Chapter Twenty-Six

TWENTY-SIX

I was no longer underwater.

I sprang to life, slipping on the blood and nearly tripping over what turned out to be McDouglas’ leg as I sprinted towards the basement door.

“Margaret, stop,”Jones shouted, starting after me with her gun arm functional once more. I scarcely had time to consider her before her body was ripped from the ground, sailing into the air and slamming into the ceiling. Her gun clattered to the floor and she howled, pinned like a butterfly to corkboard. I barely heard her. I would have to worry about what sort of fate the house had in store for her later. My mind was a screaming cyclone, and I had much bigger problems at hand.

I yanked at the basement door. The thing wanted to fight me, wedging itself tightly in place, but I planted a leg against the doorjamb and heaved it open. There was nothing but blackness below, the basement a gaping maw of nothingness. I took the stairs two at a time.

“Theodore Vale,”I shouted as my feet slammed against the dirt floor, “get your goddamn hands off my daughter.”

The scent in the basement was monstrous. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been smelling it this whole time. There was death down here all right. I could hear the hum of flies. They slapped across my face as I ran. I didn’t even bother looking where I was going. I knew exactly where he had taken her. My shoulder smacked into a support beam, knocking me to the side. But I kept moving, heading straight for the little room in the back, the place where he had taken the children one by one.

The light from the stairs barely reached this part of the basement, but it didn’t matter. The world was flickering again, starting to dance between the now and the then. I could hear screaming in dueling sets—Master Vale’s laughter and Katherine’s shrieks.

He had her there in the corner, just inside that little room. It was the same spot in which he had set up the table in the then, the place where he had done that thing to Angelica’s head. Katherine was fighting but Master Vale’s skinny limbs were stronger than they looked. He had her pinned down, his knees on her thighs, his hands on her shoulders. She was screaming and he was laughing, laughing, laughing. His lips were peeled back in a grin and his black teeth were bared, a pit viper ready to strike. I remembered what he had done to Angelica, sinking his teeth into the space where her skull had been, smiling with blood shining on his lips.

I didn’t stop running even when I tackled him.

“NO,”I screamed, tumbling in a heap with his body. The world was shifting around me and I felt his aching, felt his rage and his hunger, and I tasted something like metal, something tinny and wrong. Even still, I managed to keep screaming, shouting at him to stop, to leave Katherine alone, to listen to me immediately.

Master Vale roared beneath me. He was writhing and slippery, and I couldn’t get a good grip on him, but I had him off Katherine. He was on the floor with me, and Katherine scampered backwards, pushing herself away from him as fast as she could. A crunch sounded as she hit something solid.

Hal’s corpse, black and broken and dead like a spider, tilted against the wall. His limbs were wrong. His chest had been cracked open. His face was in pieces, the dried-grape shells of his eyeballs pointed in two directions. The match that had once been in his hands had fallen to the ground, broken in half and useless. And here I’d been thinking I’d never see him again.

Katherine let out a scream that launched my world back into the now.

Master Vale’s head snapped up. His milky eyes locked onto Katherine.

My hand collided with his jaw and he made a snarling noise as he flopped to the side. I could barely see Katherine in the dim light, could only hear the shriek of her screams in between her panted breaths. She scrabbled away from her father’s corpse, and I didn’t need to see her to know that her face was contorted, terrified. Next to me, Master Vale snarled, his fingers scraping the floor.

“Run,”I shouted.

Katherine was still screaming, still pulling herself backwards on her wrists, heels digging into the dirt of the floor. I dragged myself onto my knees and stumbled towards her. “Get out of here,” I said. “Go. Run.”

Katherine clambered to her feet. Master Vale was behind me, pushing himself up. I got myself upright as fast as I could, head swimming and hands grabbing for Katherine. I dragged her forward, pushing her out of the little room and in the general direction of the stairs.

“Mom?” Katherine was saying, her voice high and wet.

“Go,”I shouted, shoving her with all my strength. “Get out of here this instant.”

Behind me, a growl. Master Vale was on his feet.

Katherine ran. Her shoes slapped across the dirt floor. I whirled around to face Master Vale. He went to chase after Katherine, but I stepped in front of him. I was patient. I was flexible. I could play by the rules all goddamn day, every rule you set for me. But there were limits to these things, and Master Vale was about to hear mine.

No one deserves to live like this,Hal had said.

No one deserves to live like this,Edie had said.

No one deserves to live like this,Katherine had said.

No one deserves to live like this,I thought. Goddamnit.

“NO,”I shouted.

Master Vale’s head snapped towards me. I had gotten his attention.

“Absolutely NOT.”

