The Stars Never Rise

It wasn’t possible. Not in New Temperance. Not half a mile from the school and less than two miles from a worship center. Not in my own home.

The news reported the occasional isolated domestic possession, along with footage of black cassock–clad exorcists sent in to deal with the problem, but there hadn’t been a documented possession in New Temperance since Clare Parker, and few people believed she really was possessed. Clare’s execution was a display of power. A threat to all future sinners. And it had worked.

But my mother was…something else.

She smiled at me slowly, and her eyes flashed. I knew in that instant that Melanie was right.

My mom was a demon.





My mother watched me from across the kitchen doorway, and my heart felt like it was going to explode. It was beating too fast, and everything in my living room looked really crisp and clear, as if my eyes were working better than my other senses. As if they could make up for not seeing what had been there all along.

My sister’s feet whispered on the worn carpet behind me as we both retreated slowly. Suddenly my hands felt empty. I felt like I should be holding a weapon now that I knew my mother was a demon, but that didn’t make much sense. She’d been a demon for who knew how long, and I’d never needed a weapon before.

But then, she’d had nothing to fear before we knew her secret.

“Mellie, go next door and use the phone.” I was whispering, but my voice felt like a hammer bludgeoning fragile silence in the wake of our demonic discovery. “Call the Church.”

“Yes, call them.” My mother’s smile was slow and cold, and it was all for Melanie. “They’ll probably set me on fire around the same time they scrape the embryo from your womb. Or maybe they’ll just cut the whole thing out of you. Won’t have to worry about unauthorized breeding if you haven’t got the parts for it, huh?”

“Melanie, go,” I said, but I could feel her behind me, so close I could smell her shampoo, and I could practically taste her fear. “They won’t do that.” They wouldn’t kill the baby. But they would use it against her, trading its life for her service and obedience.

They would make an example of her. Of both of us. They’d say we should have known. They wouldn’t believe that my mother had been possessed right under my nose and I’d had no idea. I could hardly believe that myself.

I’d seen the withdrawal from life, the neglect and disinterest, and the obvious illness, yet demonic possession had never occurred to me. Why? Why did I see drug use instead? Because the changes happened slowly?

Or because there wasn’t really much of a change at all?

And that was when I truly started to understand the scope of the lie we’d been living. My mother hadn’t changed because she was possessed. She’d changed because she was deteriorating. Because her soul was almost completely devoured and her health was starting to decline. Her body was starting to mutate.

To degenerate.

But…it should take years for a possessed host to become a degenerate. Nearly two decades, under optimal circumstances. There was no telling how long our mother had been in the possession of the Unclean.

For a moment, that thought almost made me happy, because it offered relief. The problem wasn’t that we were unlovable; it was that our mother wasn’t capable of love. Because she wasn’t our mother. She wasn’t even human.

Then that thought began to resonate, and I couldn’t let it go, even though interrogating a demon was a really bad idea.

“How long?” I asked as Melanie tugged me backward. Away from the demon.

How long had Leona Kane’s body been possessed by the monster calling itself our mother? Since her descent into drug-fueled withdrawal from life? Since before my sterilization? Since my third-grade recital?

Longer? It had to be longer. Degenerates aren’t built in a day.

“Ask your sister,” the demon in my mother’s skin said. “I think she’s finally figured it out.”

“Mel?” I squeezed her hand. I wanted to look at her—to see for myself if she knew something I didn’t—but I couldn’t afford to take my focus from the demon. “How long, Mellie?”

“Always,” Melanie whispered, and fresh horror washed over me. “Or very close to it.”

Our mother’s head nodded, as if the demon behind her eyes was proud of at least one of its…investments. “I always knew she was the smart one.” Her gaze found me again. “Fortunately, I don’t need you for your brain.”