Chapter 1: Deadbeat Daughter

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 describe my sister as a “little fucker”, 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. Suddenly, 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 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 su 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. “A usted necesita… su 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. “Rapido, señora!”

“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 back 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’s face, which was shocked. Shamed. “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 reverence, 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 exactly what it was. 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 wanted 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.

Chapter 2: The Perfect Sister

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 on 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 remembering. 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 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 hated 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. On to 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 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.

Chapter 3: Breaking the Illusion

I had to wait for the moment to strike. Using “strike” liberally. To be honest, getting a bit of a game plan together was enough to swing my mood up a bit, for a day or two – just wait for a time Mom was out of the house, and Molly had no afterschool clubs or plans to be dropped off with one of her friends. Just me and Molly, at home, alone. Then, I would tell Molly that I was going somewhere – the club, the city, the bar, anything really. She’d have the whole house to herself. Nobody around to watch her, look after her, coddle her, prevent her from doing something she otherwise wouldn’t… Molly was a golden child. She’s more than earned her right to stay at home by herself. Nobody ever inquired what she did alone (Aside from the obvious. Talk on her phone, watch Adventure Time. You know, the usual for a girl her age), but I was going to find out.

But I quickly realized sitting around my house waiting for other people to do stuff felt a bit less like James Bond and a bit more like 127 Hours, just without the whole ripping-my-arm-off thing that goes with it. I didn’t dare go out with friends beforehand. The more time between my outings, the less reason Molly has to suspect I was planting a trap (ugh… I hate using that word) and besides that I didn’t want her to get up to what she does while I was none the wiser. So, in my room it was, for the most part.

That said, it wasn’t all waiting. True to my word, I paid my fair dues and hung out with Molly. I’m lucky poundcake isn’t expensive… for such a small girl, she can put it away with the best of them. Where the Hell does it all go, anyway? Jesus. But that wasn’t all. Tuesday, I swooped her up from school (on time!) and we made it just in time to see Frozen after a long, mostly performative campaign on my part to watch Catching Fire instead. Thursday, nothing, really. Friday, we stayed in together and booted up a game of Just Dance where Molly revealed to me that she had been grinding out a mean rendition of “That’s Not My Name” by the Ting Tings in her off hours. I was already working up a sweat by the time we hit the “Mary, Jo Li-sa” section, while Molly’s energy on the other hand was boundless.

Every night, I’d turn in to my room, and I would sit at my PC. I’d log in and type out the address for the Dalton Star. I’d check other local news sites. AJC. WSB. CNN. GMA for God’s sake… nothing. No word on anything. No word on the victims, and no new disappearances either.

It was more than a bit unsettling, but I mostly tried to chalk this up to confirmation bias. The absence or presence of more kidnappings while Molly was occupied didn’t prove or disprove anything. For that matter, my new plan wouldn’t prove much. But it would do something important: it would ease my mind.

Saturday night, when Mom hit me with the “Coming home late, make sure Molly goes to bed early” text, that was when I knew the time was now.

I could’ve thrown on some cutoff jeans and a crop top, but no. I had to make sure Molly knew I was gone.

I had to go slutty. Sluttier than I’d gone in a while.

Hobbled at my PC like the gremlin I was, I pulled up my Pandora playlist for inspiration. Loud, thudding bass boomed into my ears, my chest, my sternum. I thought for a bit, then I cranked it up even more, far louder than I typically do, utterly drowning out anything else. An error, perhaps. Something that might tip Molly off I was acting strange. But I didn’t want to think. I preferred letting my current musical mood of the day eclipse everything I was thinking, feeling, the knowledge of what I was doing, who I was doing it to.

As per the whims of my Pandora account, that musical mood was R&B.

To the tunes of Soul II Soul, Aaliyah, Fantasia, and friends, I threw off the little clothing I had; a bra, some sweatpants. I rummaged through my closet, panty-clad derriere on full display to absolutely nobody. Jesus, the power of the bass seemed to triple this close to the floor. Enough to rattle my bones. I refused to turn it down, and I crawled through my closet, in the darkness, hands tracing along the carpet, through the knickknacks and trinkets and clothing articles I really oughta give to Goodwill by now. Past my old Lincoln Logs, past my “gently used” impulsively-purchased electric guitar and accompanying amp, past a horde of notebooks and stacks of papers from my college days. My fingertips grazed across the smooth faux leather bodice. I grinned, and I pulled it out.

This black dress had been one size too small four years ago. I can probably credit it with half the hookups I managed to swing between sophomore and senior year. I slid into it, my bare cleavage safely stowed tight against the boob window, and I realized with shrinking morale that I had apparently gained a not-unnoticeable amount of pudge since then. Whatever, bodies change, Mom (why did I say that?). After some more rummaging, a bit of luck! I found a pair of fishnets too. They had holes in them… but don’t all fishnets have holes when you really think about it? I chose not to. Two black go-go boots later and I looked fresh off the catwalk in Magic City. I tried pulling the zipper up the back myself, but it was an ordeal. I tugged and tugged, then let out a sigh that drowned in the air of the music. I would ask Molly for help.

I stepped out of my room. Sun had faded past the treeline. My speakers shook the scaffoldings of the house. I turned the corner of the hall, and I stood before the floral MLP designs on the outside of Molly’s door. It took a minute to muster up the strength to knock.

“Molly?” I leaned my ear up directly against the door so I could make out a response if any. “Can you help me with something? My dress, I could use–”

“Come in…”

I could tell it was an affirmative, though the precise tone of the acquiescence was hard to hear through the music. I pushed inside.

“Yeah, I would appreciate…”

Molly was just throwing her own blankets from across her body, swinging her short legs over the side of the bed. She rubbed her eyes and looked at me blankly. Molly was pale. Paler than I’d seen her last. Paler than normal. Paler than was healthy. The utter opposite of how she’d been these past few days. Gone was the rambunctious, vibrant Molly who cleanly demolished me in Mario Party. What I had in front of me was a husk. How the fuck did I miss this? Had I been so lost in my own head that I failed to see what was right in front of me?

“Your dress, right?” Molly wheezed.

“M-Molly!” I lunged for her, sliding on my knees to her bedside. That wouldn’t be good for the fishnets. I wrapped my arms around her and laid her to bed. Her protests were weak enough to feel nonexistent. “You’re sick!”

Molly only noticed me with a vague, silent glance out the corners of her eyes. “W-why do you think that?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” I patted gently across her cheeks, her chin, her forehead. “You looking like a marble statue was… a clue… Jesus, you’re, you’re hot!”

“It’s just a bug…” Molly’s eyes seemed to follow something in the air above her I couldn’t see. “And don’t say ‘Jesus’ or Mom’ll yell at you… I’ll be better in the morning.”

I bit my lip. I was anxious. I looked to the door. I looked back at Molly. I checked the time on my phone. 6:09.

I relented.

“Okay, I am staying by your side tonight. Nothing but me, 24/7. Right here, with you.” I rubbed her frazzled, undone mess of curly hair.

Molly’s eyes seemed to pop out of her head. “N-no! You don’t have to…”

I nodded. “Yes. I do. Listen, just because–

“Alexis–”

“–you’re a golden child, and you’re so cute and perfect, doesn’t mean that–”

“Lex? Alexis–”

“–you can go out on your own. You’re my baby sister. It’s my job to take care of–”

“Alexis? Please, Alex–”

“–you, don’t argue, don’t fight it. Now–”

“ALEXIS!”

I stopped.

For a small person, she can project a surprising amount of authority when she wants to.

Molly wriggled up into a sitting position in her bed. She was hunched. Her eyes were baggy. She made a vague gesture to me with her hands. Somehow, I knew what she was asking, and I turned around, just a bit dumbstruck at how easily she’d taken control.

She grabbed the zipper and braced her other hand on my shoulder. It was cold.

Zzzzip!

She sighed, as though having exerted a tremendous amount of strength. I turned back to her, my mouth in a very slight “o” shape, as I awaited her inevitable spiel.

“Lexy, I-I’m sorry!”

She fell forward into my chest.

I caught her and rubbed her back, slowly, sweetly. My heart ached.

“You’ve done so much for me… you’ve been s-such a good sister… when I asked you, last week? Why you were avoiding me?”

A sad chill crept over my skin.

“I realized…” Molly sniffed. She detached from me. Her tears had dripped into my boob window. “I realized how selfish I was. You do nothing but care for me. I, I… I hope I didn’t guilt you into hanging out with me… these past few days.”

My eyes sharpened. “No!” It was an aggressive no. I could only hope it carried my love with it as well. “I did all those things because I wanted to. I hang out with you because I want to. I want to care for you because I want to.”

Molly gave me a wry grin. “Right.”

‘Right’? What’s that supposed to mean?, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t. I knew she’d see right through me like the book I was. Despite everything, despite my misgivings about what Molly was, what I was hoping she hadn’t done, her approval was very important to me. I wanted to hang out with her of course, but the fact she was so sad that I hadn’t was a big factor in my recent behavior. Too big.

Molly continued. “It’s been eating me up. You haven’t seen it, when we’re together. But…” Molly opened her eyes wide. She yelled at me, “Please, please go out! Please, have fun! That would be the best thing you can do for me right now… I want you to…” she trailed off.

It was a mind-shattering reversal of roles. The little sister, commanding me, to go out and have fun?! It was unfathomable!

But. You know.

I just can’t say no to that face.

I’d made the decision the moment she made her dictum. I only waited those extra few seconds so I could avoid breaking the illusion that I was deliberating in some way. “You…” I started.

Then, I scoffed.

I said: “I’ll bring your dinner up for you.”

***

Any plans to stick around were gone. I’d lost the fight in me. At this point, the most productive use of my time would’ve been to simply do what Molly asked. Drive to the city. Go to the club. Have fun. I mean, I was already done up and everything; it’d be a waste not to use this outfit for something.

Once I got into my car, I rang up Monica.