Master Vale growled. He straightened, stretching his body back into that upright, too-tall position: his shoulders rolled back, his chest puffed out, his hands curled into fists at his side. He glowered down at me, his face bent in anger. He was a starving lion.

“You listen to me, you goddamn creature,”I said. My voice boomed against the cold brick of the basement. All the water that had been drowning me had turned to fire. I could feel myself burning, glowing. I would set this whole house ablaze if I had to, so long as it meant I took Master Vale down with me.

Master Vale took a step towards me. He was a circling hawk.

“There are rules to these things,”I snarled, “and consequences for breaking them.”

Master Vale started making that noise again, the scream-laugh.

“I’ve let you live in this basement as a courtesy,” I said, my voice sounding as if it were being projected from a megaphone; I was barely recognizable. “I let you do whatever you liked to me. I let you send your pranksters at me. I let you crush anyone who tried to take me from you.” Master Vale took another step towards me but I didn’t budge. He was going to listen, goddamnit. “But I am through. Do you hear me?”

Master Vale’s lips curled back, baring his teeth. He was a pack of wolves.

“That is my daughter,” I said. “This is my house, and I refuse to share it with a monster.” It felt like my words were rattling the foundation. It would crumble beneath me, and I hoped it crushed Master Vale to death. “You broke the rules, you son of a bitch.”

Master Vale was close now, very close. I had to crane my neck to look him in the eye, but I stood my ground. I wasn’t a rabbit. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t bending any further. And I wasn’t going down without a fight.

I raised my arm, pointing towards the stairs. “Now get the FUCK out of my house.”

His scream-laugh turned into a roar. His mouth stretched open, jaws nearly tearing at the edges, revealing a dead blackness inside. He roared and roared, but I could roar too.

I took a step forward. My lungs were a goddamn flamethrower. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE.”

I saw a video once of a jumping spider going after an insect. I remember how, when it attacked its prey, it leapt through the air, limbs bent at sharp, grasping angles, ready to land with precision and violence. Anyway, that was what Master Vale did, mouth open, screaming.

I darted away just in time, my legs propelling me backwards and out of the little room. Master Vale landed on all fours, squatting with his knobby knees near his ears. He growled and stretched himself back up onto his legs, hands curling into fists. The world flickered, now turning to then.

I didn’t move. “Were you not listening?” I raised my arm again, pointing. “Get out of my house.”

A fight was coming.

Master Vale roared again, and I wondered if he even knew any words at all. Perhaps he had forgotten them over the years. Or perhaps he had never found them useful in the first place, not when he had more forceful ways of getting what he wanted. He took another long stride forward, hands reaching out to me. I stepped back, dodging his needle fingers.

“Don’t you understand?” I snapped. “You’re not in charge anymore. I am. You do what I say now. Now get out.”

Master Vale took another step forward. He towered over me, an impossibly tall being built of lesions and rage. His mouth was almost foaming, dark spittle spewing between his teeth. He smiled, a low whine of a laugh sounding from his wide mouth as he closed in. I was nearing the wall, I knew. It wouldn’t be long before the brick pressed against my back, trapping me. Master Vale’s laughter increased.

“Get out,”I shouted.

Master Vale leapt again, gnarled fingers outstretched. I darted back, but I wasn’t fast enough this time. He caught me in the chest, knocking me backwards. My head collided with the wall, and I was down, the dirt floor beneath me and Master Vale above.

“Now,”I shouted, but the world was spinning, flickering. I felt rage that wasn’t mine, hate and aching and hunger that throbbed from Master Vale’s limbs as he crawled on top of me, pinning me down. His hand met my face with a slash—clawlike nails scratching across my cheek and twisting my head to the side. The world jolted again, and I felt something wet and warm on my face. Whether it was my blood or whatever it was that oozed between the sores on Master Vale’s skin was anyone’s guess. My breath puffed against the dirt of the floor. I turned to face him once more, blinking eyes forcing me back to the now.

“Get out,” I said. His face was close, milky eyes boring into mine. I didn’t have to shout. He could hear me. But he didn’t listen.

His fingers wrapped around my throat.

I tried to choke out another command, but his hands tightened and I couldn’t breathe, my throat closing in on itself. The world flickered back to the then and I could see everything. I saw the hate in his family’s eyes whenever they looked at him. I saw George Vale’s paddle come down on Master Vale again and again and again. I saw how the whole of his family had died like sick apples dropping from a tree. I felt a hateful happiness, the kind that comes from burning an ant to death with a magnifying glass. But with the happiness came a hunger—a hunger that crawled through his body and into mine as his fingers twisted around my neck.

