“Mara’s back at Willow Grove, getting get-well-soon macaroni cards from the kids, and… I don’t know, some other things. She should be here any minute now.” Grey said.

“How are the kids doing? The old place still standing?” I asked.

“Yeah. Of course, it is. Willow Grove is a lot of work, always going to be, but we made it run well.”

We really did. “Willow Grove”, was the name of the orphanage Grey, Mara, and I grew up in. While we were wards there, it was run by “Mother Anna,” an incompetent, surly old matron, and whatever family she managed to employ there. She would punish us with starvation and beatings, with one of the worst transgressions a child could commit being failing to call her “Mother.” Compulsory show of love. I still despise it down to my bones.

I still remember the moment I decided that I not only could do better than her, but I’d find it hard to do any worse. It was as I watched Lila — a blind girl who used to cry a lot — try to eat half a granola bar while fighting off a stray dog with one tiny hand. Apparently, one of her bouts of crying annoyed “Mother” into kicking her out of the dining room before lunch. Even as a kid I was cynical, and minded little else beyond my own business, but that shit right there made me see red. It wasn’t the only or the worst such incident, but that was the one that ended up being my call to action.

I rounded up my two closest friends and, as soon as we were old enough, we started drumming up community support. We came up with funding, approvals, licenses, and everything else we needed. We also made sure to collect the material that would expose the old hag and her drones, turning them unemployable in the future.

It was not at all easy. As it turned out, the accountability mechanisms for underperforming or even violently incompetent orphanage directors were virtually non-existent. The city government paid whatever they saw fit to keep the orphanage running and forgot about it. Until someone needed to be seen caring about orphans on TV, that is. Usually around election season. It’s part of the reason I later ended up in the city council myself. I thought that if politics were going to intrude into my life so callously and viciously, I better learn all I can about the damn thing. Grey ended up the director of Willow Grove, on paper, but all three of us helped regularly.

The sliding doors opened, and Mara shuffled in. She carried a bunch of plastic bags and the laptop case she was holding under one arm was dripping water.

“She’s here,” Grey pointed out.

Mara is a strikingly beautiful woman. She is surprisingly tall, with black eyes, and long black hair that goes down past her waist when loose, though she mostly keeps it in a tight bun. With her full lips, long eyelashes, and long legs, she needs no fancy makeup or pricey dresses to turn heads wherever she goes.

That being said, I could never quite appreciate her in that way. To me, she was like a little sister, and thinking of her otherwise felt just wrong.

When we were kids, she was this little girl with big curious eyes, always following us wherever we went. She was always quiet. Eerily so. She changed a lot in her teens, shedding most of her creepy girl from “The Ring” vibes, and opened up a lot, at least around Grey and me. Around others, she measures her words as if they are sold by the syllable. Now, when quiet, she comes off as measured and observant, rather than as though plotting an assassination.

The running joke around Willow Grove was that she was going to either kill or marry one of us, which was nonsense. She would sooner hurt herself than either of us. She said so herself, and I know her well enough by now to know that’s a fact. As for marrying her? Well, I used to find that idea outlandish and laughable as well. But things can change, I suppose.

Mara dumped her bags on the table by the window and turned to us. “Grey, would you mind checking if my laptop still works? I dropped the case in a puddle outside.”

“Of course, Mara. I’ll take care of it right away.” His reply was all stiff and cordial, wooden almost. He took the laptop case, noting the torn handle, and began inspecting it.

I watched their interaction, eyebrow raised. The formal tone, the exaggerated politeness. It was like watching amateur actors trying to play friends. At this point, it was almost painfully obvious what was happening, but I decided not to pounce on it just yet. As always, timing is everything.

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“I have a surprise for you, Ryder.” She said, smirking at me.

“A surprise?” I asked, intrigued.

“Yeah, but let me give you the cards kids made for you first.” She pulled out a stack of dogeared A4 copy papers out of one of her bags and placed them on my lap. I went through them one by one. They were what you’d expect from the kids mostly under the age of 10, who were given way too much glitter and paper glue to use, though I noticed a few that looked very skilfully done. Their artistic skill wasn’t the point, anyway; I was just happy to see the kids give me some very personalised messages of encouragement.

Little Mia even glued her “strongest” feather to her card to help me out. She collected fallen feathers from the pigeons that roosted in the roof of our building. They were her treasures, and she wouldn’t stop crying when the staff tried to clear them out.

My heart melted. “These are all great, Mara. Tell the kids I loved them.”