“Hey, what’s good? Got any plans for the night?” I put the car in reverse. “So? It’s only 6:30. Plenty of time. I was thinking we could hit up Starlight.” Backing up. “I’ve had a craving for… You don’t remember it? I– …you threw up in the bathroom there!” Turn into the road. Around here, land is plentiful, but houses are sparse. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Anyway… Jesus fuck, Monica, please? I don’t want to go to the bar alone. And I could really use someone to… right, got it. Okay, an hour. I’ll see you there.”

Once I hit the outlet, it was a crossroads. I turned left. The last vestiges of rush hour meant that the streets weren’t as empty as the housing. I passed by a few cars, a shuttle ferrying a few college kids to the station. A van, RV, et cetera.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick…

I glanced at the dash. Gas light was on.

“FUCK!!”

I looked at the needle. It was on E.

“Whoa!” I swerved to avoid a car that suddenly braked in front of me. After tossing a spare middle finger I had lying around, I pulled over on the side of the road and banged my head on the steering wheel. I forgot to get gas after going to the movie theater.

Okay, well. There was a gas station on the way. Problem was, it’s a thirty-minute drive to get there, and Ol’ Miss is no spring chicken. There are times when I have no other choice but to put my trust in her, but today isn’t one of them. There’s a gas station only five minutes from the house by car. Considering I was 10 minutes out, this route would add an extra thirty minutes to the trip in total but who fucking cares, God.

I made a U-turn. Straight ahead, I passed the inlet that led to our house. Trees. A sidewalk. The road suddenly got a lot smoother, and before I knew it, I was at a little hamlet where the street suddenly forked into a ‘Y’ with a few stores on either side. A pawn shop. Butcher. The ice cream place we go to sometimes. Between the spokes: behold, my savior. A gas station.

I pulled up next to one of the pumps and stepped out. I was feeling a lot more exposed than I usually do in this flimsy dress, especially considering there were only two other cars in the entire complex. The white floodlights illuminated everything. These boots stepped in something that squelched beneath the heel. I looked down and cringed at the fact that it was a discarded jelly donut, half-devoured by a horde of ants.

A stiff wind blew my hair into a frizz, and I shivered. Let’s just get this over with.

I had to walk to the other side for the pump. I glanced at the prices. This was gonna be a hit to my bank account. I pulled out my debit card with steely resolve as a bite-sized Mazda pulled into the lot next to the convenience store. I eyed it with my peripheral vision while making the transaction. Stuffing the pump inside the repository, I leaned against the car then immediately regretted it. “Shit!” The metal was ice cold. I wrapped my bare arms around myself and hunched in place, not touching anything.

The Mazda opened, and a man stepped out wearing a dark jacket. He stepped up to the convenience store double doors and tugged at them. No dice. He banged against them. I kept to myself.

The banging stopped. Then, footsteps. In my direction. I gripped the gas nozzle.

He was getting closer. I was trying not to look at him, but it was clear now he was coming toward me.

“Hey! I–”

No time to waste. I ripped the nozzle from the car and took aim. Gas drenched him up and down, splattering his clothes.

“God, what the Hell?!”

I… huh.

As I was getting a better look at him, I realized he wasn’t really a man. More like a… teenager. Nineteen at maximum, sandy red hair, acne and only the ghostliest of ghost whiskers of a mustache. He was holding his arms as far from his body as possible, looking down at his oily-smelling clothes with disgust. “What’s your deal?”

“I-I’m sorry!” I tried to assuage. I stepped to him and grabbed at his jacket. He didn’t protest as I rolled the sleeves off his arms. “I thought, like, well, I don’t know!!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he scoffed. Then, he said, “I was just fixin’ to ask for directions.” His tone had softened.

“Where to?” I now had mostly balled up his jacket into a darkish mound of cloth in my hands, still dripping with gasoline. I twisted it into a ropy cloth, trying to squeeze the excess liquid out. It worked, sorta, but the smell was going to be a bit harder.

The teen scratched his neck. “Charity Inn. Signal ain’t shit this far out in the boonies.”

“Hey! I live here!”

Suddenly, he looked startled. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

I chuckled. “I’m kidding. I do live here but I am pretty sure I hate it more than you do.”

That made him laugh. It was as though he’d forgotten only a second ago I had inundated him with a highly flammable liquid.

“Anyway, I’m Lex. What’s your name, kid?” I asked, trying to put on at least a bit of my patented southern girl charm.

“E-Earl…y. It’s Early,” he said. “It’s kind of a stupid name, I guess.”

I peered at him. “You… drove in from downtown Dalton! Didn’t you!”

He looked shocked. “How’d you guess?”

“Only a Dalton native would name their son something like ‘Early’. Downtown, suburb, doesn’t matter. You’re a country boy at heart.”

He held up his hands in defeat. “You got me.”

SMACK!

I slapped him. On the face!

“Hey!”

I ignored the complaint. “Have some respect for yourself! And where you’re from! I may like to go to the city now and again but at least I’m honest about where I come from! Pretending I’m from anywhere else besides here. Shameful.”

I’d never given a good ol’ fashioned Come to Jesus speech, and I’d never seen a man look so pitiful. If I could get paid for this all the time, that is an avenue I’d love to pursue. Plus, now I didn’t feel as guilty about drenching him with gasoline either. It was a win-win, both of which were for me of course.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Anyway, what brings you back?”

That seemed to snap him out of his funk. “My girl. She’s a senior here at the high school, and I uhhh…” Early reached into his back pocket. I got close to him as he pulled out a crumpled, wet map. My nose turned as I inhaled the aromatic paper. “I booked us a hotel, so we can…” He trailed off.

I understood. “Ah.”

Early continued, “I never came by here often. Got this new phone, doesn’t work for shit. No GPS, and now the map…”

“Uh huh.” I leaned in closer above the map and pointed. “It’s a bit hard to make out, but you’re here right now. You want to go in this direction. It’s…” I snatched the paper from him, then realized my mistake. It fell apart in my hands.

“Ahhh… ha,” I chuckled dryly. He did not laugh.

I looked around for a chance to save face. Left, right, shuttle! Coming up from down the road. I pointed: “Just follow the shuttle lines! They circuit the commercial districts before going through the city center. If you follow them, you’ll…”

My eyes traced the length of my forearm, the grooves of my knuckles, up to the tip of my finger, my nail. I was looking at the shuttle. I was looking into the carriage. It was lit.

I saw the inside. From this far away, it was difficult to make out. There, at the back of it, I saw a little girl with almond-brown skin, sleeping with her forehead against the window.

But that couldn’t be right.

The shuttle trollied leisurely past the tip of my finger. I was now pointing at empty space.

“Oh!” Early said, suddenly far more confident. Then, “Oh, shit!” He dashed to his car, then came back and grabbed his jacket from the crook of my arm. “Thanks, Miss!” He hopped in, sped out of the parking space, and jetted onto the road, following the shuttle down the lane.

My finger was still pointing. Blankly.

Chapter 4: For My Own Peace of Mind

Given all the stops it made on its way, it wasn’t complicated catching up with the bus despite its head start. This was important, because at around this time I was more of a braindead zombie than anything resembling a human being. I just had to hope that on one of those stops, the girl who I recognized as Molly but could just as easily be someone who looked like her… didn’t get off. It was hard to make out in the dark, though typically when the bus did stop it was only to let off one or two college kids outside a residential zone. Nobody matched her body type.

Eventually, the trees waned, and streetlights began. Dalton’s never been on the Travel Channel’s top 100 best American cities for their nightlife, but even this far from the city center, a few enterprising folks have set up a couple of corner stores, bars, enough for a traveler to get by. I eased off the gas as the bus slowed to a stop. This time, only two people got out.

In the glare of a streetlight, I saw Molly turn back to the open shuttle doors to thank the driver, because of course she would. She was followed by that tall girl, Sofia. She followed Molly’s example, albeit shruggingly, and the bus zoomed off.

There was nothing impeding me now. I was divided from her by about 30 feet and a windshield, but I knew my sister when I saw her. And she has an entire life that I’ve never been privy to.

As the girls hugged and then held hands to start down the street, the tall one turned. She was looking at this car.

Shit.

Shit.

She turned back. She didn’t say anything.

I leaned back in my seat and breathed the biggest sigh of my life. Of course she didn’t recognize me, she doesn’t even know what my car looks like. And this generic-looking 2004 Mitsubishi Lancer wasn’t the most recognizable vehicle in the first place. Still, there was nothing stopping Molly from doing the same thing, and I didn’t even want to know what would happen if she did.

HOOOOONK!!!

I jolted from my break. I was still in the street after all. There was a post office lot right next to me; I turned into it and put the car in park.

Time to take inventory.

I had visual evidence that Molly was sneaking out. With another girl. At 7 o’clock on a December evening. What do I do with that information? Do I tell Mom? Do I go to the police? What, if anything, does this have to do with what I saw at the school? I only had one component of the puzzle, and I am quickly realizing this is a far larger puzzle than I thought, with plenty of trick pieces and no corners to work from. I could do nothing. I couldn’t do anything. I needed more data.

I reached to the back seat and grabbed my fur coat. Hoisting it over my shoulders, I opened the car door into the brisk cold and felt my teeth chatter. Holy fuck it was cold as balls out here. I slid my arms in my coat and felt a bit better, but still. I half walked, half jogged out of the lot to the sidewalk, tempering my every footfall so that there was no chance of it being heard from down the way. I always kept a solid 300 feet between us at minimum; they were specks on my vision, but my eyes never left them. For all the anxiety that was swimming through me, the fear of being a woman alone late at night wasn’t really one of them. I guess the biggest testament to my surety that I did see Molly just now is the fact I genuinely don’t feel like I’m alone, even if the people I was tailing didn’t know it.

An intersection. The carflow was negligible at this point, but Molly did not jaywalk. I could see the taller one tug at Molly’s arm to go forward during a lull, but Molly stood stalwart, and my heart melted. She was always Molly, whether I was there or not.