I saw how he had found them, the children. I saw how he had brought them to the house, one by one, when the hunger surged up in him. I saw how he’d crushed Angelica’s skull and ripped out Julian’s intestines and sunk sharp blades into Charles and Constance and sawed the legs off James (his name was James) and chopped off Henry’s arm (I was wrong—his name was Henry) with some kind of cleaver and sunk his teeth into their flesh afterwards, every last one of them. That might have been a problem, because eventually Master Vale died, shaking violently in the basement, alone and starved despite the unending supply of meat.

I saw how it didn’t end there, how it all came around. I saw how he did something to Elias’ mother (Hattie—her name was Hattie) that made Elias the way he was and later made Hattie die and slowly, slowly made Elias die too, full of hate, alone in the room that would later be Hal’s office.

I saw Master Vale whisper to Jasper night after night until Jasper did what he did to Fredricka and Blythe and, when he finally came to his senses, tried to light the whole house on fire but failed, failed.

I saw Master Vale suck the joy out of Edie’s soul and smile down at her as she slipped into breathless sleep.

I saw him hovering over Hal in his office, whispering, whispering, whispering, until Hal bought the cans of gasoline and Master Vale crushed him like a spider in the basement.

I saw the blackness and the blood and the screaming and the hate, hate, hate that stood in the place where Master Vale’s soul ought to have been. And then I wasn’t seeing very much anymore because there was nothing but red behind my eyes and fire instead of air in my lungs and Master Vale’s drool dripping into my mouth, and I wasn’t breathing, not anymore. I saw the whole cycle of it, the violence that started and ended everything, the moon and the sun coming around and around, but I kept fighting because I would be goddamned if I was going to be a part of it for one second longer. I’d been moving in wretched little circles for as long as I could remember—longer—and I was not about to have it all end like this, snuffed out in the basement only to flicker back, likely in September. I would twist my life into a line that pointed towards something worthwhile for myself, for Katherine, even if it killed me. Which, at the moment, it seemed intent on doing.

There was a crack—a sharp, wet sound—and Master Vale was wrenched off me and tumbled to the side. I gasped and choked, sucking in air through what felt like knives. The red faded from my eyes and my brain was shuffling back into the now slowly and steadily.

Katherine stood above me, her wide eyes shining through the dim light. Hovering high in her hands was the wooden paddle, “Master of the House” emblazoned on the side. She must have found it on the basement floor, still lying where I had dropped it as Hal and I fled Master Vale last year.

I blinked back the then and struggled to my feet. Beside me, Master Vale groaned and shifted onto all fours, preparing to spring.

The paddle crunched into Master Vale’s temple. “Back the fuck away from her, you bastard,” Katherine screamed.

Master Vale fell to the ground, his jaw twisted. He pushed himself up, angry eyes on Katherine. Katherine swung the paddle again.

“I don’t know who you are—”

The paddle connected with Master Vale’s forehead. He roared.

“—or where you came from—”

The paddle struck his jaw. A spray of brown fluid splattered across the floor.

“—but if you touch my mother again, I will fucking kill you.”

I was up on my shaking legs at Katherine’s side. I touched her shoulder. “Katherine,” I said. My voice was raspy.

Katherine raised the paddle high above her head and swung it down in a mighty arc.

Master Vale caught the paddle in his hand. The wood slapped against his pale skin but he held it there, firm and true. He smiled. His knotted fingers wrapped around the worn wood. Katherine tugged at it, shoulders heaving as she tried to wrest the paddle from his grip. His smile only widened. He ripped the paddle from Katherine’s hands.

Katherine took a step back. Her empty hands shook. I followed, still grabbing at her shoulder.

Master Vale shifted himself onto a knee. He raised the paddle high in both hands, a mad grin nearly cracking his face in two. He brought the paddle down over his slim thigh. It snapped in half, splinters spraying across the room. The pieces clattered to the side as he stood, towering over us once more. He was laughing again. All of this was so tremendously funny.

“Fuck,” Katherine whispered.

Before I could even figure out what to do next, Master Vale was in front of us, his arms wide at his sides, blocking us in. He seemed to be daring us to try to come at him, just begging for an excuse to dig his sharp fingers into our flesh. Katherine flinched, then backed up. He laughed and it was a scream again, so loud that my ears buzzed.

Master Vale took a step forward.

We took a step back.

“Go away,” I said, but my throat was too sore for me to sound menacing. “Leave us alone.”

Master Vale only laughed harder.

The wall would appear behind me again, I knew. We would be right back where I’d started, pressed against the brick with Master Vale ready to pounce, not leaving, not following the rules, even now. He moved closer, closer, closer. I could see dents in his head, angry welts where Katherine had gotten him with the paddle. He could be hurt, it seemed, but not enough to stop him. He was laughing so hard.

