To my immense relief, the hellscape did not return—at least, not yet. Unfortunately my relief was short-lived.

I definitely had my work cut out for me.

Ileene looked around, utterly confused. She staggered about, her face exploding with doubt.

“—What is this?” She asked. “Who are you? Who are you, really? What happened to me?” She turned to Andalon. “And who is she?” She stared at the little blue-haired sprite like Andalon was marsh-flame out on the Bay—something that didn’t belong. “Am I losing my mind?”

How would I tell her?

Ileene: I desperately wanted to save your unborn child, but you died, and the fetus turned into a quarter-human abomination that looked like it had come straight out of Hell.

Ileene knelt down as Andalon walked up to her. The little girl rubbed the veil atop the young woman’s head. “Everything’s gonna be good now, Miss Leen,” Andalon said. “I saved you. You’re with Mr. Genneth now.”

But Ileene just shook her head. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

Of course she didn’t. It had been thrust upon her without any warning. Lowering my arms, I clenched my fists and took a very deep breath. As angry, frightened, and distraught as I felt, I couldn’t stand by if it meant a patient was experiencing the same, even a dead one.

My own words trickled through my ears. The words I’d said to Kreston.

I need you to help me help you, so that I can help everyone else.

If there was going to be any chance of me making amends, I owed it to Kreston to make sure that the experience I’d gained in helping him and the other ghosts hadn’t been for nothing—especially if they were going to turn into demons.

Unfortunately, Andalon spilled the beans before I could take control of the situation.

“Mr. Genneth got you out of Hell!” she said, cheerfully. “That’s how you’re safe! You’re safe inside the wyrmeh!”

Ileene shook her head. “No, that’s—… how can that be real? I… I was just—”

What she was doing was floundering like a fish out of water.

I had to break the news to her.

My breath was hot and wet as it bumped off my F-99 face mask. I still didn’t know nearly enough about ghosts as I would have wanted.

I shook my head.

“You’re not crazy.” I spoke softly. My heart ached for her. I put on the best smile I could manage, given the news I was about to break to her. “Ileene… you died…”

Her mouth came unhinged.

Please don’t ask me about your body. The thought made rounds in my head until it turned into a mantra.

Please, don’t ask me about your body.

I did not want to describe the odious horrors that had eaten away at her corpse.

“Mr. Genneth, why are you saying ‘please, don’t ask me about your body’?” Andalon asked.

“Oh, sweet merciful Lass,” I swore, rolling my eyes over to glare at Andalon.

“What…?” Ileene said, breathlessly.

“Ileene,” I pleaded, “you died. I was there for the autopsy.”

“No!” The ghost staggered back. “H-How? I—”

—This time, I grabbed Ileene’s arms. Her eyes went saucer-wide as she saw my hands phase through her flesh.

She fell to her knees.

There was an expression I’d learned that fit well here to describe Ileene’s reaction.

Her shelf broke. I’d learned it over the course of my trial run with an Atheists Anonymous group. The meetings were held once a week, in group video calls—voice only—and with voice modification software in place so that no one’s social standing would be at risk. Most people who joined were lost and questioning, much like myself, but there were always a few who made the definitive break and stepped steadfastly into non-belief. The phrase “my shelf broke” was popular among former believers, particularly for those folks who had belonged to some of the more insular denominations out East. The shelf was the foundation that belief gave to a person, and all the cultural connections and social support that came with belief. For people who had unquestioningly believed, when their shelf broke, it was like falling into a dunk tank—or, perhaps, just falling, never quite certain when or where you’d land. I couldn’t quite relate, though: my shelf had never been that solid to begin with, except for the scant parts that never seemed to yield, not even in the slightest.

Ileene’s realization that her existence was now non-corporeal hit her with an almost physical force. The young woman trembled, the skirt of her dove habit slightly phasing through the wall behind her as she slowly slid down into an ungainly squat. The color was gone from her cheeks. Everything dripped toward the floor: her gaze; the timbre of her voice; the brightness of her spirit; and her hand, reaching down only to press against an empty belly. I would have said she looked like a corpse, but I’d seen her corpse, and I knew better than to make that comparison.

Andalon tucked herself half-way behind me as I walked over to Ileene. As I came to a stop in front of Ms. Plotsky, Andalon sat down on her knees, watching the ghost intently in a way that said, “I want to take your pain away, but I don’t know how.”

I felt exactly the same way. I wanted to rest my hand on the young woman’s shoulder, or to embrace her and tell her she wasn’t alone; I wanted to do any and all of the million million little acts of kindness that a person could do to another to provide relief from pain.