She nodded, her smile widening. “Will do. Now, about that surprise…”

She reached into another bag and pulled out a carefully wrapped package. As she handed it to me, I noticed her trying to stifle a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, beginning to unwrap the package with numb fingers.

She ignored my question and kept looking at me expectantly.

As I unwrapped the package, I found a vaguely human-shaped rag doll made from an assortment of female underwear. Used, if the odour was anything to go by, and adorned with lipstick kiss marks. Hair bands crisscrossed the unconventional creation, barely holding the odd assembly together.

Grey looked up from the laptop he was typing away on, which seemed still functional, despite the water.

“What the hell…” His voice trailed off, mouth agape.

Mara burst into laughter, unable to contain herself any longer.

“Sisters of dim light.” She managed to say between giggles. “They thought it would lift your…spirits.”

She pulled out another stack of papers, even thicker than the one I received from the orphanage, and handed it to me. There were no glued macaroni pieces on these papers, but the well-wishes were all written in vaguely religious-sounding, overtly sexual poetry.

“Beneath the moon’s gentle light, I fall into your arms, my inverted nipples, lanterns guiding you to my heart. The stirring in our loins…”

“What the fu…” I said and stopped reading.

One might expect me to be surprised, disgusted, even intrigued. One would be mistaken. These were just some of my few past indiscretions coming back to say hello, and I learned to expect them. Though I can’t lie, I do get caught off guard from time to time.

The ‘Sisters of Dim Light’ were officially a college sorority called something else, based in the female dorms of my old university. While I’m sure they do much the same other sororities do most of the time, they are also a cult of…well, me. But only in a remote way. During my school days, I kept my head down, eyes up front, and worked as hard as I could. Pulling yourself out of the gutter by your own power is incredibly hard, barring some incredible luck, so I made almost unreal diligence the name of my game.

There was just one exception: my second year at university. I allowed myself to cut loose for a bit. The plan was to set aside a week and explore the “other side”. I’m no naïve baby. I was aware of the vices, partying, and debauchery that surrounded me, but there is a difference between knowing and…you know…knowing. As with everything else in life, I approached it with full power. That week later became known as the “Week of Dim Lights”.

Most of what I know about that week today comes from various retellings, many of which were almost certainly exaggerated. My own memories of it are jumbled and unreliable at best. If you can name a vice, I almost certainly indulged in it. It took me a solid month to recover, and it turned my university life completely upside down.

The longest-lasting consequence of that week was the emergence of the “Sisterhood of Dim Light”. The tale of my exploits took on a life of its own, and what started as a joke or a meme grew into something more. While they claim to worship me as some kind of deity, it’s been three or four generations of students since then. Most of today’s “cultists” have never even met me in person. They didn’t let that slow them down much, though.

I chuckled despite myself, setting the unusual piece aside. “Well, it’s definitely … unique.”

Mara nodded, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “They said it was their way of sending good vibes your way.”

“Is this from those crazies I kept shooing away from your trash like raccoons?” Grey asked, still bewildered by my gift.

“They finished doing that, for now,” Mara said, grinning. “They did it for building materials for some kind of altar. I have an understanding with the High Priestess. They aren’t allowed to do anything that could have the cops called on them.”

“You were in touch with them? Wait, there’s a “High priestess”?”

“Of course I was. Imagine what could happen to Ryder’s career if I didn’t tamp down on their craziest impulses. You don’t want to know how many close calls we had. Every generation tries to one-up the previous one.”

“My hero,” I said. Bowing slightly in Mara’s direction.

“This generation’s High Priestess is almost reasonable compared to the previous one. You both met her. It’s Anetta Reid, “Mara explained.

Grey grew thoughtful, likely trying to remember who that was, but I got it instantly and groaned.

Marco and Lana Reid, that girl’s parents, were among the wealthiest people in the city and some of my earliest supporters on the city council. They were the ones who pushed my name forward when the candidates for the presidency were being discussed. I remember Marco being especially proud of his daughter, always waving her picture around. I would recognise her on the street, but no one ever formally introduced us. This might be for the best. Meeting any of those girls was always an awkward affair, and if things had gone sour, it could have seriously damaged my support base.

Another bout of burning spread through my chest. This one lingered, sitting there, pulsing, like a painful heartbeat I could feel in my throat. A bit of bile bubbled up into my mouth. It tasted sour and medicinal, like stomach acid and chewed-up aspirin. I swallowed it down and covered my pained wince with a cough. I don’t think I have more than a few minutes with my friends before the doctors come in. I didn’t want to spend what could be our last few minutes together watching them worrying about me.