“Mom?” Katherine asked, but there didn’t seem to be any specific question she had in mind. The wall came up behind us, unforgiving.

I grabbed at Katherine’s hand. “It’s all right,” I said, although it certainly wasn’t. The world was flickering again, and Master Vale was so close I could smell him, could see the crisp borders of each lesion on his skin, could hear how his laughter changed as he wound up, got himself ready to pounce. I shifted, moving in front of Katherine. Master Vale would certainly be able to go through me, but at least Katherine might be able to escape while he was doing so.

Master Vale roared. He sprang forward, arms outstretched.

His arms were knocked to the side and a figure stepped in front of us.

Fredricka.

I could just make her out in the dim light. Her face—the part of it that was left, anyway—was that of a statue, and a menacing one. In the years I had known her, witnessed her pliant and calm responses to everything that happened in this house, I had never seen her so thoroughly finished with something.

“I believe ma’am asked you to leave,” she said, her voice stone.

For a moment, Master Vale looked almost taken aback. He considered Fredricka for the briefest of seconds before snapping at her like a rabid dog. He moved forward again, prepared to strike.

Another figure appeared at Fredricka’s side: a short, stocky woman who appeared to be filled with barely contained maternal rage.

“You’d best listen to my friend,” Edie said. Her voice was sharp. “She means business.”

Master Vale snarled. He took a step back as he considered the women in front of him. I wondered if this was the first time in over a century that so many people had mustered up the strength to express their displeasure with his actions. For a moment, it was as if he wasn’t sure how to respond. Then the hate fell back over his face and his sharp fingers swung at Edie.

A jet-engine noise sounded to my left. Elias. He stood next to me, his face a full nightmare as he howled at Master Vale. Master Vale must have remembered him, because he jumped back, startled but still angry. Fredricka and Edie stepped aside and Elias lunged forward, leapt at Master Vale with gnashing teeth. Master Vale stumbled backwards, moving quickly to avoid Elias’ propeller blade of a mouth. He snarled and spat but kept moving backwards as Elias advanced.

With Fredricka and Edie on either side of me and Elias wreaking havoc on Master Vale in front of me, I started to feel a twinge of hope. None of us, it seemed, was willing to put up with Master Vale’s nonsense for a moment longer. I stepped forward, following Elias as he chased Master Vale backwards through the basement.

“Go away,” I shouted. “Get the hell out of here.”

Katherine was at my side, still clutching at my hand. “Get out, you fucking monster.”

Elias’ roars were finally overpowering Master Vale’s screams. Master Vale tripped and landed in the dirt and Elias was on his legs, teeth tearing at the bits of flesh and fabric that clung to his body. Master Vale howled and kicked, dragging himself backwards, barely able to shake himself loose from Elias’ unforgiving fangs.

“Get out,” I shouted again, and this time Fredricka joined in, her voice louder than I’d ever heard it before.

The light grew brighter as we neared the stairs. Katherine and Edie joined me in shouting, Katherine’s curses and Edie’s admonishing cries nearly drowning out Elias’ jet-engine noise. Master Vale’s claws dug into the dirt as he dragged himself farther away. Elias’ teeth were in Master Vale’s ankle and something black was oozing from him, something that didn’t quite look like blood. Master Vale swung an arm at Elias and knocked him off, but it didn’t stop the boy’s howling, didn’t stop the swirling maw of his mouth.

Charles and Constance appeared from across the basement. They ran full tilt at Master Vale and set on him viciously, swiping at him with their fingers. Their sharp nails dug into his flesh, tearing him open across his arms, his chest, his legs. Master Vale’s flesh split, fresh gashes standing out amid the lesions. He roared, swinging his arms at the two of them. He knocked Charles to the side but Constance held on. She grabbed at his mouth with her small hands and pried him open. With a slash of her finger, she ripped a line from the edge of his lip to nearly his ear, turning his face into a gaping smile. He howled. The house shook.

“Get out,”we shouted, Katherine and Fredricka and Edie and I.

Master Vale was retreating rapidly now, dragging himself towards the stairs as fast as his scrabbling arms could find purchase in the dirt. He was leaking that black ooze, which dripped down his skin and onto the dirt, leaving little smudges behind him. His screams had taken on a desperate tone. He grabbed at the stairs, frantically trying to pull himself upright. Just as he touched the wood, Julian leapt from the railing, landing square on Vale’s chest.