Ileene clasped her head in her hands. “No…” She looked up to me with a renewed vigor. “No, this can’t be. It can’t.” She fell forward, onto her knees. “I am Innocent.” Her eyes were so lost. She muttered off-tune through the first phrase of a hymn, singing to no one but herself. “I’m on the Hill and Mountain, above the darkened Valley…” She reached for Andalon. “You’re my daughter. You have to be.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Eyes dripping tears, Ileene crawled forward on hands and knees, and ran her fingers through Andalon’s blue bangs like the little girl was the most precious thing in the world. “You’re my miracle,” she said, biting her lip. “You’re my Sun-drop. You’re my purpose.” She sobbed. “You’re my redemption.”

Andalon cocked her head in innocent confusion. “What’s a daughter?”

Ileene’s head bobbed; her neck tightened. She swallowed, chuckling nervously, her grip on Andalon’s head trembling.

“Please, my Sun-drop, don’t say that. Don’t make jokes like that.” She shook her head. “Don’t make Mommy sad…”

I tried to intervene. “Ileene—”

“—Family doesn’t say something like that.”

“What’s a family?” Andalon asked.

Fresh tears ran down Ileene’s cheeks.

As they did mine.

“Family is the people who take care of you,” Ileene said. Her white dress’ hem undulated over her feet; her feet fidgeted inside her dainty shoes. “They’re the people who you put above yourself, and who do the same for you. They’re the ones who help you become what you were meant to be.”

Andalon brightened. “Just like wyrmehs!”

I knelt down in front of them. “Ileene… I don’t know who or what Andalon is. She appeared to me in a dream, and then in real life, and now…”

I shook my head.

Anyone with a heart could tell this young woman desperately wanted to be a mother. It had hurt to see Ileene’s mother caring tenderly for her lobotomized daughter, rubbing the feet of the wheelchair-bound invalid forever locked behind a vegetative state. Seeing Ileene repeat the same, pleading gestures—and to Andalon, of all people… that tore my wound open all over again.

I never got to know my mother. She died before I’d even spoken my first word, in a car accident. Dana helped make it bearable for my child-self by telling him that she hadn’t really died. No: a spell had been cast on her, trapping her inside the photographs around the house or the home movies that Dad always watched on Shrovestide Eve. There was no way to undo the spell, but Mom could still see me whenever I saw her image, and she would keep watching, keeping me safe, and wishing me well, because she loved me. I’d be lying if I said that hadn’t helped me, but it couldn’t fill the void. Nothing could. My father never remarried. My childhood was haunted by the absence of the mother I never got to know. Then, when I was sixteen—right as Dana had begun her descent into schizophrenic paranoia—I finally learned the truth. It hadn’t been a car accident. Mom had taken her own life in a pit of postpartum depression, not long after giving birth to me.

I still blamed myself for it, and it was with that same sense of guilt and the burning hope for penance that I reached out to Ileene Plotsky and rested my trembling hand just above her forearm. I tried to show her the depth of empathy and sympathy that I’d always believed my mother would have shown me, had she’d lived to give it.

Ileene stood up and skittered back. She quivered like a violin string screeching softly beneath an un-rosined bow.

“No,” she said, “no no no. This can’t be right. I repented. I renounced my darkness. I belong in Paradise Eternal, in the presence of the Holy Angel. I’m not a heretic. I’m not an infidel. I believe!”

Great, I’m screwing up again. I should have known better than to—

—But then I froze and Ileene froze as a blot of the icy hellscape appeared in the distance. A shiver shot down my spine.

Taking a deep breath, I focused everything I had on banishing the unholy incursion.

It disappeared a moment later.

“Queen’s Light!” I muttered

But Ileene…

Andalon stepped back. “Uh-oh…”

You could say that again!

Ileene’s eyes went wide, her mouth opening in a silent scream. She pointed at me with a trembling finger. “D-Demon!” she yelled. “You’re a demon! You’re trying to trick me! No wonder I feel so miserable! You’re torturing me! You’re trying to turn me into one of those monsters!”

“What!? No!” Sticking out my palms, I shook my head. “No no no no no! You’ve got it all wrong, Ileene, I—”

Andalon’s pale face went paler still. Her blue, blue eyes widened in fear. “—Don’t cry, Ms. Leen,” she said. “Don’t be sad! You’re not in a bad place. You’re safe!” Andalon smiled ardently. “You’ve been saved! The darkness can’t get you here.” Andalon pointed at me. “And it’s all thanks to me and wyrmehs like Mr. Genneth.”

Ileene’s expression was like a tea-cup mid-crack. She blinked irregularly. “Saved?” If she’d been a computer program, she’d have probably crashed.