The tall one acquiesced, and they waited for the light to turn red. Once it did, they crossed the street 90 degrees from me. I took this as a signal to trot a bit faster, up to at least the intersection they’d just stopped at. At distances like these, there was a risk of losing them if I didn’t act fast.

I got to the end of the road just as they completed their cross. I stayed close to the pole, glancing at them in a semi-crouch just in case they turned back on a whim. And that was when I noticed the direction they were headed. Just down the road stood the Charity Inn, in all its two-story glory.

Charity Inn.

Molly and another girl.

Alone.

Holding hands.

Keeping secrets…

C-could it be?

Could my little sister be… in love?!

My mind blazed past the obstacles that might’ve prevented two twelve-year-olds from booking a room at the most affordable motel in town; she was a resourceful kid. She’d find a way. Suddenly, it all made sense. Molly hanging out with the girls. Her staying at school late. Her being sick. She wasn’t just sick, she was lovesick.

I didn’t even wait for the crossing signal; I lunged across the road. I wanted to fall down on my knees at Molly’s feet, apologize to her for my misgivings, my suspicions, apologize for everything. But more importantly, I wanted to help her. I would never trust Mom to tell Molly everything she’d need if she wanted to start engaging in sexual relations earnestly, and especially with another girl. I have been in my time a repository of many things – and fluids – for many people, but now. Now. I was going to be a repository of knowledge for my little sister.

I narrowly dodged a motorcycle as I made it to the other side of the street. I glanced up the road to the Charity Inn; the girls were already scaling the ditch into the motel parking lot. I followed furtively, peering from behind a decorative tree in the yard. Internally, I was screaming, yes, yes, you go, Molly! My little girl is becoming a woman!! But, still. I wanted to hang around just to make sure they weren’t actually up to anything dangerous. They were alone at night after all, and who knew the kind of creeps that could pop up at any time. And besides… this was still sorta… weird.

The two girls were waiting in the motel courtyard at the rim of a broken fountain when the purr of another vehicle seeped into the scene. A cab? No, it was black. An Uber, then? Well, this car looked way too nice to belong to an Uber driver. I quested for a perch, a wall, anything I could hide behind to get a bit closer. I noticed a large boulder that looked vaguely like a mushroom, probably intended as a bench of some kind. Deciding it’d do, I did a weird crab-walk squat-run over to it, planting my knees in the dirt as I watched the car and what it did.

Garnet. She stepped from the luxury vehicle’s backseat and handed the driver a couple of bills through the window – from the look on his face, those were some respectable denominations. Once he drove off, Sofia and Molly leapt forth to meet her. Hugs were exchanged.

A trio. Was this some sort of… polygamy… thing? Maybe. I didn’t really get it; I guess you could say I was technically a monogamous person myself, in the sense that in my long line of screws, hookups, and one-night stands, even I had the dignity not to do it with two people at the same time. Still, geez, Mol-Mol. At this rate you’re gonna break my record.

I chuckled a bit, then immediately felt bad. I got back to my stakeout.

They walked in through the front door.

Finally, I felt like I could stretch out my creaky, achy, old lady bones. After decompressing from the ball I’d curled into, way more of my body was exposed to the chilly late-autumn breeze, and I bristled. God it was freezing, even with my coat on. Were they not cold? I mean, Molly was wearing her cardigan, the other girls had jackets. But this was coat weather. I’d have to talk to Molly about proper winter attire when we got home.

I approached the door just as another car arrived at the lot. One I was familiar with. Oh, dear God…

The Mazda parked, and out popped a young man holding several Winn-Dixie grocery bags. Early was chewing on a bagel when he noticed me. Taking the time to swallow his pastry, he shouted out, “HEY!!”

Then he stomped my way. I was like a deer in the headlights.

“Howdy, Lex! How you doin’?” He gave an earnest grin. “What brings ya? You ain’t following me, right?” He laughed.

I waved my hands. Lesser women would’ve floundered at the slightest pressure for a poorly thought out, unrealistic cover story. Poorly thought out, unrealistic cover stories were, on the other hand, my specialty. “N-no! I was headed this way when I, uh, my car broke down! I walked here because I knew it was where you were going, and thought you might be able to help…”

“Uh huh, right,” Early said. “You need a ride? There’s a phone inside, I can call a cab, that’ll take you home.

I glanced at the front doors. Through the glass window, Molly was talking to an attendant at the desk, propping her arms on the surface and standing on her tippy toes to just barely be able to sorta kinda look the burly man direct in the eyes. She was still pale. She was still sick! Damn you, Molly… why’d you have to ignore my advice?!

They finished talking, and Molly turned to exit, her friends following obediently. Uh-oh.

Early tried again. “Did you –”

I didn’t listen. I grabbed his hand and dashed to the side, nearly pulling Early to the ground as I ran. His bags were released in the fray, splashing in a puddle of dark sludge.

Early was incensed. “Hey, what–”

“Shush!!”

I dragged him along and out of the way as the jing-a-ling of the motel doors floated through the silence of near-winter night. Molly and friends exited. I was safely stowed behind the dumpster, which thankfully was sealed thoroughly enough that only a slightly sour scent wafted out from its seams. Early was next to me. “Lex, what the Hell are we–”

I put my hand over his mouth and shushed him again.

And I watched.

***

The moment Molly stepped out the door, she wanted to collapse to the ground. She swayed and shifted, and she nearly did fall if not for Sofia’s quick thinking, wrapping her hands around Molly’s waist, keeping her steady.

“Hey, hey!” Sofia said, planting her fingers in Molly’s messy, undone hair. “You alright? We’re almost there. You’ll be fine soon.”

“It’s not just that…” Molly looked to the sky in despair. The stars were out. “We missed the Twilit Hour.”

Garnet had her arms propped behind her neck. “Oh. That sounds bad. That’s not bad, right? Pleeeease tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means, right? We can still do the thing, right? Molly, please tell me we can do it! I’m starving! Starving! I’ve been waiting so long, if I don’t get –”

“It’s fine,” Molly said, waving a hand that silenced Garnet. “We can do it. It’s just…” Molly stopped short as her stomach vibrated. She shivered. She reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out a folded clump of napkin. Opening it revealed a bite-sized morsel of spongy yellow poundcake. She stuffed it into her mouth and sighed graciously.

Molly stopped short of explaining what they missed. What was lost when they failed to commune with it at the allotted hours.

She turned to Sofia. “Did you bring the water?”

Sofia was a bit surprised at the sudden turn. She reached in her purse and pulled out a bottle. This time, it came in the form of a clear plastic canteen. She handed it out to Molly, who took it.

“Thank goodness…” Molly eschewed ritual. She twisted off the cap and drank.

The sip only lasted a moment, and yet for Molly it was an eternity. She felt it. Felt the return of everything she’d come to know. The fear only arrived recently, that Molly might lose it. That the symptoms of withdrawal would strengthen, leave her body sapped, broken. A useless nothing, like she once was. But it was returning! It filled her, gave her life, vibrancy. Sofia and Garnet watched in awe as Molly’s skin returned from pale tan to a saturated, full hazel. Her hair seemed to organize itself on its own, going from a scraggly mess of half-broken fibers to a curly, bountiful, delightful mess of youthful strands. As she stopped and opened her eyes, the other two saw a flash. Something inside. Within her. It disappeared, but neither could say they hadn’t seen it.

She was back. The same old Molly.

She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and gave the bottle to Sofia.

“Go ahead, drink,” she said. And she skipped up the stairs to the second story balcony. Garnet and Sofia looked at each other, and they followed.

***

What… what had I just seen?

“Holy Hell…” Early had finally gotten the hint to start whispering. My nails tightened around his forearm. He gave a dreary shake of his head. He turned to me. “You know who that is?”

I nodded.

Early looked at me, expecting more. When I didn’t give it to him, he shrugged and stared back. “That ain’t right… that ain’t right…”

Then Early squinted. Something in his demeanor, posture, countenance, it all changed.

My heart suddenly felt like we were in great danger. I felt like my entire world was about to collapse inward, and I was the only one who could sense it.

Early jumped up. I tackled him to the ground. Our tousle was obscured by the sound of a passing ambulance.

“Stay down!!” I hissed, my hands against his mouth yet again. Early moaned and groaned into my fingers getting his spit on my palm, but I held firm until I felt I could trust him to be calm. I waited a few moments, and then I released my hands from his mouth tentatively. He gave a few pitiful coughs. His eyes had watered from not being able to breathe.

Finally, he hissed back, “Elaine! She’s in there!” And he pointed.

“Who?”

Then I realized. Oh, goodness.

I looked to where he was pointing.

The girls had reached the second floor, three doors from the right. Molly knocked. A few moments later, a tired looking young lady with brown hair wearing a white bathrobe opened it. She yawned as Molly talked to her using various large hand gestures. The lady shrugged, and she stepped aside. Molly shook her hand and entered. Sofia swept in behind her like a ghost. Garnet pumped her fist as she followed. The door closed.

We were in the dark. I struggled to balance back to my feet. Early rose next to me. “Are you gonna tell me who those girls are?”

“Mm-mm.”

“Gonna tell me why she did that… that thing when she drank whatever that stuff was?”

“Mm-mm.”

“You gonna… Hey, you alright?”

Huh? I looked down at my hands.

Well, would you look at that. They were shaking.

I was taking quick, shallow breaths when I next spoke. “Early… I don’t know why, but don’t you think… Do you think maybe you should leave?”

I didn’t get it myself. I really didn’t know why I was so scared. Why my body wanted to run. Why I was feeling more and more certain of my own mortality, that everyone on this planet would one day die. I could barely feel the cold on the outside anymore, I didn’t care about it. I’d brave it all just to leave this place. Why did I stay? For Early? For Molly? For my own sick obsession with finding out just how little I knew about any of this? Whatever reason, I didn’t want this dumb kid who hadn’t wrecked his life yet like I had, I didn’t want him to have any part of it. I wanted Early to go. For his sake, for my own peace of mind. I had few ideas what might happen if he went into that room, none of them good. “Go,” I said. “Go now. C’mon…” I motioned to his car and grabbed his shoulders. “Please, just leave?”