Master Vale roared and writhed, but Julian roared louder. He raised his hand, pointed and precise, over his head and buried it deep inside Vale’s sunken stomach. Master Vale screamed. Bucked. Julian held on. He gripped Vale’s skin—leaking something thick between his fingers—and pulled. A spray of what might have been blood hit the wall, along with a fistful of entrails. Master Vale screamed and thrashed, finally shoving Julian off him. He dragged himself up the stairs, his guts trailing in his wake. Elias was right behind him, biting and snarling.

“GET OUT,”we shouted. We had to be loud to be heard over the roaring and the screaming and the jet-engine noise, and we were loud—quite loud indeed. The lot of us ran up the stairs, chasing after Master Vale and Elias. Charles and Constance darted around us, their fingers caked with Vale’s blood. Julian climbed along the handrail. They joined us in our shouting, pointing towards the top of the stairs, towards the front door. Get out get out get out.

Master Vale reached the top of the stairs, hands grasping the doorframe to drag himself up. The boy with one arm—Henry—caught him by the wrist and hauled him through the door and into the hallway. We raced up the stairs behind him, still shouting (Get out get out get out). I slipped on a bit of Vale’s blackened intestines. I paid it no mind.

The house was filled nearly to the brim with flies, their fat, buzzing bodies turning the air black. The source was immediately apparent—Jones was still pinned to the ceiling, eyes gaping, flies swarming from her open mouth. There was a bit of a gurgled scream in the air, but it was nowhere near as loud as Master Vale as he clawed down the hallway, pranksters still on him.

Henry was playing tug-of-war with Master Vale’s arm. Master Vale snarled and shoved and kicked, making sweeping imprints in the pool of blood on the floor, but Henry held on remarkably well. Henry made a roar that rivaled Elias at his most vicious and, with a mighty heave, ripped Vale’s arm off at the socket. There was a tearing noise, the sound of soft meat and brittle bone, and a spray of black ooze landed across the body of one of the broken police officers. Master Vale screamed, and Henry sank his teeth into the flesh of Vale’s severed biceps, ripping fabric and flesh off in a chunk.

It was horrible, certainly, but I’d grown used to horrible things. It wasn’t even the most horrible thing I’d seen today.

“GET OUT,”we shouted.

Blythe was on the wall, her jaw unhinged. She shrieked and snapped and pounded on the plaster with blackened fists. She pointed at the door, shouting, Get out. Smoke poured from her eyes.

Master Vale dragged himself down the hallway with his remaining arm. Black sludge oozed from the shoulder where his other arm used to be, tattered flesh hanging in its absence. He was leaving a trail behind him, intestines and sludge mixing with the blood that pooled on the floor. Charles and Constance rushed forward, grabbing at him with their sharp fingers. He kicked at them but they held him still. Julian leapt onto his chest, a foot landing in the hole ripped across Vale’s stomach. Master Vale wailed.

On the ceiling, Jones choked and sputtered. The spewing of flies from her mouth had dwindled, and she could wave an arm now. She dug her fingers into her mouth, pulling out wings and legs. “Get out,” she croaked. “Get out.”

James dragged himself down the hallway, slipping between our legs and heading straight for Master Vale. He caught Vale by an ankle and crawled up Vale’s body, fingers sinking into flesh, pulling and pulling. Master Vale flopped and kicked, but the other pranksters had him pinned down. Charles and Constance slashed at his thighs. Julian sent a fist into his hip. James wrapped his arms around Vale’s leg and twisted his body. Something snapped, a sharp sound like twigs breaking. Master Vale howled. The black liquid leaked through what was left of his tattered pants. A sound like meat ripping echoed through the room and Vale flung the pranksters off him, one of his legs dangling not quite right from his body. The leg, caught in the sheath of his pants, trailed behind him as he dragged himself along the floor. James grabbed it by the knee and gave it a yank, ripping the fabric of Vale’s pants. He sank his teeth into what used to be Master Vale’s calf.

The pranksters pointed at the door and it flew open, wood nearly splintering as it slammed against the wall.

“GET OUT,”we shouted, and Master Vale was listening. His nails left lines in the blood as he dragged himself towards the open door. He wasn’t screaming anymore. His breath was ragged and wet, his broken chest heaving. Pools of black oozed from every part of his body. His leg was in the middle of the hallway. Henry was still gnawing on Vale’s arm.

Just as Vale reached the door, Blythe dropped from the ceiling. She shrieked, the cracks in her charred skin glowing red. Smoke billowed from her mouth, her eyes, her gaping oval of a mouth. The ooze dripping from Vale’s wounds began to bubble. His skin blistered and popped, boiling. Smoke poured from the holes the pranksters had torn in him. He screamed, and flames danced from his throat. He hurled himself backwards with his one remaining arm, kicking at the floor with his one remaining leg. He landed on the porch, leaving traces of himself on the doorjamb.

