But instead of seeing herself, she opened her eyes to a girl staring back at her—a person that most definitely was not Vee.

The girl in the reflection was pale, with hair blond like Vee’s, except stick straight rather than curly. She wore an old, stretched-out sweater, and she would have been pretty had she not rolled her eyes into the back of her head. Vee opened her mouth to yell, but she couldn’t catch her breath to produce any sound.

The girl moved.

Her mouth began to open.

Wide.

Wider.

So wide that it turned half her face into a gaping hole.

Her teeth glinting in that shadowed maw.

Vee mimicked the girl’s expression, unable to fight against the thudding of her pulse. Was she imitating the girl because they were the same person? What if, by some trick, the girl took her place while Vee got stuck in the mirror somehow? Impossible thoughts spiraled through her brain. She wanted to yell for her dad or Uncle Mark.

Suddenly, the dull gray of the girl’s sweater began to bloom with something dark. Blood began to soak into the soft, misty-colored yarn, creeping across the fabric like a slow-moving disease.

A voice in Vee’s head screamed look away! She was imagining things, had to be, but she couldn’t bring herself to tear her gaze from the mirror. Fighting against temporary paralysis, Vee’s throat clicked dryly as she struggled for air.

The whites of the girl’s eyes now rolled forward, snapped into place. Vee found herself staring at a person who couldn’t possibly exist. Chewing on the air, Vee struggled for sound, any sound—a scream or a mew—anything to assure herself that the girl in the mirror hadn’t somehow taken over her body, that they were two separate entities in a single unfeasible moment.

The girl seemed to mimic Vee’s silent gasping with that wide-open mouth. A baby’s disembodied cry slithered from the mirror-girl’s throat.

Vee finally managed to twist away in a panic, the feeling of her feet slipping out from beneath her momentarily derailing her horror. Her palm skipped down the tile wall, scrambling for purchase.

That was when she inhaled and finally screamed.

CASE NOTES—REDWOOD PARANORMAL

DATE: October 7, 1986

INVESTIGATOR: Judith Depley, Conrad Milton

RESIDENTS: Michael (35) and Janice Clayton (28), Sam Clayton (5)

ADDRESS: 101 Montlake Road, Pier Pointe, Washington

RP received a call from homeowner Janice Clayton on 10/3 complaining of possible poltergeist activity. Homeowner reports hearing voices, items being moved. Sam Clayton, age five, isn’t sleeping—a condition both parents insist only developed after their move into the home this past July. RP entered the home on 10/7 at approximately 8:00 PM. Investigative session lasted from approximately 8:30 PM–2:45 AM. RP ran full EVP, EMF, and temperature scan. No EVP or fluctuations recorded. No evidence on photography stills. Neither investigator received any physical feedback. One glimmer of conceivable evidence: a faint scent, possibly vanilla or almond. However, homeowners have many scented candles throughout the home. Could not rule out environmental contamination. Homeowners have decided not to pursue further investigations—potentially moving away from the property.

FINAL RESULT: Inconclusive

ADDITIONAL NOTES: Home was the scene of the Halcomb cult murder/suicide of 1983. We had our fingers crossed on this one, but are relatively confident that the property is not haunted.

J Depley

11

Wednesday, February 17, 1982

One Year, Three Weeks, Four Days Before the Sacrament

EVERYTHING HAD CHANGED.

The house, which had once been quiet save for the subtle murmur of the television and the patter of rain, was now boisterous and happy, redolent of exotic incense burned by Gypsy on a constant loop. From patchouli to amber to pine, the entire place smelled of a Moroccan bazaar. When Avis (Audra?—she wasn’t sure what to call herself anymore) asked why Gypsy drifted from room to room with tendrils of smoke trailing her every move, Lily explained it was a cleansing ritual to rid the place of bad thoughts and ugly feelings. “Energy and emotion can get trapped in a place,” she said. If that was true, Avis was certain the house was noxious with her own resentment. It would be a wonder if there was enough incense in all of Pier Pointe to wipe it away.

The ever-kinetic Kenzie proved to be as addicted to Avis’s record player as Gypsy was to purification. Avis hadn’t marked a single moment of silence since Deacon and his friends had stumbled out of the wind and through the front door. If it wasn’t Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd, then it was Rush or Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Doors. Despite her slow-mounting exhaustion from the onslaught of noise, she didn’t dare ask for quiet. She was trying to adapt, to grow into her new skin and her freshly given name. If she had to give up the silence for Jeff to grant her a new life, so be it. She’d listen to those records forever if Deacon’s promise of euphoria was upheld.

She hadn’t heard her birth name uttered even once since the night Jeffrey stepped into the house and took her breath away. And while she wasn’t sure, it seemed to her that, over time, Jeff had given everyone their rightful name just as nonchalantly. Clover, Gypsy, Sunnie, even Noah and Deacon; the names struck her as ones that had been gifted rather than mandated by parents—people that were clearly no longer part of their lives. As far as Avis could make out, Jeffrey’s renaming was as much a convention as Gypsy’s smoke. It was a way to purge the soul of its past life and welcome it into its newfound family. Somehow, “Avis” felt right, like the name she should have had all along. As though, maybe, the fact that she had been born mislabeled had somehow contributed to a less-than-happy life.

Even Maggie noticed a change. “You sound different,” she had said during their phone call the day before. “Did you go back to the beach? You did, didn’t you? You saw that hot Tom Selleck look-alike again.”

If Maggie thought Deacon was good-looking, she had no idea. Next to Jeffrey, Deacon was ordinary, nothing but a guy with shiny mother-of-pearl buttons and a pair of scuffed-up cowboy boots. But Avis held her tongue, keeping her new living situation a secret from the girl who had, up until recently, been her only friend. It was that very evasiveness that had her skittering to the window when a pair of headlights slashed across the window glass.

Jeffrey was sitting on the couch with Clover and Gypsy at his feet when the light cut across the living room wall. They were watching a random TV show Kenzie had found in the TV Guide. Kenzie—the sultan of music—was also the one who picked out the evening’s entertainment. He chose the shows, was in charge of the volume knob, and never once let the TV rest on something as boring as the local news.

For a second, Avis convinced herself of the worst: those headlights probably belonged to her father. In the two years she’d been living on her own, he’d checked up on her only once. But maybe he’d gotten a wild hair. Perhaps something had compelled him to make the drive down from Seattle. And now he’d find a house—his house—full of peace-preaching hippies, the type of people he swore were screwing up the world.

Trying to keep her sudden bout of anxiety under wraps, Avis nudged the window curtain aside, wondering what the hell she’d do if it was her old man. But the whoosh of her pulse settled, if only by a beat, when, instead of her father’s white Cadillac, she spotted Maggie’s old Volvo parked in the driveway.