Early shook me away and scoffed, scowling. “You’re a goddamn nut.” My heart shattered as he turned to start toward the room, but he faltered as shadows flickered past the curtain. Bumps. Scuffle. Struggle.

He glanced back to me helplessly, then he sprinted to the door.

“Elaine?” Early was tentative. “Is there anyone in there with you?”

From these distances I couldn’t hear if there was any reaction, any noise on the other side. I wanted to take my own advice, but my legs were incapable of movement. The sterile white lights of the motel lot felt colder than they’d ever been.

Early banged on the door with his knuckles. “Elaine, it’s me!”

As he knocked, Early also dug into his own pocket for a room key, maybe. I don’t know for sure, because the door soon opened, and he was grabbed and pulled inside by two pairs of little hands with a yelp. The door slammed shut and locked.

I felt like I’d just watched someone get swept up in a riptide and dragged out to sea, never to be heard from again. I don’t know why my brain did this. I don’t know why I do this sort of stuff to myself. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

The curtains were backlit brightly. I could make out people’s silhouettes. If I tried hard enough, from close enough, I might even be able to see a fuzzy rendition of what was actually going on back there. Maybe even hear if they were having any conversations in there. This could be the only chance I’d get to finally know, substantively, what it was that Molly was doing on the rooftop that night.

I really, really, really, really wanted to take my own advice and get away from here.

Vibrating, I took a step from behind the dumpster.

Chapter 5: Away from Everything

Every beat of Molly’s heart came with a message from it, riding on her biorhythms. The blood flowing through her veins now carried on its rivers a lexicon for which Molly was the sole translator. Her eyes swiveled in her head against their will, carving out fourth-dimensional characters on the surfaces of everything they beheld. It was a struggle for Molly to keep her eyes trained on a single person or thing for too long. She was changing inside and out, and she couldn’t be more ecstatic about it. And had they not missed the Twilit Hour, Molly would already be well on her way to ushering in the Twilit Age.

But they did. So, Molly wasn’t quite where she wanted to be. Still, the fleshy bits that made her up were already reknitting and reorganizing themselves to suit her new role in the cosmos. Normal people wouldn’t be able to detect these shifts. Even Sofia and Garnet likely couldn’t make out differences in Molly’s form without careful scrutiny. That was fine. They didn’t need to. With any luck, they’d already seen the truth.

The motel room held a bed, a desk, and a kitchenette in addition to a bathroom. Molly was seated at the desk. The interloper’s arrival was unexpected, yet fortuitous. It’d been difficult coaxing Garnet onboard when she found out she wouldn’t be getting the next hunt’s bounty, so this new creature would be a welcome surprise for her once Garnet returned from her “pee break”. With the element of surprise on the girls’ side he was quickly doused, just as his apparent lover had been only minutes before.

The little man stood there on the desk, gazing up above at Molly, yet never spending too much time on her face. He had no idea what to do, what to even look at. How do you address something that can so easily rip you apart with only her pinky finger? That was probably what he was thinking, Molly mused, and she grinned. The little man shook.

Early stood, arms tensed out to his side, legs locked and ready to run, but with nowhere to go. And above him, this girl… this massive, little girl. Well, no. Early didn’t know how to explain it all that well… but when he looked at her, he didn’t see a little girl. It was in the shape of a little girl, yes. Something that looked distinctly like a little girl but wasn’t. This was something wearing the skin of a child. But not like a wendigo or a skinwalker, Early thought. His grandpa taught him how to recognize those. Looking at her felt more like if a comet or a hurricane was wrapped up in human flesh. She was a calamity, personified. Only under that premise could Early even begin to reckon those chocolatey, plump lips stretched out into an earnest, sickeningly sweet smile. She reached down and almost touched him with her bulbous, button nose, taking a wide, deep sniff. Her nose shifted into a slight crinkle.

Early remembered the conversation he’d had outside with Lex. What she’d said, about running. And he was wishing to God that’s what he did. Truth was, only reason he didn’t was because…

“P-please…” Early had to work hard to make actual words and not the disjointed gasps that seemed to be his default mode. To make himself as small and submissive seeming as possible, Early lowered his knees to the ground of the desktop, painfully slow. He put his hands on the back of his head and stared down at the notches that made up the table. “E-E-laine? What’d you do to her?”

Molly pondered. Then she turned back. “Still playing with your food?”

Sofia was lying sideways on the unmade bed as though spooning an invisible lover. In her palm held the squirming young woman, her mouse-like squeals making it no further than the massive wall of flesh and blood that made up Sofia’s lengthwise bodice. Every time Elaine scaled past the semi-curled digits of Sofia’s open palm, two fingers would tense and lash out, clamping over an ankle or a leg. Then she’d clench her fist tight before opening it up again, where the itty bitty woman would be paralyzed in fear. Sofia would patiently wait for the diminutive woman to shake off her horror, wait for her to make another go at escape. And the cycle continues.

Sofia’s eyes were glassy, and she smiled to nobody. “Just warming it up a bit.”

Sofia suddenly sat up on the bed, scooching her back to the mountain of pillows. Little Elaine stumbled and disappeared beneath Sofia’s pert rear into the cascading fabric pit formed in the memory foam. Sofia put on a thinking face as she rubbed her butt into the depths of the mattress. “Where oh where could she have gone…?” she’d say with caustic mirth. Then, once she’d had her fun, Sofia reached under her jeans and snapped up Elaine by her arm, lifting her in front of her face.

“Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me please, please!! I, if, I, I can, my, my Papa’s got a store! I can give you the code to the register! Yeah…! How does that… huh?!”

Sofia’s other hand had just risen to Elaine’s height. Her thumb and forefinger hooked around the cloth belt that tied around her midriff and tugged, undoing it completely. The bathrobe fell loose, exposing Elaine’s frontal side as she helplessly tried to cross her knees and guard her private regions.

“Hmmm…” Sofia lowered her mammoth-sized her head on the pillow and crossed her legs while Elaine whimpered before her. Sofia nudged at the tiny’s modest-sized breasts. “I’m guessing that guy over there picked you up for your ‘personality’.”

Elaine was blubbering now. Sofia set her down on her tank top chest, prodding her, manipulating her like a piece of tacky dough, primed to be shaped. She grabbed her leg and lifted her up, hanging upside down like a Cirque de Soleil performer. The bathrobe fell up her body, completely revealing her nude undercarriage. She’d evidently been warming up for Early before the girls got there.

“Huh, I wasn’t expecting that,” whispered Sofia, scratching with her thumbnail at Elaine’s deceptively girthy thigh. “You’ve got some meat on you.”

Elaine launched a profanity-ridden string of begs and pleas as Sofia switched the leg with which she held the miniaturized high schooler. She brought her close to her face. Sofia’s breaths were careful and warm. They coated Elaine in a humid mist.

“And quite the mouth as well… So, Molly. There’s no protocol for the sacrifices, right? We can eat them however we wish?”

Molly was using her finger to chase Early around the tabletop. The tip of her nail dragged along the wood and carved a thin indent against the varnish. It schhhhhhrrrrratched a gentle, winding path that left the little man not a moment to rest. “What you do is less important than why you do it,” Molly explained. “It’s about accepting, in your heart, that you are using the powers it’s given us to serve it.”

“I see,” hummed Sofia. The tiny girl was sprawled parallel underneath her lower lip, placed there on a whim. Sofia lay there on her back, lazy. She flexed the muscles in her face, coaxing Elaine closer and closer to her mouth. Elaine was in a dumbstruck limbo of being too scared to move, too scared to stay still. Up above the ridge of Sofia’s lower lip, Elaine could see, feel, hear the organic, fleshy sounds of its parting. And from out of it, a tongue. Giant, dripping with hot saliva from its every pore. It slithered out, the tip glistening, the buds budding. It filled Elaine with a deep, dreadful, innate fear, and shocked her out of her trance. She rolled over and got up to run, when –

SNAP!!

Sofia’s upper jaw bit down on her upper chin in an overbite, and Elaine’s foot was caught in the middle. She pounded at Sofia in every way she knew how, even as Sofia slowly, slowly, ever so slowly and gently, dragged her back, bringing the shrunken girl ever closer to those jaws. The bare foot had been hooked by Sofia’s two front teeth. Elaine knew she hadn’t drawn blood, and if Sofia continued to be gentle, she wouldn’t.

But as Sofia sucked the foot between her two lips and gave it a proper sampling, she couldn’t help but hum in delight.

Elaine was a disoriented little mess. Her body blurted a violent shiver and she let out a cringing bark as her foot was lathered in Sofia’s salivic cave. She knew how pointless it was, but she yelled back anyway. “Get off… get off me… stop, stop! It’s so gross…”

Sofia heard her, and she shrugged. As much as she enjoyed playing with it, she didn’t see much point talking to food. Using the suction of her mouth, she dragged the foot further in like a spaghetti noodle and received a pitifully-sad kick in the lip for it from her morsel’s free leg. It would’ve been prudent to suck that one in as well and put an end to this… but Sofia had something different in mind.

Ankle, calf, knee, thigh. Inside the mouth, her entire left leg was waterlogged, held in place from its flailing only by the gentle force applied by her the girl’s teeth, now firmly clenching the fattest section of her leg between them. Elaine’s other leg was smushed up against Sofia’s lip, almost kissing her crotch.

In response to the relative lack of activity from behind her, Molly put her own game on hold, suddenly slamming a hand over the tiny young man and turning back toward Sofia. She’d always been concerned about this part, finding out if her friends were true believers. “You’re taking a bit of a while… if you’re not up to it, I’m sure Garnet would –”

SCHICK.

Sofia spotted Molly and smiled. Red blood rolled down her lower lip in a smooth, velvety layer. Between them, the tiny Elaine slid down the moist, pillowy skin of the lip and back onto Sofia’s chin. Elaine was screaming. She was twitching. She was contorting. Her left leg was gone.