Even as Master Vale retreated, we were still shouting, GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT. Fredricka and Edie were at my side. Katherine was gripping my hand, her fingers clenching mine so tightly that I could feel tingling in my fingertips. Jones was above us, pounding on the ceiling with both arms now freed. Elias was spitting and snarling down the hallway, and—to my surprise—his mother, Hattie, had joined him. She put her hand, barely there, on his shoulder, his dirty shirt visible through her fingers. Her eyes burned and her lips cracked as she opened her mouth to shout along with us (Get out get out get out). James dragged himself through the blood with Henry following, traces of Vale’s arm still on his face. Charles and Constance skipped down the hallway. Blythe clung to the wall with clenched fingers. We were all here—all present, all pointing, all screaming. All through. And my God—we were a motherfucking army.

Angelica stepped out from the living room, moving towards Master Vale with a calm grace. Her face was just as placid as it had been the day Hal and I saw what had happened to her head, her eyes tilted towards horror without a care in the world. She stepped through the front door and stood over Vale’s broken body, staring down at him as if he were just the most interesting thing she had ever seen. She raised both her hands over her head, clenched them together, and brought them down upon Master Vale’s skull with strength I didn’t know her small frame possessed. When she raised her hands again, they were covered in black. She brought them down again. Again. Again. Choked, wet noises sounded from Master Vale. The screaming stopped. The house was silent.

The pranksters stepped aside, leaving a path for me. Katherine released my hand and I walked down the hall, stepping over Vale’s severed leg, the bits of his arm that Henry had dropped. I walked to the front door. I stepped onto the porch.

Master Vale was a whimpering, quivering mess. He was bleeding his version of blood from what seemed like every inch of his body. Most of his guts had spilled out of the hole where his stomach had been and trailed behind him. Loose flesh dangled from where his arm should have been. I could see the remains of his femur poking through his pants. He was still gently on fire, his skin smoking through ruptured blisters. Something terrible had happened to his head and one of his eyes wasn’t right anymore; it drooped from its socket in a red and yellow mess. He pulled himself backwards and tumbled down the steps, landing on the lawn with a splatter.

In the shining light of day, Theodore Vale looked small, fragile. He wasn’t the strong one anymore, not in this house. He might have been the strong one in the past, the one with the violence and the vengeance and the never-ending cycles, but we—the things that lived in this house—we could overpower him. In the end, we were the strong ones. We were still here, and we had sent Vale away, broken and weeping. In the end, Vale was weak.

I stepped to the edge of the porch, stopping just at the top of the stairs. From this vantage, I towered over him, impossibly tall. I opened my mouth and he flinched.

“This is our house,” I said. “And you are no longer welcome.”

I heard a throat clear behind me and I turned. Fredricka stepped up to my side, large as the house itself, her face calm as a cloudless day. She had an axe. I wondered where she had found it—we didn’t own one, to my knowledge—but she held the thing as if it had always belonged in her hands.

“Ma’am?” Fredricka said. She offered me the axe.

“Thank you,” I said. I took the axe from her, feeling the cold wood of the handle in my hands. The thing was heavy, but I had a feeling I’d manage. I strode down the steps, coming to rest just before Vale. His head tilted up towards me, pleading with his one good eye, his ripped-open mouth forming words he could no longer speak. I raised the axe high over my head. It swung down as if it knew exactly where it was heading.

There was a crack, the sound of a watermelon splitting in two.

And Master Vale was no more.

The silence that followed felt like an exhalation. A calm settled over everything, like a leaf floating to the ground. The world paused, relaxed. There was a clatter from inside the house—Jones crashed down from the ceiling with a grunt. The carcass of a bird slid off the awning and plopped into the grass. All was still.

It felt as if the world blinked and shook its head, coming to after a mighty nightmare. The day was lovely, the nearly cloudless sky quiet and cheerful. Birds chirped nearby, giving the walls of the house a break for once. A soft breeze rustled at a nearby tree and a few yellowing leaves danced to the ground. Even the police cruisers in the driveway seemed peaceful, glittering in the sunlight. The remnants of Theodore Vale were the lone spot of darkness in all of it, disintegrating into a body-shaped pile of ooze in the yard. But even he couldn’t besmirch the loveliness of the day. I pulled the axe out of what was left of him and set it next to the steps. The ooze-covered blade seemed almost to glisten in the brightness of the day.

Behind me, the pranksters drifted out of the house and down the steps of the front porch, out into the yard. They blinked in the sunlight, looking around as if they hadn’t seen a blue sky in centuries. They were still a rough sight to look upon—pale and wrong in the Technicolor world—but they seemed to be on the mend. Angelica’s eyes were both back where they were supposed to be. Constance’s smile didn’t gape so frightfully. James lifted himself up and hobbled around the yard on fresh legs. Henry stared at a bird in a nearby tree, wiping the remnants of Vale’s blood off his mouth with a new hand. They seemed curious and confused, tilting their heads at the world like puppies hearing a strange new noise.

