Dimly, Melissa heard another voice behind her. It called her name, then said something else. What was it saying? The girl could barely hear; everything sounded like fuzzy static.

Charlotte wrapped her arms around Melissa, gently pulling her away. “Melissa,” she whispered. “Please. Teddy is crying.”

Teddy was crying, Melissa realized. She grit her teeth. Why was Teddy crying, when she deserved to cry more? All Teddy wanted was to kill her mother, and now she wanted to cry about it? The girl strained against Charlotte’s arms, trying to stomp Teddy one last time.

Charlotte tore her away. “I’m here now,” the woman growled softly. “So don’t crowd around her.” Melissa flinched as the static in her ears faded to nothing. Her body suddenly felt lighter, and the fuzzy clouds in her head were gone. She noticed Daan was by her side too, holding her hand tight.

Melissa took a sharp breath of air. “Teddy,” she whispered. She let herself sink into Charlotte’s arms, but she didn’t apologize. Melissa couldn’t say sorry because Teddy deserved it. Had it coming. Taught a lesson. That’s what daddy used to say. Teddy was sobbing because she learned it good this time.

Daan picked up Teddy from the floor. He looked at Melissa like it was her fault, or something worse. For a moment, his eyes were different than before, and Melissa’s vision instantly blurred with tears. “I’m sorry. I-I’m sorry,” she stuttered. Everyone was looking at her like it was her fault, and she didn’t know why. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, hoping it would change the shocked glint in Daan’s eyes. But his expression just became worse.

“You don’t need to force yourself, Melissa.” Charlotte turned her around, facing her. She brushed the girl’s hair aside and kissed her forehead. “Let’s sit down, alright?” The woman signaled Daan with a flick of her head. Daan left with Teddy in his arms, disappearing into the bedroom again. Melissa could still hear Teddy weeping behind the bedroom door, filling her with a sense of unease. She did something wrong, surely, but she didn’t know what.

Charlotte’s hands were cold, but the rest of her body was warm and soft. Melissa yawned, sinking into the woman’s arms. Her skin smelled like sweet milk, but there was also some fuzzy black fog around her. Those were Blobbies, which Daan said were dead people. Why were they on Charlotte’s skin?

The woman ignored the haze gathering on her body. “Teddy made you mad,” Charlotte said. Her voice didn’t judge her. “You were angry because of something she said.”

“Mommy didn’t deserve to die,” Melissa mumbled. “Teddy’s wrong.”

Charlotte’s face scrunched in a weird way. “She didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “Teddy is your mother, after all. She regrets not protecting you more when she was still alive. For staying with your father until it was too late. Teddy didn’t mean to hurt you. She loves you so much. You really are the world to her.”

Melissa didn’t hear anything. “The festival is tomorrow. Teddy didn’t tell me.”

Charlotte’s expression darkened. Both Daan and Melissa were so determined to leave, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Teddy tried to stop Melissa, Charlotte realized. Teddy lied and said she never loved Melissa so she wouldn’t want to wish her back, but she failed. “She probably didn’t know when it was. Daan told you, right?”

The girl nodded. “He said I shouldn’t go. Are you going to say I shouldn’t go, too?” She stared at Charlotte, challenging her.

Charlotte pinched Melissa’s cheeks, feeling her face squirm between her fingers. Anything she said would only make the girl more determined to go. A thin smile stretched across her lips, wilting into something pitiful. Her smile was so fake that even Melissa frowned.

“What’s your face?” Melissa asked, staring at her strange, painful expression.

Charlotte opened her mouth, trembling. “Melissa. Listen to me. You and Daan have to live, okay? Daan will protect you. When you get there, find him first. Protect him—” She paled. “No, he’ll protect you. What am I thinking? You can’t protect him. But then he won’t even be able to protect himself…” Charlotte mumbled incoherently. Her clouded pupils darted around like flies in a jar. She shook Melissa hard enough to hurt, and her eyes suddenly regained their clarity. “Live,” she commanded. “Please.”

“Okay,” Melissa reassured. “‘Cause I can’t die, anyway.”

Charlotte sank into the couch, covering her eyes with her hand. She sighed with exhaustion as her breaths slowly deepened. Melissa cuddled in her arms some more before breaking free.

Suddenly, Charlotte’s skin began to shed blobs. Most of the black fog floated aimlessly in the air, but some of them started to pulse toward Melissa, as if attracted to her awake-ness. She backed away, but they kept following her. As she squinted her eyes, some of the haze in front of her condensed into tiny, squirming arms, grasping for her warmth. She shivered.

Before Melissa could take a closer look, Daan opened the door again. He glanced at Charlotte, then at the spectres floating above her. “She’s tired,” he said. “Let her sleep.”

Melissa pointed to the smaller blobs drifting in the air. “These are also dead people? Why are they so small?”

Daan’s eyes softened as one of the blobs mushed onto his chest. Its hazy arms wrapped around his skin, barely able to hold on. “My mom was a delivery nurse.”

Melissa didn’t know what a delivery nurse was.

She hushed her voice. “So, I need to look at them to prepare?” Melissa asked. Even though she knew she couldn’t die, the girl sensed that not preparing for the festival would be bad, somehow. She squinted at the large blob approaching them. Its head was a bit more purple now.

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Daan nodded. “Once you can see the rose man, you need to listen for the voices too. My mom told me that a bunch of things in the festival will try to hurt us, so we need to be careful.” He pointed to a white plastic case across the room. “I’ll bring that with me tomorrow. It’s got things like bandages.”