Sofia sat up, and gravity made Elaine roll onto the titan girl’s tank top. A trail of red was traced down Sofia’s jaw like war paint. Elaine crumpled in a heap against the girl’s budding breasts, occasionally letting out pained moans of the damned as Sofia crunched her detached leg into a delicious paste, swallowing it down. She grinned again at Molly, white teeth stained red.

Molly had no idea why she was worried before. She had nothing to worry about.

***

Despite what you may have seen in movies, one-way mirror glass is not magic portal glass from Doctor Who. Growing up, I used to watch a lot of Law and Order with my mom before going to school, but one thing I noticed was that in the interrogation room scenes the inside was always more brightly lit than the exterior from which the other investigators are looking in. And if you think about it, it makes sense that’s how you create the effect; if you’ve ever tried to look inside the window of a dark house on a sunny day, understanding the principle becomes easy.

What I’m saying is that with a healthy dose of caution on my part, I didn’t have to worry too much about being seen.

I, on the other hand, saw everything.

Everything.

***

“Ugh!” shrieked Garnet, stepping out of a steaming hot bathroom and wearing a bathrobe two times her size. “Those stupid little hand soaps… I scrubbed and scrubbed, and I still don’t know if my hands are clean…” She cringed as she looked at her quite pristine-looking hands. The train of her gown smoothed over the wet spots formed in the carpet beneath her pittery footfalls.

Garnet completed her examination. She lowered her hands and surveyed the tone of the room, noticing Sofia in the middle of her meal. Garnet split into a grin… then into a grimace. “You guys started without me! Not fair, not fair at all!!” she stomped.

Sofia pushed the twitching body of Elaine up and into her puckered mouth. She wasted little time, chewing slowly and savoringly. Her teeth drove up the length of her body, each gnash cutting her responsiveness in half until all that remained was the wad of flesh she used to be, the taste filling Sofia’s mouth with pleasure. She swallowed her down, and then she slid her tongue out to lap up the strip of blood that remained on her chin before it dried completely. Only once this display was complete did the pale girl see to addressing Garnet. Sofia pursed her ruddy lips and purred, “Your cashew-sized bladder quite nearly got us caught. You’re getting off easy missing just a hunt.” And she giggled, putting her palm to her mouth.

Garnet muttered a feral growl. She swiped the coffee maker off the kitchenette and hurled it at Sofia, who stopped laughing.

The coffee maker swerved in the air, accelerated, and CRASHED against the window in a spiderweb crack. The machine itself wasn’t much worse for wear.

Garnet peered at the window, startled at the odd change in her projectile’s direction. She was even more startled when she turned against her will to face Molly. The young girl’s hands were flat on the tabletop as she stared into Garnet. She was carving out symbols over Garnet’s body with the trails left by her eyes. It made Garnet uneasy, and she tried to move. She could not.

“Do not do that again,” said Molly.

Garnet’s esophagus undulated, but no sound came out. She managed to force a burst of tiny nods.

“Ever.”

Garnet was turning red. She struggled and twitched and tried to move and tried to nod, and only after she blinked three times in quick succession did she suddenly fall to the ground in a hacking fit.

Molly watched her writhe in satisfaction. She turned askance at Sofia, who was looking away from both of them.

Molly turned back to the prize in her hands. It was pounding against her fingers. Garnet was finally collecting herself, so Molly scooched out from her chair and crouched next to the girl, holding her clasped hands.

“Here,” Molly said. She cocked her head as she smiled and opened them to Garnet, whose eyes sparkled with delight.

“Oh, my goodness!” Garnet squeaked. She didn’t wait; she snapped up the tiny little man and shoved his flailing form inside her mouth, primed for his deliciousness. But it didn’t take long for her face to prune up. She gagged and jumped to her feet, and she searched for the bathroom she’d just slipped out from.

“P’FWAH!!” Garnet couldn’t take it. She spat the tiny out onto the carpet in a globule of thick saliva. She didn’t watch her step as she raced to the bathroom – her bare left foot scooped him up with the adhesive strength of her spit. Once she hit the bathroom tile…

CRACK!

Molly and Sofia heard it well. That noise was quickly overshadowed by Garnet running the sink faucet at full blast and gargling out water from the back of her throat. Molly returned to her seat in the meantime.

Garnet walked out of the bathroom. Each step came with an accompanying squish, and a red imprint on the carpet that got more faint with each subsequent stamp.

“Ewwww…” Garnet found a spot on the corner of Sofia’s bed. She hiked her foot on her knee and carefully examined the red, vaguely man-shaped spot. She could almost pick out some of the bone bits that hadn’t been ground into a powder.

Then Garnet looked at Molly. “That. Tasted. Disgusting.” She rubbed at the sole of her foot as she spoke, touching the red spot tentatively, like one might touch a bruise.

“W-what?” Molly asked. She was confused.

“It tasted awful!!” Garnet nodded and shuddered. “Terrible! Like, like, gasoline or something.” Garnet gagged. “This can’t be how they taste all the time. Please tell me this isn’t how they taste all the time!” She looked to Sofia pleadingly.

Molly scratched her scalp. “That can’t be right…”

“Maybe you just aren’t up to snuff quite yet,” Sofia mused. Garnet reared up a phantom punch in her direction, but she remembered the experience she’d had only moments ago. She backed down as Sofia finished, “Mine was delectable.”

“Of course, she was!” Garnet whined. “She just showered!” She stuck her tongue out and laid flat on the bed next to Sofia, her feet aimed at Molly. Molly glared into the red bloodspot, her eyes tracing the stain it made on the sole of Garnet’s flesh.

“Garnet,” Molly asked.

“Hm?” Garnet sat up at attention. Molly could feel her heart race. Good.

“How’d it feel? Did you catch that emotion?”

“Oh… like, when I squished him?”

Molly nodded with deathly seriousness.

“It felt… good! I think. It was quick, I didn’t really pay too much attention… I thought I’d feel bad, but I didn’t! I didn’t care at all. Really.” Garnet raised both hands in a gesture of honesty. “That’s… that’s good, right?”

Molly let out a relieved sigh. “Yes. You did well, Garnet.” Garnet beamed like a puppy dog.

Molly turned back to the desk. She relaxed into the chair, and she contented herself with drawing glyphs in the blank wall ahead with her eyes. Up, left, down, left, up, right, in, through, back, left, side, up, left. It was calming. Molly could use the calm. This trip could’ve gone wrong in a thousand different ways. Drinking in the sustenance made her feel invincible, but Molly should not forget the fact she was still a child. In the face of all society, she wasn’t all-powerful yet. One slip and she could find herself dissected. Or burnt at a stake. Whatever happened at the end of that, even she couldn’t guess, but this was one of the few times Molly did not feel like being experimental. There was still a lot about it… and a lot about herself… that she had yet to learn.

These symbols. Locating them, invisible, plastered just beneath the surface of modern life, was a gentle reminder to Molly that she wasn’t alone. She was always in the care of something greater than herself. She could relax. The whole trio could relax. Garnet seemed to have forgotten about their spat, and she snuggled close to Sofia, to the taller girl’s chagrin. But Sofia didn’t shrink away. The three were so close. It wouldn’t be long before they’d crossed the finish line.

As Molly’s half-lidded eyes danced, her wide-open ears twitched. “You hear that?”

***

Damn it.

God fucking dammit, Monica.

I hadn’t been super concerned with the fact that I was in the process of standing up my best only friend for upwards of an hour. So, when she called me – whether out of frustration, worry, just wanting to know what the hell is going on with me – I was not thinking Oh, dammit, I shouldn’t have left her on Read. I was thinking Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck my ringer is on fuck fuck fuck fuck SHIT FUCK.

It took me barely two seconds to silence the Kim Possible jingle and cram it in my boot, but two seconds was enough. Through my peeping hole, I saw there was activity. There was no earthly reason three bored-looking grade schoolers getting up from their seats should strike the fear of God in me. But if you’d witnessed what I’d just witnessed…

This wasn’t the time to philosophize. I needed to move. Left, right, both paths were too far from the stairwell. If I sprint, I might make it. But the balcony was made of a thin, clangy metal, and there’s a reason these go-go boots weren’t standard issue at MI6.

I’m cooked. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me when they catch me. But they were going to catch me. It was over. I don’t know what it is in this case, but I did know for me, it was over. I was over. I knew the truth. I don’t know what it was Molly was doing there… but if those tiny people were who I thought they were –

Balcony.

I turned. It was a choice. The railing wasn’t thin enough for me to slip through. I’d need to climb over it. It was a messy solution, but messy solutions were my specialty.

I crouched. I couldn’t take a step; if I made noise here, I was a goner.

I clenched everything.

I leapt.

The vault sent my legs sailing over the rail first. Then came the rest of my body. My left hand barely grabbed the apex of the railing, fingers burning from the chill. My right hand overshot and my knuckles scraped the frosted metal. The momentum nearly ripped my arm off, and I bit my tongue to stifle the shriek.

The walkway shuddered from my maneuver, but the structure was rigid enough that the noise was blunted. That said, I was still a sitting duck for whoever opened that door. The bars of the railing were only a bit less than a foot away a piece, so I wasn’t exactly behind suitable cover. One arm dangling, I flopped over, and I grabbed onto one of the railing poles. I transferred my other hand from the railing apex to that same pole (only sliding down an inch or two in the transition), and once I had a grip, I slid down the rest of the way just as the door clicked and opened.

I didn’t dare peek to see who was out snooping. My hiding place was imperfect as it was; my fingers were still visible. I just had to hope in the darkness and low light they didn’t notice. The walkway was peppered with holes to drain out rainwater, but they were tiny enough that I couldn’t make out anything distinct through them. I just had to hope the reverse was true.