Jones emerged from the house. She was limping a bit and clutching at her arm, but none of her bones appeared broken, or at least not as broken as those of the other officers. Her hair was a wild tangle of feathers and she had fly entrails on her chin. Her eyes had a glassy look to them, and for a moment, she stared at the pranksters as they wandered about the lawn. She nodded as if they were exactly what she’d expected to see.

“So. Your house?.?.?.” Jones swallowed. She gestured in a vague sort of way to the structure behind me. Cobalt blue with white trim, an envy-inspiring porch wrapped around the whole house, and a turret—an actual turret. “It’s haunted?”

“A bit,” I said.

Jones nodded. She nodded again. She looked down at the remains of Theodore Vale, slowly stirring in the light breeze, and nodded some more. She seemed incapable of doing anything else.

“I think we’ve fixed it, though,” I said.

Jones let out a breath that was not particularly steady. She seemed to be focusing most of her efforts on not having a panic attack. She looked at the cruisers in the driveway, waiting for no one, and took a long, deep, unsteady breath. “I need to call somebody,” she said, something she must not have found time for while she was being attacked by a flock of suicidal birds. She ran a shaking hand through her hair and pulled a feather from just behind her ear. She tossed the feather away from her as if it might cause her bodily harm. “I need to call everybody.” She limped down the steps on legs that seemed moments away from giving out, carefully avoiding Vale’s body as she moved towards the cruisers. “Homicide,” she muttered to nobody in particular. “Ambulance. Fire department.”

“There wasn’t a fire,” I reminded her.

She didn’t seem to hear me. “And that psychic who helped us find that kid a few years back,” she continued. “Probably the church. They’ll want our statements. Photographs.” She glanced at James as he skipped through the yard. “Lots of photographs.”

I watched Jones make her way to her cruiser and get inside. I figured I wouldn’t interrupt any further. She looked as if she needed a moment. She’d earned it. We all had.

Katherine stepped up to my side, looking a bit dazed. She was covered in blood—mostly other people’s, I was happy to see—and she had splatters of Theodore Vale’s ooze on her face. Her shirt was torn, and her hair, crusted and knotted, stuck up at odd angles. I had a feeling I was in a similar state. My clothes were likely ruined, every inch covered in some sort of fluid. I could feel blood drying along my face. I ran a hand through my hair and pulled out a tooth. I frowned at the thing. I wondered who it had belonged to.

“The police are going to have a lot of questions for us,” Katherine said.

I slipped the tooth into my pocket, nodding. “They certainly will,” I said. Hours upon hours of questions, likely. It would sound more than a little unbelievable, all that had occurred here, and the three broken bodies of police officers just inside the house wouldn’t make anything better. Luckily, we had Jones on our side, and judging by the way Jones blinked in her cruiser, slowly picking feathers from her hair, she was not about to forget what she had seen today for quite a while.

The pranksters ambled farther and farther away from the house. I wasn’t sure what exactly pranksters did once the joke was over, but they seemed to be filling their time nicely. Charles and Constance started down the driveway, followed by Julian, presumably off to reunite themselves with whichever of their ancestors were still living. James was occupying himself by attempting cartwheels in the yard, and Henry was doing his best to climb a tree. Blythe scampered up the side of the house and perched on the roof, her legs dangling off the awning. A bird landed on her shoulder. Angelica plopped herself in the yard, cross-legged, and started plucking blades of grass. Making herself some sort of crown, it seemed. Blythe and the bird started whistling a little tune together. Angelica joined in. It was nice, in its own sort of way.

“I think I’m supposed to fly out tomorrow,” Katherine said. She blinked, her eyes narrowing. “I’m pretty sure its tomorrow, anyway.”

I nodded. I understood. Time was funny around here, moving in stops and starts and circles. At least it used to, anyway. I had a feeling that things were about to get a tad more linear.

“If it’s okay,” she said, “I might reschedule my flight. Stick around for a while. At least until all this gets settled.” She glanced at me hopefully. “If that’s all right, that is.”

“Of course,” I said. “My home is your home.”

