Anne Graves

There’s a knock on the door. The alarm clock shows it’s midnight. Why would I answer that? I snuggle deeper into my pillow and wait for sleep to wrap its heavy arms around me since my husband can’t.

Another knock. A window breaks. It’s midnight. Footsteps crunch glass, and the sound braces against our bedroom door. An intruder enters our home. Going against logic, I hold my breath and hope there aren’t more steps.

Crunch. It could be the wind. The Heirs said they needed to make a thunderstorm tonight to balance the Earth’s electrical charge or something. Wind doesn’t have footsteps.

Crunch. It’s a tree. A tree fell through one of my windows, and it’s rolling on the floor… That’s a lie. No one’s sold windows that are less than bulletproof for at least a decade.

Crunch. I’m out of excuses. I can’t stop staring at our bedroom door. It looks so flimsy.

My hand reaches for my husband’s shoulder in bed beside me. And it stays there, hanging in midair, guilt keeping it afloat. Davie’s bedside lamp is still on despite his snoring. The cheap, buzzing thing sheds light on his arm still in a cast—my sin.

As a reflex, I bury myself beneath the blanket. A pathetic attempt to hide myself from shame and whatever is coming for us. Something heavier than a foot crunches glass downstairs, yanking my thoughts back to the present catastrophe. I push the covers off and sit up straight, hoping to hear any hint that what I think is happening isn’t happening. It only gets worse. The footsteps below no longer step on glass but on our living room floor, a few steps away from our stairs.

My husband’s chest rises and falls, and his lips quiver. Every instinct demands I wake him, but I can’t because it’s all my fault. I can’t give him anything, not even a good night’s sleep. It’s my fault he has to take these stupid odd jobs from strange people for extra money. His arm won’t be healed for a month because of the last one. If I weren’t such a coward and a freak ruining everything.

Our baby coos in his crib next to the bed, covered in complete darkness. The light from the lamp doesn’t touch Bailey. He stays in pure, dark, ignorant innocence, and he could stay that way if whatever broke into our house… He could never get married. He could never go to school. He could never age.

Our baby. I have to save our baby. That’s priority number one. I do a silent prayer to Division, unsure if a god who made a world like this cares. Again, my hand reaches above Davie’s shoulder. I prepare to give him a light tap on his arm and sink back into my covers until I notice how sticky I am with sweat. And I smell. How long have I worn the same nightgown? Two days? Three? What would be the point of showering? I can’t leave the house because I’m a coward. I bite my lip and give a barbarous internal scream.

It helps, actually. Deep breaths. I whisper, “I am capable. I fear nothing. I can do this.”

I am a mother. I am a wife. And beyond that, I am an adept person. I need to stop being so fearful. Intruders break into homes all across Division’s Hand. People handle it. Whoever has entered my home is a monster. That’s fine. We are prepared. We have a monster in our basement for such an occasion. And he’s always hungry.

A wicked smile whips across my face. Is this how women born with powers feel? If it is, I get why they’re so vain.

The monster’s walking up the steps. Loud footfalls display his arrogance, a thing unbothered to use stealth. And he’s dragging something with him.

I’m not prepared for something else. What if he—

No, I must be brave. If I’m brave here then brave enough to leave the house, then I’ll be brave everywhere. No more therapist, no more Weakness, no more Curse.

What did my last therapist say?

“Your mind responds to your body. Use bold body language, and it makes the fear go away.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I rise from my bed as stiff as a horror movie vampire and nearly sashay all the way up to the open door. The hallway is darker than night. The intruder takes another step, so powerful I shiver. My strut through the corridor turns into a tiptoeing skip. It’s a throwback to when I had to make bathroom visits as a little girl at night. I thought, post-bathroom visits, that the dark hallway was the scariest thing in the world. Now, I am an adult, and I have nothing to fear. Nope, nothing at all. Sarcasm does not help me.

I arrive at our study, which holds the coin to let our own monster loose. Once inside, I take a deep breath before I make perhaps the boldest move I have since my Weakness, my Curse, or whatever they want to call it developed. I turn on the light.

Dishonest silence follows. No more footfalls, the man doesn’t move anymore. Yeah, that’s right. He shouldn’t move. He should be afraid of me. I rush toward the mahogany desk and knock aside the chair to make room to crouch. The coin to control the monster is always in the bottom left drawer. It is the only thing we keep there.