The girl’s footsteps didn’t give me much to go from, but at least she wasn’t looking over the balcony. She leisurely shuffled a few paces down both sides of the walkway. The numbness in my fingers was screaming at her to disappear.

Eventually, whoever it was seemed satisfied with their recon. She slinked back inside. I could hear a muffled call that went something to the tune of “It’s all clear,” and I could tell from her voice it was Sofia. She closed the door, and I could feel my soul re-entering my body.

There was no way in Hell I was pulling myself back up. I didn’t want to anyway. I wanted to get in my car and drive as far away as I could. There was some foliage beneath me; not a whole lot, but hopefully enough to break my fall. It worked, somewhat. Hurt like a mother, though. I afforded myself a cry of pain, but it came out more like a quick, low moan. Maybe other guests would think the place was haunted. That would be preferable, I think, to what I saw in that room.

After making sure nothing was broken, I left. I limped away from the rooms. Away from the hotel. Away from everything. The streets were dead. I was in no mental headspace to go out in traffic. I couldn’t trust myself to not leap in the path of a semi-truck.

I made it to my car, and at that moment I realized I didn’t have my key. Just a comedy of errors for me, huh. I searched every meager nook and cranny in this dress, in my coat, in everything on me, and came up with zilch. I punched at the window until my hands throbbed and my knuckles turned red. With desperate abandon I yanked the handle, thinking maybe the car was old enough I could rip the door off… and it opened. My keys were in the cup holder. Figures.

Whatever. I slumped into the seat and sealed myself inside my car.

I cried. Then I screamed. Everything after that was a nothing.

Chapter 6: Like a Child Again

Sofia realized something was up halfway to the bus stop. There was something in the way the tiny girl fidgeted. The way every time she took a step, her leg would do a nervous twist on the ground before continuing the pace. The way she burrowed her hands in the opposite sleeves of her cardigan behind her back, like a straitjacket. Sofia wondered if it was the cold… then she decided against it. She had known Molly a long time; she’d seen what the golden child did when she was anxious. She knew when Molly was vulnerable. And it was rare enough of an occurrence that it made Sofia uneasy. She glanced at Garnet to gauge if she’d noticed and then grimaced. Garnet just had that same dopey look in her eyes as she always did.

Sofia rolled her eyes… what an idiot, she thought. What a doe-eyed, mopey idio–

Sofia tripped. She stumbled and tumbled and dove, saved with moments to spare by a tug on the back of her jacket. “Wha–?” she said, and she turned. Garnet had saved her. She was staring through Sofia curiously, not quite paying attention at the blonde’s expression.

Sofia blinked a few times, and she shook Garnet off her, who didn’t seem to mind. They both returned their attentions to Molly who seemed oblivious to her best friend nearly timbering into her like a domino. In fact, Molly had halted in the middle of the sidewalk. It was odd. Her jacket fluttered in the wind.

Sofia prepared to say something when Molly did an about face. Molly was looking at the ground, and she opened her mouth. For a few seconds, no words came out, and she closed it again. Then she opened it. “I, just… thanks. You two.”

Molly stopped, waiting for a response. She snuck a peek at their faces, noted their flummoxed expression, and returned her gaze to the sidewalk, which ended only a few paces ahead into a stiff, grass-and-dirt trail. Her hands behind her back were still fidgeting in her sleeves.

“It’s just… ever since this thing started... I mean, I’ve been, like… just kinda still figuring things out, right? I just don’t really know how it’ll all go. I mean, my place, in all of this.” Molly gestured out wide with her arms. “It’s just hard… so, Sofia, thank you? For going with me, that night. And following me… I don’t know. I was just worried you wouldn’t… like it? As much as I did.” A flurry of cottony ice tufts had started to descend from the sky, vaporizing into nothing when they hit the ground.

Molly looked past Sofia. “And, Garnet. You’re just really special to me. I really wanted to share it with you. With both of you.”

Even as she spoke, liquid anxiety spouted through Molly’s newly refreshed pores. She was dancing around words, and both Sofia and Garnet could tell. She twisted one Mary Jane into a corkscrew on the pavement as she swayed from side to side.

“And we’re getting closer, too. To the end of this, I guess. I’m not sure. It’s just a bit lonely here.” Molly pointed at her temple before she awkwardly sort of twisted her hands around her hips. “I wouldn’t really know what to do here, without you. I mean, I would know, but I wouldn’t know. You know? I’m just… worried! I don’t look like it, but sometimes I don’t know what to do. I’m scared. I just –”

Sofia stepped forth, and she grabbed Molly’s shoulders. Pulling the tiny girl up to her tippy toes, she planted her lips on Molly’s, and they stayed there for a long time. Molly’s anxious shivering slowed to a rhythm as she let her best friend take her up in her grasp.

Sofia soon unlocked her lips, and looked down into Molly’s dumbstruck, lovestruck, glossy eyes. “I’m with you,” she said. And she let go.

Molly stumbled a bit as she hit the ground. Garnet had been somewhat orbiting the two, heart aching for her turn. Molly was finally free, and Garnet’s lips were already puckered to excise her long-awaited peck from her love. She leaned in closer to Molly, arms outstretched. Molly grabbed her, collecting Garnet from behind her back, and pulled her close. Too close. For a kiss. Their faces swung past each other, Garnet’s chin now resting on Molly’s shoulder. A friendly pat on Garnet’s back was the stake through the coffin.

Cold mist burned through Garnet’s nostrils as she remained in the embrace. Coldness crept up her bones despite Molly’s warmth. Molly let go. Garnet felt as though she’d been abandoned in the tundra. Still, she upturned her lips in what resembled a smile, just long enough for Molly to smile back, turn around, and continue leading their procession.

***

Home.

Front door.

Kitchen.

I stopped here. I stopped and waited. I took a few steps to the sink, and I gripped the rim of the reservoir. I gripped it tight. It felt freezing. I was freezing. Freezing cold. I wanted to dive into my bed, like a child again.

But no. There was something I had in my head, all the way through the sluggish drive back to the house. Something that I wanted to bury down in the darkest recesses of my heart, but which fought back, hard, powerful, taking me over until my fingernails bled from how tight they gripped the steering wheel.

I looked through the darkness, at my hands, imposed above the reservoir. There, in the sink, lay the tool of my salvation. A thin, small paring knife. Only a faint sliver of moonlight snuck through the window, and thus the silhouette of the reflective blade was only a handful of shades lighter than its surroundings.

I plucked it from the bottom of the sink. I ran my fingers along the flat, carefully feeling the cutting edge. There was still a bit of peanut butter detritus adhered to it; I ran the knife under the faucet water and sponged it away. Somehow, it didn’t feel right otherwise.

The trek upstairs was the longest seven minutes of my life. I was pretty sure that, proportionally, I was moving slower than a snail’s pace. Every time I leveled one foot on a step, that same foot fought tooth and nail against where it was carrying its master. Every part of my body knew something was wrong. The alarm bells were ringing, blaring, flaming, sprinklers were being deployed to douse the fires of so many fucked up feelings that had spread inside and outside my body. This was very, very wrong. I was about to do something that no sister should ever do.

I was under no illusions about my intentions. There was nothing redeemable about this. Nothing heroic, honorable, or worthwhile. The part of my brain that liked to desperately sort things into boxes – good and bad, real and fake, for or against – was out of commission. Oh, I knew what it would say, bullshit about how if I did this, I’d be protecting myself, my family, everyone in the city, the world, I don’t fucking know how far this would reach. But that would be a lie. A damn lie. I don’t care about the world. I don’t care. I don’t care.

My reasons are far simpler: a world where Molly is anything less than my perfect sister is a world neither of us deserve to exist in.

Once she was gone, the rest would be easy.

If the trip up the stairs felt agonizingly long, the trip down the hall could not have been any shorter. I felt less like a living thing and more like a wraith. I leaned an ear to my sister’s bedroom door and heard nothing. She wasn’t a big girl, wasn’t a snorer, wasn’t a tosser or a turner. I wouldn’t know whether she was awake or asleep unless I entered myself.

I did.

I squeezed the handle and kept it squeezed, prying the door ajar just wide enough for me to slip through. A few nascent creaks and squeaks of the hinges were the only byproducts of my entry; I was greeted by the softly sleeping form of my sister in pink footie pajamas. She must’ve flopped into bed as soon as she got home, however that happened. She hadn’t even drawn the covers up over herself.

My hands were shaking. They were shaking so much. I had to use one trembling set of fingers to pin my other hand down lest the knife slip from my grasp. But it couldn’t be helped. I didn’t come this far without anticipating the role doubt would play in all of this. I predicted that each step closer to her bed would feel like getting stabbed through the neck by a hundred needles. I predicted that raising my hand high above my head would make my throat clog up with an impossible weight, as though some colossus had me trapped in their clutches and was squeezing me tight until I broke. I knew, I knew, I knew all of it going into this. I knew it. Why couldn’t I just stop being a pussy and do it, fucking do it, just do it do it do it do it DO IT–

I don’t know how long I stayed there, mewling into my baby sister’s chest as it rose and fell. All I know is I woke up that morning in my own bed.

I blinked away the crusted tears. And after a tremendous length of time staring through the haze at my ceiling, I turned my head. The knife had been placed affectionately, carefully, on my nightstand.

***

Generalized.

Anxiety.

Disorder.

GAD for short. That was the technical term. It’s the thing that showed up the most when Molly Googled her sister’s symptoms. And it was the verbiage Molly overheard the psychologist use when he came for an ill-fated visit.

Not that Molly needed to hear a professional diagnosis to know something was wrong with her big sister. Her room seemed to be a perpetual hotbox of marijuana smoke and ear-splitting heavy metal at every hour of every day. She had been reclusive before, but now her inability to leave her hermitage felt chronic and not just a bit worrying, especially since every time Molly did manage to sneak a glimpse of her sister leaving or entering the bathroom she had the visage of a banshee, frail and gaunt, eyes like slits, and stiff brambly hair. She didn’t even have the energy to smile at Molly when she saw her anymore. And that just broke the little girl’s heart.