Melissa wasn’t paying too much attention to him. Instead, she focused her gaze onto the huge ‘rose man’, as Daan said its name was. The scent of bloom tickled her nose, growing stronger with every second. Something about the sweetness filled her with dread, almost like the smiling man.

The girl didn’t remember how much time passed, but when she looked beside her, Daan was gone. No one was awake except for her, and she could see it clearly now. The rose man.

It wasn’t a blob anymore; it was a huge man with a puffy purple face. The man wore white buttoned clothes that were stained yellow-brown, and his neck was bleeding bad because of the spiky wire around his neck. He kept scratching his throat, trying to get rid of the wire, but he could only claw out red-black chunks of flesh. Once he collected enough, he shoveled them back into his mouth, and the missing chunks regrew themselves. Melissa found it more gross than scary. A sad, dead man.

Rose perfume masked the undercurrent of rot, though with little success. The spectre shambled aimlessly around the living room, mouthing words she couldn’t hear. When it neared her, the sweet-rotten stench grew unbearable. She plugged her nose, but it didn’t help. She could taste the stench on her tongue, soured blood, red-black jelly.

“Stop smelling bad,” Melissa said nasally. The rose man didn’t react to her in the slightest. As she retracted her focus, the man became hazier, and the smell abated. The purple-faced shadow floated about aimlessly in the corner of her vision. She unplugged her nose.

Blobby wasn’t so cute anymore. Teddy was right.

Looking beside her, Melissa also noticed the spectres who shed from Charlotte’s skin, now floating in the air. Delivery nurses probably delivered babies, Melissa realized, because the small blobs were blue-faced babies now. Their cries creaked with fizz and crackles, television static. If she didn’t focus hard she could barely hear them, buzzing faintly in her ears.

Melissa stretched her arms as her stomach growled. “I can see them,” she called. She stood up and looked for Daan, but he didn’t exist anymore, or he went outside. As she searched the bedroom closet (he wasn’t there either), Melissa spotted Teddy on the bed.

“Hey, Teddy.”

Teddy wasn’t crying anymore. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was— Her hollowed voice cracked from the weight of her words. I was wrong. So wrong.

Melissa nodded. “M’kay.” She liked this apology. This was what a sorry should be like, especially because it made Melissa feel better about what she did. But a lump formed in her throat as she realized Teddy was even more stained than before. Maybe she didn’t need to hurt Teddy, and she wondered why she did so in the first place.

Teddy’s shrieks echoed in her ears. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’

Melissa couldn’t look at Teddy anymore. “Well, I dunno. I guess maybe I’m sorry, too.” Why was she apologizing? What was she apologizing for? She held Teddy closer, brushing away the biggest clumps of grime. After she was done, she placed the toy next to her, close to her, yet also at arm's length. They stared at the wall together, unsure how to break the silence.

You’re still going? Teddy asked softly. She already knew the answer.

“Mhm.”

Teddy didn’t argue anymore. Okay. We’ll have to go, anyway. The smiling man wouldn’t let us stay, even if we wanted to.

“I don’t want to stay,” Melissa responded. “I need to wish for mommy back. I need to.”

Why? Teddy asked softly. Your mother didn’t do anything for you. You were always hungry. Don’t you remember? You’d always cry that you wanted more, and when you cried, your father—he’d hit you. She looked away when that happened. Your mother couldn’t protect you. She did nothing right. Why do you still love her?

Melissa closed her eyes. It seemed Teddy would hate her mother no matter what.

A few seconds passed before she realized Teddy was waiting for her answer. “You’re wrong. Mommy did everything right.”

How did she do everything right?

Melissa’s expression scrunched as her mind was filled with her happiest memories. Even when her mother was alive, Melissa was always hungry, and her father still hit her bad sometimes. Her skin remembered.

Why was she so happy back then?

“Because,” Melissa said shortly.

How, honey?

Melissa clawed at the blankets, forming tight, balled fists. “Shut up!” she snapped. “Shut up, Teddy. Don’t ever talk about mommy again. Why—why do you hate her so much? You’re hurting me.” Tears welled in her eyes, but they couldn’t fall. The girl's hand hovered in the air, over Teddy’s skin. She imagined wringing Teddy’s neck like a dirty rag so she could never hate her mother again. But what was this pain in her chest? Her heart ached as she felt the faux white fur on her fingertips. She didn’t dare hurt Teddy again.

The stuffed toy stared back at her, utterly silent. What was Teddy thinking beneath her stitched smile, those buttoned eyes?

Melissa tried to ignore the knot building in her throat. After her mother died, she had no one else but Teddy. Remembering those shrieks when she stomped her, the girl felt like she was breaking, too. She would give anything to forget that horrible pleasure she felt when Teddy was underneath her foot, begging her to stop, but she didn’t. Melissa thought Teddy deserved it before, but now she wished someone would have hit her instead, if it meant she wouldn’t have heard those screams.

The girl’s lip trembled. A faint sob whimpered in her throat. If she hurt Teddy any more, she was afraid her heart would tear into pieces and she would die just like mommy did. “Don’t ever talk about her again. You hate her. You hate her a lot. You hate mommy so much you won’t ever let me wish her back. But I don’t care. I’m going anyway because I said so.”

Teddy shivered. I don’t hate her. Melissa, I just—

“Shut up.”

And the conversation was over.

Melissa laid on the bed, staring at the egg-cream ceiling. Her thoughts raced, faster and faster until she didn’t know who she was anymore. Teddy wiggled into her arms, but Melissa didn’t push her away. Despite everything they said to hurt each other, she found her arms tightening, hugging the toy close to her heart.

They laid like that, silently glued together, for a very long time.