Across the yard, I saw Elias and his mother walking hand in hand, heading towards the woods. Elias still had his dark mess of hair and his dirt-gray clothes but he seemed calmer somehow, slack shoulders suggesting he wasn’t in the mood to bite passersby anymore. I couldn’t see his face but I had a feeling that his eyes had lost their milky void and his teeth had rounded out at the edges—no longer the most intimidating thing in the house. Elias’ mother—Hattie—seemed calmer as well, her skinny limbs no longer in danger of snapping. She looked like a woman taking a nice stroll in the woods with her son, not somebody heading back towards her own grave at all. Hattie held a garbage bag in her hand, the one that contained her bones.

“Sorry about that,” I called after her. Hattie and Elias said nothing. They might not have heard me, or perhaps they didn’t feel like starting a conversation about the number of times I had haphazardly dug up Hattie’s bones just to get Elias to shut up for a week. Regardless, I was glad. After a moment, they disappeared into the woods.

Edie sidled up next to me. She heaved a heavy sigh and smiled. “My,” she said, “that was quite the ordeal, now, wasn’t it?”

I chuckled, considering the day. “Yes,” I said, “I suppose it was.”

“Touch and go there for a moment,” she said, gesturing behind her at the basement. “But it all worked out in the end.” She grinned towards Katherine. “Your mother is a force to be reckoned with, you know.”

Katherine gave a little smile. “I know,” she said.

Edie looked down at Vale’s former body for a moment, her hands on her hips. She nodded at his remains as if looking down at a pie that had come out of the oven just perfect. A job well done. “Well,” she said, a decisive tone to her voice, “I had better get out of your hair.” With that, she hopped down the stairs and, carefully stepping over Vale’s body, started down the driveway. I wasn’t particularly sure where she was going.

“This is your house,” I called after her, “remember?”

Edie waved a hand behind her. “You ought to sleep well tonight,” she said. “Get some rest—you’ve earned it.” Soon, she was a dot at the end of the driveway, following after Charles and Constance and Julian to God knew where.

I watched her leave, and stared out into the cheer of the day without fully understanding any of it. My brain was still struggling to catch up with all that had occurred, and it would much rather simply watch as the breeze made the grass dance and Angelica finished her crown and set it atop her head. It was far preferable to thinking about the bodies strewn about inside the house, or just how much time it was going to take to clean up all the dead birds in the yard. Jones still sat in her cruiser, staring out the window at nothing in particular. Her brain was struggling to catch up as well, it seemed.

Fredricka stepped into view at my side. She’d gathered the axe from the steps and rested it against the wood of the porch with a thunk. “If ma’am doesn’t mind,” she said, “I’m rather tired. I think I’ll rest now, unless ma’am needs anything.”

“No,” I said, smiling up at her. “You’ve been wonderful, Fredricka.”

“Good,” Fredricka said. She lifted the axe and walked back into the house, then closed the door behind her.

Katherine and I were alone on the porch, as alone as we could be around here. Slowly, Katherine turned, then sank down into one of the rocking chairs just behind her, and I followed suit. The wood of the rocker creaked beneath me and I thought it might as well have been my back. I heaved out a sigh. God, it felt good to sit down. Edie was right—today had been an ordeal.

“So,” Katherine said, “Dad’s dead.”

I sighed. “I suppose he is.”

Katherine nodded. It might’ve been a shock for her, but given the events of her day, it was likely nowhere near the most shocking thing she’d experienced. She would deal with it in time; we both would. I started slowly rocking back and forth. It felt soothing, in a strange sort of way. Katherine joined in.

“I’m sorry I tried to have you institutionalized,” she said.

“Oh, it’s fine,” I said. “I probably would’ve done the same thing if I were you.” I motioned back towards the house. “Thanks for your help down there in the basement. You’ve got a mean swing.”

“Of course,” Katherine said. She pointed down at the smudge on the ground, all that was now left of Theodore Vale. “Thanks for kicking that fucker’s ass.”

“It was no bother,” I said.

We rocked in silence for a moment, not particularly thinking about anything, or at least I wasn’t. Blythe and Angelica and the bird carried on with their tune (It all comes around with the moon and the sun). James was cartwheeling himself down the driveway. All around us, the day went about its business, sending cheerful sunlight and a calm breeze down upon the carnage. There was a sweet smell to the air, and the light seemed to glisten, a little wink in our direction to prove that no matter how terrible things could get—and things could get quite terrible indeed—all would be fine in the end. It could be a rule, perhaps, if any rules existed in this bright new world.

Fredricka opened the door again, poking her head through the crack. “I just wanted to bring it to ma’am’s attention,” she said, “that the house is in quite a bit of disarray. And there are a substantial number of flies.”

“I know,” I said. “Thank you, Fredricka.”

Fredricka nodded, her duty done. “Would ma’am like me to prepare some tea for her before I rest?”

I glanced at Katherine. Katherine shrugged.

I smiled. “Tea sounds lovely.”