48

48

W hat the hell is going on, Flo?" Connor says when Flora finally arrives at the house. He holds an empty bottle in his hands, and Iris swings happily nearby. "You stole the car and turned off your phone? I've been trying to reach you for hours!"

Flora thinks about correcting him—she can't technically steal her own car, and her phone died —but before she can respond, Belinda and her father appear in the doorway behind her.

"Hey, Connor," her dad says.

Connor keeps his eyes trained on Flora. "What's going on?" he repeats. Then, pointing to Belinda, he asks, "Who is this woman?"

"She knew my mom," Flora says.

Connor's eyes narrow. "Okay, and you drove in the middle of the night to pick her up, why?"

"Things have been happening, Connor, things that are scaring me—"

"So let's call the police," he says.

"The police?" Flora's voice is louder than she intends, more shrill than she would like. "The police can't help us!"

"But some stranger can?" He waves his arm in Belinda's general direction.

"Connor," Flora says, trying desperately to calm her voice, "I'm being… stalked." This feels like a safer word than "possessed" or "haunted." A way to ease him into the conversation.

But Connor has no intention of talking things out. "I'm calling the police," he says, reaching for his phone. "You can explain everything to them—"

"No police!" Flora's voice booms. "They'll take my baby away!"

The anger in her voice is biting, and when she yells, her right eye POPS! The pimple-like bump on her lash line finally bursts, and a white substance dribbles down her cheek. When she tries to open that eye, the lashes half stick together with gunk. She holds her hand an inch from her face and waves it back and forth. She can barely see out of her right eye now. It's all blurry.

Connor's own eyes go wide in response. "What the fuck…"

Flora looks to Belinda, who understands immediately, her expression laced with fear. "We need to do this as soon as possible," Belinda says. "Where should I set up?"

Flora points toward the living room, and her father leads Belinda into the house with her suitcase. Connor watches, his mouth hanging open like a dead fish.

"Set up for what?" he asks. He watches as Belinda pulls items out of her bag: a large black candle, a worn journal, a white pyramid-shaped crystal. "Flo…" he says, turning to his wife with pleading eyes.

"Listen," Flora says, taking a step toward him. "It's my mom. It's my mom who has been stalking me. She's trying to hurt Iris. This is what we need to do now." She gestures toward Belinda, who is setting items on the coffee table.

"Just to be clear," Connor says, "you're talking about your dead mother. You're saying that your dead mother is trying to hurt Iris."

Flora barrels on. "Belinda has done this before. She talked to her son—he died and she talked to him—and now we are going to reach out to my mom, to find out what she wants so that she will leave us alone—"

"Oh my God, " Connor says. "You've lost it. You've totally lost it."

Belinda ignores him and asks Flora, "Do you have something of your mother's we can use? We should get something of Zephie's, too."

"Who is Zephie?" Connor asks. But just as Flora opens her mouth to respond, he stops her. "Actually, I don't want to know. This is insane. I'm leaving."

Flora's dad speaks up from the living room, leveling his gaze with Connor's. "You're not leaving," he says. "Flora is in trouble. Your daughter is in danger. And Belinda is here to help. So we are going to do what she tells us."

"The fuck I am," Connor says, unstrapping Iris from the bouncer.

"Where are you going?" Flora asks, panicked. "Where are you taking her?"

"Back home, like I told you." He hoists the baby into his arms and grabs the diaper bag. "I'm not staying under the same roof as this bullshit."

He looks again toward the living room, where Belinda has surrounded the coffee table with chairs. As he opens the door, Iris begins to protest.

"She doesn't want to leave me," Flora says. "See? She's crying. Please. She needs her mother, Connor."

"She doesn't need this version of her mother."

"You don't get it—if you take her, my mom will just find another way. You're putting her in more danger, you don't know how to—"

Connor slams the door behind him. Flora crumples to the floor. Heaving sobs pull her chest closer and closer to the ground, until she wishes she could just melt into it entirely, surrendering her body to the earth.

you were right Mom

everyone wants to take my baby

But no. Fuck that. She won't let them. She won't let anyone take Iris.

Including her mother.

Flora turns to the living room. She grabs two small items from the box her father sent: a Polaroid and her mom's wedding ring. Then she spots the small baby hat in the bottom of the box. The one she initially found in her mother's suitcase, then again here. She realizes now that her mom must have made it for Zephie.

Flora brings these things to the table. Goose bumps sprout on her arms and sting the rash that continues to spread. She can't see the blisters under her sweatshirt, but she can feel that they are fuller, can feel the risk of their popping with every brush of the shirt's fabric. One is growing just beneath the collar line, and more are sprouting on her upper back now, too.

Her mother is just under the surface. It's time.

"How do we start?" she asks.