I open the drawer. It’s empty.

I stick my face inside because, surely, it’s in some corner. It’s not. No, it is. It is. I just haven’t found it—yet. I stab both my hands into the drawer and grasp search every corner, every frayed piece of wood inside the desk. It’s really not there.

The footsteps return. He walks toward me, still dragging something behind him. I open every other drawer in the desk. Each drawer makes either a scary pop or an ominous groan as it opens. Pens and pencils and paper and folders and envelopes and erasers and staples and that’s all there is. It could be nowhere else. I put it there. That was my responsibility. I know I put it there. Did Davie move it? No, he wouldn’t. Why would he?

A shadow comes across the desk. I don’t know what stands before me. No, wait. My therapist says mystery equals fear. So learn what it is. No, define him. Man. He is a man. Men don’t make noises like that. I rise to face it. I don’t have to be afraid. I don’t have to be afraid.

“I don’t have to be afraid,” I say.

I regret that I can see what’s before me. I regret turning on the light.

Its whole body hisses. Why does it have so many mouths? The tongues! Oh, I’m nauseous. Why do the tongues have hair and black spots?

“Be still,” he says from a mouth, maybe all of them.

My Curse activates. Whoever makes me afraid, I must obey. Against my will, I am still. I have to move. My baby, oh Division, my baby. Let me go, please. No, you have to say the words, Anne. Open your mouth! Move your lips! Stop it. Stop obeying him. My mouth does not open. That is not what he commands.

Davie rushes in behind the man-monster thing.

Help him, Anne. You have to move, Anne Graves. I am a voyeur to the beating of the man I love. I can neither close my eyes nor adjust my head to get clarity. My solace is that it’s quick. Even when Davie had two working arms, he was not a fighter. Davie’s a lover.

The monster rises from above Davie’s unconscious body and takes a place in the corner. “Choke him, and don’t stop.”

My brain chuckles. Baby Bailey cries in the next room. My brain chuckles, not my body. I have no control over my body anymore. My brain can’t stop laughing because that’s so impossibly cruel, it couldn’t happen.

He’s going to make me stop. It’s a test of my Weakness, my Curse. He’s just a guy with powers, and he wonders how the other half are living. The girl who has to do whatever you tell her if you scare her, it’s interesting, right? I’m like the book Ella Enchanted but in real life. He wants to see if the rumors are true. When will he tell me to stop?

I ask myself this as I straddle my husband and place my hands on his neck. Drops of his blood sink into our gray carpet behind his head.

Stop, Anne. You have control over your body. It’s all in your head. Why can’t that be true?

My thumbs go under then above his Adam’s apple, groping for a better grip. My fingers sink into his flesh too easily. Something in his neck snaps. Snaps. How can there be so many snaps?

Unconscious from the monster, his slack neck and chin rest on my hands. My thumbs decide to perch below his Adam’s apple and dig.

Stop it, Anne. You’re not afraid of the monster, Anne. Try not to be afraid. You’re killing him, Anne.

Something cracks, a bone in Davie’s neck. One bone underneath his tight fleshy throat floats, void of an anchor. It feels impossible, like I could never have done it. Another crack.

Uh-oh, uh-oh is all I can think. Dumb baby talk that we both have become accustomed to since Bailey’s birth. Bailey won’t have a dad. If this monster has any mercy, Bailey won’t have a mother, either.

“He’s done,” the monster says. “Grab your baby and bring him to me.”

I’m sick. I’m filled with whatever vomit is, and it rises to the edge of my throat. I can’t vomit because that’s not my command, and I must do whatever the person scaring me says, according to my Curse. So the vomit drops back down and travels into my body to be stirred and rise again. Chunks of gunk swish in my stomach as I walk to the crib and pick up my baby.

He stops crying because he’s in Momma’s hands. The need to sing a final song to him bubbles in me. I want to give him something to carry with him, something spiritual. But that’s not my command. My command is to deliver the baby, so I do. The song slips back down into my soul and mixes with the vomit.

I give up my baby, and because my body hates me, I wait for what’s next. I ponder two questions. Why did the Rainbringer send the Rain to change the world and allow something this evil to happen? Why did God allow this? The monster gives me a final command.