They still don’t see the Monacan as he greedily laps up what I’ve just regurgitated over the dinner table. His tongue writhes like a waterlogged worm caught in a puddle.
He’s not using his mouth. It’s all happening within his neck and I feel like I’m going to be sick all over again—I can feel it coming. My chair tips over as I spring to my feet, knocking my neighbor’s glass over. Wine spills onto the table. The guests focus on dabbing the merlot bleeding through the tablecloth with their napkins, the linen turning deep red.
Mom hasn’t moved from the head of the table. No one has. “Erin, my god…”
I have to say something. He’s right there. Why haven’t they said anything? Why can’t they see? He’s smashing his throat desperately against the table, starved into insanity.
“I—”
The sound of my voice startles the man. His head snaps up at me, furious that I’ve interrupted his meal.
“I’m sorry, I—” I rush out of the dining room. “Excuse me.”
“Erin!”
“Let her go,” I hear Dad mutter. “Will someone please clean this mess up?”
My parents haven’t touched my bedroom since I left for college. It’s still technically mine, as if they’re waiting for me to move back in.
The room feels like a memorial. Posters of bands I can’t bring myself to listen to anymore, indie movies I thought made me look more intelligent than I actually was.
I flip the light switch and find my bed completely covered in coats. Lots of black. Some fawny, tawny brown. Cigarette-ash gray. I fall directly on top of the pile and sob. I can’t stop crying. I bring my hands to my face and try to hide inside the hovel of my palms. I’m losing my mind. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep running away if I’m going to keep hallucinating.
But he touched me. I felt his fingers reach in.
This is just a never-ending trip. That’s all this is. I just need to be alone. Somewhere safe. I try to balance my breathing. I need to calm down. Rest. If I can power through this nightmare, flush all the Ghost out of my system, I’ll be okay. I’ll survive. I can sleep it off. Sweat it out.
No more dosing. That’s a promise. I, Erin Hill, do solemnly swear to go cold turkey.
I’ll stay the night in my old bedroom and head out in the morning. I just want to get—
haunted
—some rest. I glance at the poster for Godard’s Contempt next to my bed and notice that the tape sealing the lower left corner is curling off. I peel it back and discover—
ERIN WAS HERE
—hiding beneath the poster. I used to be here. In the past.
So where am I now? Why can’t I find myself anymore?
A woman laughs downstairs. I’ve heard that cackle before. The party’s moved back into the parlor. Mom’s voice projects throughout the house, filling the cavities of every empty room.
Please Jesus, I pray, I promise never to take another drug for as long as I live. Just let me get through this. Let me ride this out and I swear I’ll never dose on Ghost for the rest of my life.
Sleep. That’s it. That’s all I need. Already I can feel my body relaxing. The tension in my muscles melts, my head growing heavier. Just…sleep. I’ll feel much, much better after some—
Something squirms under my left leg. Something trying to wriggle away.
I tug a fur coat out from under me. What’re you supposed to be? Whatever animal it had been before it became this hideous coat is a total mystery. I’m not even sure if it’s real fur or not, but it feels warm as I run my fingers through it. So cozy. I bundle it up into a ball for a pillow.
I sprawl out on the pile of jackets and close my eyes. I even tug a couple coats off the top and cover myself with them, like a patchwork blankie. There’s a stretch of leather against my cheek—the sleeve of someone’s bomber jacket. It gradually warms against my face as I drift.
Goodnight. Sleep tight. Don’t let the—
The sleeve slithers. This time I’m positive it moves on its own. The bomber ripples across my cheek, undulates, as if it wants to free itself from under the weight of my head.
Something loosens against my fingers. Snakeskin.
All at once, the coats are moving. Writhing. A nest of serpents wakes, their leather-skinned bodies slinking over each other. The entire pile inhales. Empty pockets fill with air like the chambers of a dozen lungs. I scramble across the bed to the headboard, my heart racing.
This can’t be happening, none of this is happening, I’m trapped in this trip—
The patchwork of coats rises from the bed and reaches for me. Some coats fall to the floor and rise again. Sleeves form tangled tentacles that slip and slink across my thighs, inching under my shirt and snaking up my chest, wrapping around my waist, my neck, my arms…
Vessels. I hear Tobias say the word in my head. Something has slipped inside and made a home in this pile of coats. A pair of hands push their way out of a jacket. Now there are three hands. Five. Each one emerges from its own sleeve. So many of them, manhandling me, working their way across my skin, groping and tugging. How many bodies are buried under this house, under all the McMansions in the neighborhood? How many men and women were massacred, never to appear in any history book, any ledger, any cemetery? Have they ever been at rest?
I’m waking them. Stirring them up—and now they’re pulling me in. Pulling me down. Deeper. The mattress opens and welcomes me in. Its quilted rictus loosens as it swallows.
The room goes dark. I can’t see. I can’t see.
When I try to scream, a leather sleeve shoves itself into my mouth. It works its way down my throat, down into the pit of my stomach. I’m drowning, drowning in the dark.
I hear Mom clink her glass for another toast, the tipsy lilt in her voice when she says, “To our legacy living beyond us. To our birthright and many more birthdays to come! Cheers.”
“Cheers,” the guests echo—
clink, clink, clink
I pull the sleeve from my throat. I have to grip it with both hands and pull hard. Harder. The sleeve eases out of my mouth. Saliva-slicked leather glides against my esophagus until I can finally gasp for air.
I find the strength to pry free from the pile of coats and fall to the floor. Their hands keep reaching for me, clutching for any part of my body they can grasp.
I need to get out of this room. Out of this house. Don’t look back, just run. Just go.
I lose my grip on the banister as I slip down the steps. I burst through the front door and don’t bother closing it. I hear my mother calling from behind me but I don’t look back. Just run.
I need help. But who’s left? I’m all alone now. There’s no one. Not Tobias. Not even—
Amara.
going away
Poe’s is packed. Apparently I’m at a going-away party? Only Amara could pull something together like this with twenty-four hours’ notice. On a Monday night, no less. Amara would host her own funeral if she could, just so she could get plastered with her pals.
She’s telling everyone else she’s leaving for New York within a week but I know what’s really happening.
She’s running away. Amara saw something in the house and it scared her enough to finally leave Richmond. But you can’t outrun what haunts you, I think. Your ghosts will find you.
“Whatsup, bitches!” she shouts every time someone she knows arrives. She tipsily shrieked it at me as I entered with a group of strangers. Or I thought she did. She hugs the others, so I make a beeline to the bathroom. Her squeals follow me. I’ve known Amara long enough to know when she’s trying too hard. She’s keeping a brave party face on, wearing a high-necked, pink floral-print cheongsam that demands attention. All eyes are on her. The belle of the ball.
I thought our circle of friends was the universe and Silas was our sun, but Amara has this entire other reality of work pals.
I wasn’t going to come. Not after Dad’s birthday party, but the idea of going— home