At the least, it didn’t appear to be an earnest depression. This was Molly’s own, likely more reliable prognosis after taking the initiative to do a brief sweep of the young woman’s psyche. It was a breach of privacy, but Molly cared for her sister, and these were desperate circumstances. Besides, Molly’s newformed ability to peer into minds was fickle and flighty at the best of times, and somehow her big sister’s big ol’ noggin was a uniquely tough nut to crack. Garnet’s was a cakewalk, almost pathetically pliant. Strangers Molly met on the street tended to be only a half-step above regardless of age or gender. Sofia, Molly had noticed, was a tougher sell but nothing the amateur telepath couldn’t handle. Even her own mother would be no more than a rudimentary obstacle to break if it were ever required.

But Lex? She was different. Other minds presented detailed overviews of their headspace, occasionally even coherent thoughts with words in them. Lex, however… Molly would be lucky if she got even the slightest indication of an idea through the fuzz. Lex was a challenge.

Molly wondered if perhaps the difficulty of parsing her mind stemmed from her lack of nutrition or food in general. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind did Molly find herself in the kitchen, heating the oven to a broil and scooping out globules of raw, beige, chocolate chip cookie dough from the tub in the freezer. Had she more time, Molly would’ve made the dough from scratch, but that would require freezing it overnight to achieve a quality she was comfortable with. That was the best way to achieve proper creamy delicious texture, and that was definitely what Molly would do tonight before going to bed.

Or, well, doing something like going to bed.

Molly didn’t exactly… sleep much. Anymore.

It was like sleep. But… dreamt was probably the better word. Cutesier too. Molly adopted it as an apt moniker for what happened when she dressed up in her PJs and slid between the blankets and her covers. While in the land of the waking, her every blink was a brief etch against the fabric of her world. But when given the chance, given the opportunity, to close her eyes and do nothing, that world was hers. No longer was she Molly the 6th Grader. Molly the Creator was a closer phrase for what she became when asleep. Her soul was no longer bound by the meat-prison of her body, not yet in tune with the new developments her mind had taken over these past several months. In this newfound soul-freedom, she could test out her abilities.

Flying to Rome. Flying to China. Flying to the moon. Taking her first steps along the saltpeter eddies of Venus. Seating herself incorporeally on a rock, untouched by man or robot, at the peak of the Olympus Mons. Zooming, fast and furious, as if trying to race the crystalline tendrils of comets and asteroids before abandoning the charade and leaving them in the dust, flying to the farthest boundaries of the universe. Looking back on everything. Knowing what she once knew lies there. Trying to understand it all. And despite everything, failing. Her brain was still too small. She was still too new. Still too bound to flesh. And all too soon, she would be shocked back, a squirming nothing on her pitiful cotton bed in her tiny matchbox room, forced to convene with insects like they were people in a society so blinded by squabbles and trivialities and mundanities it failed to even understand just how ludicrously, hilariously unable it would be to weather what was coming.

Molly herself… she wasn’t ready.

But she would be soon.

All it took. One more night. One more sacrifice. One more…

One more pecan to add to her concoction.

The cookies were ready to bake. Doughy, crumbly little mounds of goodness that Alexis would never be able to resist. Not even in her… unprecedented condition.

Molly took the pan in both hands, stepped down from her stool, and trotted over to the preheated oven. She twirled around the kitchen island with a spring on her step. Seldom was the young girl more invigorated than when she was cooking food, and even more so when it was for someone she loved. Brimming with vigor, Molly didn’t even have to think; she gave a shrug of her shoulders, and like magic the oven doors opened up to her, delivering a salvo of burning heat straight into her face. She couldn’t care less.

In went the cookies. In only seconds, the doughy mounds began to drip into dull hills of goo. In only minutes, the vanilla chocolatey sugary sweet air would diffuse about the house. Experience told Molly that upper levels could smell the cooking scents more strongly than the bottom floor. She hoped Lex could tell. She hoped Lex knew what Molly was doing for her.

No self-respecting cookie enjoyer would be caught dead eating such a treat without something to wash it down. Molly turned to the fridge. Then, her eyes went above the fridge. A cabinet that only the tallest of the tall could reach. Even with her kiddy-stool, Molly still had a good two feet’s worth of airspace left to bridge. But she didn’t have to. She didn’t even bother. With a blink and a wink, the cabinet opened by itself. Molly had a visual.

Another blink, and the bottle appeared on the counter. No impulse, no movement, not even a float. It was simply there.

“Ahhh…” Molly sighed. Hennessy was Alexis’s preferred brand. Maybe it didn’t go as well with chocolate chip cookies as an ice-cold glass of milk, but Molly doubted her sister would be receptive to anything which contained less than 30% alcohol by volume at this point.

Molly didn’t feel the need to use a similar flourish to retrieve a glass. She was on her stool and digging in the cabinet when the doorbell rang out the last five beats to “Pop Goes the Weasel”. A gift courtesy of the previous owners. Every member of the family hated it, but none had yet figured out how to tweak the soundbox.

Molly was giving those tenants some very choice, G-rated swears in her head as she went to check who was at the door. When she glanced through the window, she almost shrieked.

The door opened, a brisk chill entered, and Molly bounded out, barefoot, confident that Monica would catch her, which she did.

“Monica!!” Molly squealed. Monica spun the girl around and clutched her close for a time before hopping across the threshold.

“Mol-Mol! C’mere, love-bug!” Monica gave Molly a kiss on the forehead. She set the blushing little girl down with a huff. “Oof! I won’t be able to do that for too much longer.”

“Nonsense! You’re way stronger than I’ll ever be.” Molly looked up at Monica with deadly seriousness. “Promise me you’ll never stop picking me up? Alexis doesn’t like to do it anymore.”

Monica blushed at Molly’s glowing request. It was a tall order, but then again, Molly was small even for her age group. Monica, on the other hand, was a specimen of a woman. She cleared 6 feet handily, and her brown body was a lean set of arms, legs, and muscles befitting of her erstwhile status as a collegiate swimmer. She was not freakishly tall, but Molly felt like a doll in her shadow. Even looking at Monica next to Alexis made Alexis look more like a munchkin than Molly herself looked beside her own sister.

Monica chuckled and ruffled the hair on Molly’s head. “She probably wants to. She just can’t. Not after you’ve gotten soooooo huge!” Molly shrunk out of her joy and embarrassment, and she turned to close and lock the door. Monica took off her coat and boots. Molly grabbed both and stuffed them in the closet.

“Ohhhh, man. That smells great! What’re you baking?” Monica called out. She followed her nose to the oven.

Molly saw, and a brief pang of concern for what the voracious swimmer might do to her cookies possessed her to dash in front of Monica before she could make it there. “Oh, they’re not ready yet! They’re for… well… Lex.”

“Ohhh…” Monica’s expression turned sour. “How is she doing, lately? I haven’t heard from her ever since a few weeks ago, and now she’s not even returning my calls…” She looked up vaguely. “Been busy with other stuff I guess?”

Molly looked toward the floor. “She’s sick.”

Monica peered at Molly. “Sick… how?”

Molly picked at the corner of her lip. She stomped in a blatant, exaggerated way – the way only children can believably pull off – toward the couch and beckoned for Monica to sit across from her. She did.

Molly explained. She watched as Monica’s face shifted from annoyance to concern, fear, horror. Hearing of Alexis’s latest activities, or lack thereof. Her refusal to eat, her refusal to exit her room. Her refusal to talk to anyone, not least of which Molly herself. Her body’s slow, certain diminishment into that of a hag.

“Goodness…” Monica clasped her hands tight, whitened. “Again?”

This caught Molly’s attention. “What do you mean?”

Monica grit her teeth.

Monica muttered.

“Should’ve… should’ve come here ages ago...”

She looked at Molly briefly and then turned away, like glancing at the sun for a moment. Then she bounded up. Her towering height clipped the chain of the ceiling light switch, where it swiveled above like a pendulum. “I’ll talk to her.”

And she navigated to the stairs like a seasoned pro. Her loud thumps up the steps were soon drowned out against the muffled music that Alexis had adopted as her shield. Neither however were enough to drown out Molly’s own blazing-fast thoughts. What was going on? Again? Has this happened to her sister before? Why did Monica know about it but she didn’t? What were they going to talk about?

Okay… Okay, Molly. It’s okay.

Monica knew your sister for three entire years while she went to university. Three years to take chances, make mistakes, get high, and go on countless ill-fated night adventures. It was more than enough time for Alexis’s head to go cuckoo at least once. And it would be totally normal to confide such a thing into her roommate and confidant. Besides, Molly, you were barely even a sentient human by that time, of course she wouldn’t tell you about it. It was none of your concern! You were laying in your room, drawing unicorns and butterflies and getting your addition tables straight, as you should.

There was nothing wrong with this. They were sisters. But they didn’t have to know everything about each other.

Molly herself was proof that sometimes sisters kept secrets. It shouldn’t bother her.

***

God.

What am I even doing here?

Like, seriously. What is this? What is any of this?

Why can I still form thoughts? Why can I still remember things? Why can I still identify proper shapes out of the blobby brown images that enter my eyes, on and on, and on. Why can I still sense?

Shouldn’t there be a way to rescind these curses? To say, “Thank you, I decline” to the gift of sight? Of memory? Of emotion in general?

I tried to pull a Return to Sender once. It didn’t work out well. So, this was the next best thing. Maybe if I bury myself in stimulus, I won’t come back up. Smoke. Music. I’d lost count of just how many times I’d masturbated by now, and it was only becoming a more and more hateful action. Self-hate. I wanted nothing anymore. Nothing but to dig ever deeper. To stay underground and suffocate. Choke on my own bile. And then I’d finally be free.

But I miscalculated. The amount of people in this world who take a vested interest in my well-being. Against my best hopes, it’s at an all-time high.