Andalon nodded, gesturing excitedly with her arms. “You’re not in Hell, Miss Leen! I know what Hell is like, and this isn’t it. This is the opposite of Hell! That’s why you’re safe! Safe inside Mr. Genneth’s head!”

Ileene bristled. Her fingers clenched and unclenched. Her head bobbed atop her shoulders as she stared at me with a burning gaze. She teetered into mania.

Fudge! Fudging fudge!

Everything was going downhill fast. Angel, it was Esmé all over again!

“Stop it!” Ileene screeched. “Stop it stop it stop it! Stop mocking me!” She gasped, breathing in hoarsely, as if she was drowning. Her lips were a jagged crack in her face. “No, it’s true, it’s true it’s true: I’m damned. I’m in Hell. I was impure. I failed my child, just like my parents failed me, only worse, because I never even got the chance to try. I’m down in the Valley now, and there I’ll stay. But it’s what I deserve, because I was prideful. I’d dared to think that I’d been saved. Pride.” She spat. “Foolish pride!” She smacked her arms on the vinyl floor.

I couldn’t help but think of her corpse, lying dead on the autopsy table, her womb a rotten, hollow fruit.

Right before my eyes, Ileene changed. The Green Death consumed her in a matter of seconds, overtaking her body with its rot. Her stomach split open, spilling fetid organs and black ooze out of her robe, staining the fabric, hitting the floor in drips and puddles and weak, wet slaps. Necrosis engulfed her, rivening her skin with hyphae and ulcers. Fungus bloomed from her wounds as she screamed.

“Andalon,” I yelled, “do the thing! Do the blaster thing!” I stuck out my arms. “The woo! Do the woo!”

“Mr. Genneth, I—“ she whipped around, lost and afraid.

Fudge!

The tide of hunger rising in my stomach told me everything I needed to know.

Andalon didn’t have enough power to stop her.

Andalon screamed. “What’s happening!?”

She’s turning into a demon!

“No!” Ileene roared. ‘No! No! No!”

There was a long rrrrip as Ileene’s robe split down the back. Four bat wings exploded from behind her. She screamed as her hands transformed before her eyes, savage drake claws erupting from the tips of her bulging, lengthening fingers.

“I won’t let you take my soul!” she bellowed. “I won’t be bound again!”

“Ileene,” I pleaded, trying to connect to what good was still left in her, “you’ve spent the last few months of your life as a pregnant invalid—”

“—Demon!” she yelled. “I will not submit!”

“Your parents tended—”

“—Demon!”

Her cries grew louder and shriller. My vision quaked with her rage. Her Dove robe billowed in the breezeless hall.

I stepped back, but the wraith lunged at me, roaring imprecations. I flinched, and then tried to dodge, only to remember that there was no need.

She phased straight through me.

For a moment, I felt both pretty stupid and pretty darn relieved, and then the relief got ripped right out of me as Andalon shrieked in terror and, behind me, I heard the dull thunk of what sounded like a skull hitting the floor.

No! No!

I turned around to see the rotting succubus go down on hands and knees and beat Andalon to a pulp. Ileene thrashed and clawed like a feral beast, screaming, “Demon! Demon!”

She looked up at me and sneered. “I won’t fall for your tricks!” And then she turned back to Andalon, bashing the little girl in her face.

Without thinking, I dove to the ground, reaching for Ileene’s legs, ready to pull as hard as I could. But I grasped hold of a handful of air and floor. Ileene’s shoes phased in and out through my visor; through my eyes.

“I will be saved!” Ileene screamed, laughing like mad. “I will be saved!”

I scuttled across the ground, alternating between feet and knees, stumbling and standing and kneeling, trying to pull Andalon away, tugging at her arms, grasping at her flimsy nightgown—but none of it worked.

I froze in horror.

My thoughts flit back to the encounter with Wognivitch at Rayph’s school. With her power, Andalon had… banished him.

Andalon’s words play through my mind:

I give you my powers, and you use them to save everybody else.

“Andalon!” I shouted. “I need your power! If you can’t do it, let me try!”

But there was no response. Just Ileene’s screams, flailing clothes, and the sound of Andalon’s body being bashed against the vinyl floor.

My whole body shivered. In a panic, I stuck out my hands and chanted, willing the ghost away with every fiber of my being.

“Begone!”

Nothing.

I yelled again. “Begone!”

Nothing.

Weeping, I gritted my teeth and screamed. “G-Go away!”

Ileene’s figure froze mid-strike. It twitched. Its edges sparked, like an unsteady signal. And then she vanished.