness.

But now…

After coming to know… it…

She hadn’t even felt the tiniest smidge of guilt.

It was quite simple calculus, really. Molly’s belly – as well as her friends’ – had been transformed into a sacrificial pyre. A fiery cauldron, identical in every way to the mere food repository it had once been, with the noted difference that all those sent down had only one purpose… to sate it.

It wasn’t just their stomachs, of course. It was everything. Every part of Molly… since that first day… had changed. Everything she did, it was now in service to it. Each part of her body hid something beneath the surface, something that shimmered and shied away from the light of day… but seemed to stir at the very border between day and night.

Of course, she was still roughly the same Molly. She still loved poundcake. She still loved Ariana Grande. She still thought that cranberry juice had been invented expressly to punish death row inmates. It was just, the scope of Molly’s understanding of both herself and the world around her had broadened, and where she once floundered helplessly for any sort of purpose, any type of greater reason for existing… now she knew. It was freeing. It was mesmerizing to finally understand the sure reality and, more than that, to understand exactly what she had to serve and how she was meant to serve it, as well as the rewards for carrying out her duty.

And what rewards they were.

Molly thought more about Sofia’s offer. And she began to draft a message.

***

I haven’t been able to sleep.

My look currently was waffling somewhere between “eastern European grandma”, “swamp witch”, and “Chipotle burrito”. I wrapped the throw blanket around my shoulders a bit tighter and slid my feet a tad closer together on the edge of the chair.

The truth is, I hated it. I hated telling Molly “No”. It just wasn’t in my DNA, and the consequences of that rejection had eaten at me all the way into the wee hours of the night. She had a power over me, and she’s a far better person than I because there is no way I wouldn’t abuse that power if our roles were reversed. But despite wanting to spend time with her, memories of that night come flooding back every time I look at her. And with those memories, so too does my nausea.

I took a munch out of my Hot Pocket before looking back at the monitor screen. 12:37 A.M.

I refreshed the page.

The Dalton Star news article reporting Vivian’s disappearance was still exactly the same. There’s no sort of information or leads. She just vanished into thin fucking air.

A part of me knew how goddamn insane this must look. I’ve never even met the girl. I had no clue what she even looked like before the news websites plastered her face on the Missing Persons’ column. She was just the latest in a line of random, disconnected disappearances of gullible young people. There is no reason I should care about her. There is no connection between her life and mine. None.

No connection. Except Molly.

At first, I was tricking myself into thinking I was somehow doing this for Molly. Trying to track down information on someone she knew. Someone she cared about. I really really wanted to believe that’s what I was doing. I still do. And it makes me feel like an absolute monster whenever I run the numbers in my brain and realize it. Realize there was a simple solution staring me in the face, one that explained everything. I tried to escape it, I tried to beat the reality of it out of my mind.

I was scared. Of Molly.

Shit. Even now, it sounds like the world’s worst joke. I hadn’t done a great job at picking up the pieces of my brain that shattered outside the school gates, but after several sleepless nights to ponder it, I could only think about how that was Molly’s face out there. How she looked like she was absolutely relishing what it was she was doing. How the person they had tied up down there looked sorta like Vivian, if you squint, though I admit I never got a good look at her face. How she disappeared. How she disappeared. How she disappeared. How she –

The mouse onscreen was jittering.

My hands were shaking.

I tried to chalk it up to just nerves. Just the drugs. Just the surprise at finally seeing my little sister doing bad things for once. I would look into her eyes, and I would feel her love. I would feel her sweetness. And my anxiety would wash away. But then. I’d look too deeply into her eyes. And there’s something. I don’t know. I just don’t know. Something. Inside them. It wasn’t there before. I didn’t like it. I hated it. And then I hate myself for hating whatever it was my sister had become. The thread in my mind holding onto Molly’s innocence was fraying and fraying, and I still don’t know how much of it is because I’m yanking so tightly to hold on lest I fall into the endless abyss. She was my rock. What had she become? What am I making her out to be?

I looked up cases of disappearing into thin air. No luck. I wondered briefly if that girl might’ve been raptured. Mom probably would’ve thought so, but there was no way in Hell I was going to mention the first thing about this to her. Onto my next hypothesis – shrinking. Even as I typed the words into Google, I cringed at myself. It somehow felt like an even more absurd premise to accept. But it was the one that more closely matched with my perception of the event. Still, I didn’t get much except for a few articles on male erectile dysfunction. I dumped my queries into Tor, but still got nothing. I maintained alumni privileges on a few research databases, so for the Hell of it I decided to check there too. I found a few articles that toyed with the notion from a theoretical level, but none that genuinely engaged with the idea that size-changing was possible. The thought that whatever it was Molly knew about it and I didn’t was baffling to me. She may be a precocious little upstart, but she was still a child.

She’s still a child…

I leaned back in my chair. It began to tip over. “Whoa!” I lunged for the rim of my desk and stabilized myself.

I glared into the light of the monitor. Right. She was a child. There’s only so many places she could be at any given day. As much as it disturbed me to do so, I would have to keep an eye on her for a while. Just long enough for me to confirm that she wasn’t who I hated myself for thinking she was.

And then we could be sisters again.