I never would’ve expected my mom – my MOM of all people – to schedule a house call. I hadn’t seen Doctor Kaminsky since the time I bit Arnold Thatch in third grade. And I guess I still hadn’t seen him, since there was no way this door was opening to a relative stranger. But I at least did him the courtesy of pissing in a plastic cup and sticking it through the door slit for him to take back to the lab and analyze, I guess.

My stupid fucking best friend Monica couldn’t stop fucking trying to fucking call me. Idiot fucking bitch cunt fucking slut bitch. Fuck. God. I hate her. Her and her insistence on knowing what I’m doing, why I’m ghosting her, her adamant decision to come over to our house without even consulting me about it. Why does she have to be so insufferably concerned? Just let me die already.

I’ve received a few general “Get Well Soon” cards from old primary school teachers of mine. How that information got out, I can’t say. I imagine my mom blabbed. Still, it does warm my heart to know Mrs. Kyle and Old Man Social Studies – his requested moniker – think about me even now. Probably not in the best light considering I’m still an unemployed wretch. But it’s the little victories.

Everybody cared so much.

And then there was Molly.

When a tree gets sick, it doesn’t fall down right away. It tries to fight a bit. It diverts resources to stave off infection, just like humans do. It endures. It loses some luster. Its leaves go yellow and brown. Its bark goes pale grey. It might ‘bleed’. So many signs, and yet, folk like you and me? We’re none the wiser. We go on about our days, passing these creatures by, not even caring or registering that such massive structures can really be alive.

Until.

A point of no return.

Maybe a branch falls. Maybe the tree begins to sag. Dangerously. It crumbles. Buckles under its own weight as its eaten from the inside out by its disease. And then people pay attention. Because it’s in your face.

But it takes someone skilled. Really insightful. Someone who knows trees. To tell when something is wrong before that point of no return arrives, when the chance to save it is still possible. Someone with an eye for it.

…

God, fuck.

I tried.

I tried to, just, hide it. Do normal shit. Get groceries or whatever. And it’s not like it couldn’t work. I’m good. At hiding. Shit. I am good at it.

So why… did Molly… know?

How could she tell? How could she tell that this was going on in me? With me? Why was she making me food that I didn’t eat, sending me memes I didn’t read, trying to do my hair, everything, all the damn time? I don’t know. I know I’m not being paranoid about it this time. She knows something is wrong. She went beyond. And when I fell out sobbing in the checkout line of the TJ Maxx, I was home within thirty minutes. I still don’t know how that happened.

My sister was the only one who could tell that something inside me was dying.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

I hate this. Myself. Nothing in me is right. Nothing in this world. On this Earth. I can feel it. My bones shake every time a plane passes overhead. It’s all so damn wrong. Molly?! What’s inside of you? Why do you let it eat you inside? What could possibly be worth losing yourself to this monstrousness? Why? Why would you do this?

Visitor.

I coughed.

Hands. On me. Pulling me into a hug.

“N-no!” I pushed them off. Warbling mouth sounds, trying to form words, trying to enter my ears in a coherent way. “Get off!” I said. I smacked at them, tried to burn deeper into my blankets. “I–

These hands didn’t quit. They were… bigger than Molly’s. Mom’s? No. Bigger still. Pulling me into a hug.

I blinked my eyes dry, drier. And I tried to put the muddy pieces of puzzle together. M-M-M… Mol– no. Monica.

“It’s you…? Monica? Are you there?”

I ceased my retaliatory assault. But I did not respond to Monica’s embrace. She couldn’t hear me, I guess. My voice was choked, dry, a cracked and useless thing. The music was our blanket now.

The blob nodded. Then it left me, and I felt cold where her hands were. Arms were. She’d left; she was going to unplug my speakers.

“Hey… hey, don’t…” My mind and my body were at odds. One was adamant, vehement against her decision. One could not collect enough energy to lift a fingernail against her.

When the music stopped, my senses became clear. Too clear. They stabbed into me, daggers of light, newly focused as the bandwidth of my brain was freed. “AGH!!” My arms were weak, could not cover my eyes, my ears, I was left a nigh vegetable under assault by the senses which worked now to betray me.

Not just senses. Memory too. A brain unburdened by the stimuli of the now could only dredge up the past. My past. Everything that had ever happened to me, all playing at once in stunning hi-def resolution. Every stupid beverage I drank, every bitch I ever slapped, every boy I ever fucked, every manager I’ve told to piss off. It was all too much. I needed more sensations to wrap myself inside. Something to listen to, something to punch, something to fuck, something to keep from being trapped in my head, something that can take away this pain.

“M-M-Monica… Hey… come closer to me.”

The amorphous blobs of my vision were taking shape. I was no longer looking at the black and brown and blue splotches of color with the weird mobile one which represented my friend. I was looking at a blurry rendition of an actual human being. One I was beginning to recognize. She nodded and approached the side of my bed, where she stood and waited like an eager handmaid. Monica was my nepenthe. In times of weakness, she shielded me from hurt. She had the strength to do it. I was still waiting, uselessly, for the chance to give her even a fraction of what she’s given me.

“Take my hand… please.”

“Of course, Lex.” Her long arms were enough such as she didn’t even need to crouch to grab my palms.

“Thank you…”

I grit my teeth, and I whispered.

“Can you lay down next to me? Like you did back then?”

Monica didn’t wait. Took a corner of the blanket in her hand and sat gingerly in the depressed spot on the mattress I’d moved from to give her space. She scooched in close, brought in her legs, and covered herself in the bedspread.

“You’re… you are… you’re such a good friend, Monica.”

The blanket slithered atop us as an encroaching cover of darkening clouds. I was so close to Monica, I could trace the contours of her nose and chin. I snaked my arms around her neck, and Monica twitched, but held firm, accepting. She was always so… sweet. To a fault. I knew she would never reject this advance, here, in this situation. And I wanted her – needed her – closer. She had to be.

Our foreheads touched.

“Monica.”

“Yes, Lex?”

I tucked the blanket beneath her.

“I… if I told you something… anything… even if it seemed impossible, unbelievable. Could you… w-work with me?”

“Work with you?”

“No-no-no matter… how absurd. How crazy. Can you… could you just… try to… believe me? Please… Please?”

***

Monica tugged Alexis’s door open and was flummoxed to see Molly stumble inward, catch herself, and then sprint out like a mouse caught in headlights.

Monica turned to glance at Alexis, who had already retreated away under her covers. And she shrugged.

Monica soon located her little mouse, taking the cookies out of the oven, sweating, hot, barely able to contain her… well, her embarrassment. Not something Molly was known for. With a coy smile, Monica took a seat at the barstool. “You were listening in, huh?”

“No…?” Molly didn’t turn to face her as she placed the tray of cookies onto the unlit stove. “…How was she?”

“She was… not well. Not well at all.”

Molly’s stomach dropped. She turned to Monica, searching for some kind of follow-up, some reassurance.

“She was talking weird. For a second. She was…” For just a flicker, Monica eyed Molly a bit strangely. Just a flicker. “I, I honestly don’t know, Molly. I’m sorry, but I can’t really guess what this is. Where this could’ve come from.”

“Sure you can!” Molly spat out, perhaps with more venom than intended. She toned back in response to Monica’s singular raised brow. “It’s depression! It’s S.A.D.! That’s what the doctor said, that’s–”

“It’s… I thought it would be like before. But I was… ah, I just don’t know.” A gloom so palpable Molly could practically read its ley lines under Monica’s face descended on her. “I can’t say for sure, but I want you to bring up the possibility to your mom that Alexis might have… some kind of degenerative disease.”

“Some…?” Molly tried to parse through Monica’s mind for a more substantial definition to the word, but Monica beat her to the punch.

“Something like dementia. Alzheimer’s. Like I said, I can’t be sure…” With a heavy, long sigh, Monica propped her hands behind her head and hid her face beneath her arms.

Molly looked at Monica.

Dementia. Alzheimer’s.

“Or, hell. Schizophrenia?” Monica waved it away. “I quit med school, I wouldn’t really know. All I know is that she was scared.”

“Scared?”

Molly clenched a fist. Dementia. Alzheimer’s. Schizophrenia. Those words were all long, confusing, and practically meaningless to the girl. But if something was scaring her sister? That was a problem Molly could fix.

“Yeah… scared of this… thing. Or, scared of someone. I tried to ask her more but it was hard to get the words out of the girl. She wasn’t well, Molly. She…” Monica was choked. “She really wasn’t well.”

Molly tucked her hands behind her back and began to pace, looking at the ground. “I just, wish I could help.”

“Molly, you are helping. You’re helping more than any of us. I’m sure that every time Alexis sees your face, her heart fills up. You are all she thinks about. One way or another.” Monica took Molly’s chin in her fingers and looked her in the eye. “You’re the perfect little girl, Molly.”

This was enough to brighten the child’s rosy cheeks.

“In fact… the last time I drove Lex to the hospital, she asked me to feed her something out of a medicine bottle in her car. I don’t know what it was, but if you know where she keeps her key… that could be something useful to have on hand. Think you’re down to look for it?”

“Mm-hm!” Molly practically dashed out of the kitchen, throwing on an oversized pair of slippers before grabbing the key off the hook and vaulting through the carport door.

Monica gave a hum of approval before turning her attention to the now abandoned cookies.

***

It was hard for Molly to kick the idea of any mental invasiveness, telepathic mind tampering, or retribution against any of the demons that Alexis seemed to fear, whether corporeal or not. She was the most powerful twelve-year-old on the planet! My sister is sad shouldn’t be the most difficult, gut-wrenching problem that a person could solve.

And yet, restraint. Restraint was crucial here. Her abilities were a slippery road to travel, and the potential to make things worse on accident still existed.

Agh. She wished Sofia was here. She was always fun to bounce ideas off of.

Molly unlocked the passenger door and dove halfway in, only her legs and skirt sticking out. She cringed as always at the faint smell of marijuana smoke and opened the center conso–

Oh.

Oh God.

Oh God oh God.

Oh God oh God oh God.

She knew that padlock.