#duria

Paul took the bus back to Munizza High School so they could take his car instead, and so he wouldn’t be leaving his car in the school parking lot overnight. He had some bottled water in his trunk and he gave one to Daiki. Daiki unscrewed the lid and took a small sip before he tipped the clear plastic bottle back and guzzled the water down. He shoved the bottle into the grocery bag Paul kept as a trash bag hooked over the gear shift. Paul could hear Daiki’s teeth chattering in the freezing car. The air blowing through the vents still took awhile to heat up even after they’d gotten started down the road toward Downtown Xachu.

“I wanna go to this little cinema that shows indie and foreign movies,” mentioned Paul. “I don’t think they’re still showing the Matrix. At the regular theaters, I mean. That one was mind blowing. Did you see it?”

Daiki shook his head. “I don’t go to the movies much.”

“You gotta see it. Rent it or something when it comes out on video.” Paul entered the grid of old streets lined with parked cars.

String lights decorated low brick buildings that had Christmas displays in shop windows. Clusters of people smoked in front of shops or drifted along the steeply inclined sidewalk. Paul drove slowly past compact shop fronts, some in alcoves or under awnings, some boarded up and gone. Tattoo parlor and a smoke shop, restaurants and bars, antiques and boutiques on slow parade as people milled along the sidewalk with buskers and homeless people just trying to exist, until he saw a glowing marquee bordered in neon lights: Bijou Cinema. There wasn’t any parking in the immediate vicinity, so Paul circled around the block and the next block over until he found parking at a meter. Daiki waited while Paul parked by degrees. Cars drove around them.

“Don’t laugh,” muttered Paul. He put his arm behind Daiki’s backrest to peer backwards as he inched toward the car behind them. “Unless you can parallel park.”

“I can’t drive yet,” Daiki replied. “I’m still working on my permit. My mom was kinda concerned about me driving since I went into a coma for no reason.”

“Alright then, don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.”

They got out of the warm car into biting cold and hiked two blocks back to the cinema down the hill. The two kids resisted holding hands and tried to move as if they were just friends. That is, until Daiki noticed an old gay couple emerging from a restaurant, bundled up and casually familiar, wrinkled and gray and beautiful. The two couples met eyes and Paul cautiously allowed Daiki to hold his hand. The older couple smiled warmly at them and whispered together.

A fluttering feeling trembled in Paul’s chest and he got in line for tickets still holding Daiki’s hand. While they stood in line they looked around at the lit up posters on the walls near the doors. The ticket booth stood in the middle with the pavements sloping upward from the street to the two pairs of glass doors. Warm light shone through from inside where more movie posters lined the wall of a cozy lobby with worn red carpet and a small concessions stand. They decided on Run, Lola, Run and moved indoors. Paul eyed concessions and probed through his wallet, remembering that he didn’t get an allowance anymore. He’d just spent the last of his cash and didn’t know when or how he’d acquire more. Daiki pretended not to see the snacks and popcorn machine and pulled Paul over to a podium where an usher waited. The usher tore their tickets, gave them the stubs, and directed them to the theater that would show their movie.

They continued down a ramp into a dimly lit hall until they reached a door with the correct number over it. Inside, small red upholstered seats led in rows down toward the screen with an aisle down the middle. The screen hung over a small stage, indicating that sometimes Bijou Cinema showed live theater productions. Ornate but chipped plaster petals curled up toward cherubs holding lights between curtained intervals along the side walls. Paul found a spot in the middle and pushed the armrest up between his and Daiki’s seat. The butterflies in his stomach flittered and danced about all the worse as he and his boyfriend settled in. The previews played and more people filtered in to settle in around them.

As the lights dimmed and the screen went black, Paul lifted Daiki’s hand and kissed the tips of his fingers. Daiki watched Paul by the light of the white letters appearing on the black screen, Prokino followed by a quote attributed to T. S. Elliot. Paul looked back and smiled warmly, nervous but sweet. Daiki led Paul’s hand to his own mouth and began a demonstration on one of Paul’s fingers. It was too dark to see Paul’s ears turn red. A strange bronze pendulum swung to and fro across the screen as music and a ticking noise rose from the speakers concealed around the edges of the theater. Paul whimpered and sank down further into his seat, reclaiming his hand and turning back to the screen. Daiki grinned and leaned his head on Paul’s shoulder.

The movie threw them into the mouth of a gargoyle holding a clock, and from there Daiki’s attention fixed almost wholly to the screen. Paul’s mind kept straying back to the saliva evaporating off of his finger and the curve of Daiki’s grin. Heat traveled through his arms and face. He looked back and forth between the rough hand-drawn animation in the opening to the flicker of lights over his boyfriend’s glasses. Lola got the call from Manni on the red telephone and Paul, tapping a damp finger against his thigh, let the movie draw him in. An hour and sixteen minutes later, as the credits rolled, he would have ordinarily stayed seated through the credits to listen to the pulse of electronic music. Instead Paul found Daiki’s hand and pulled him along out of the theater.

“How was the money in the bag still a hundred thousand after the guy got himself a suit, a bike, and all those drinks at the sausage place?” Daiki wondered aloud as Paul dragged him into the hall with its thin carpet and illuminated posters.

“It...I don’t know,” breathed Paul. He watched other people filter past them and pulled his boyfriend along a bit farther. “It wouldn’t be, would it? Maybe Manni had some cash on him and made up the difference. I don’t really care.” He found an alcove for the restroom doors where he could push Daiki against a wall and kiss his neck.

Daiki kissed Paul’s cheek and guided him into the men’s room. “Yeah, why ruin a happy ending with too many questions?”

“Exactly,” agreed Paul. “I know the whole reason for the date was, like, to comfort you because you worried about...um. Well. About pressuring me. So this, I just -”

“Am I pressuring you?” Daiki asked and hooked his fingers over Paul’s belt.

Paul shook his head and smiled. “No. Not at all.”

“Alright then.”

---

Winter looked up from the photos Josh had gotten back stacked up in their paper envelope. Her brother walked through the door smiling and flushed, tucked under Paul’s arm. They’d lingered in the car awhile before crossing the front walk to the house. Winter had peeked out the front window at the two of them making out in the car, and now that they stepped through the door she stared at them judgmentally.

“Everyone can see you basically fucking in the car,” Winter told them.

“Oh,” said Paul. He looked away and put a hand to the side of his face, ears burning.

“That wasn’t in the car,” Daiki replied.

“What? Yes it was, I saw you. Everyone can see you.”

Daiki exercised enough will to not explain his joke. “So stop watching.”

“ ‘So stop watching,’ he says. Stop mating every time you get within smooching distance to your boyfriend,” complained Winter. She held up a photo to the light. Most had turned out blurry or focused on the kennel bars instead of the creature inside it, but Winter had found one of the clearer photos.

“What’s that?” asked Daiki.

Paul cleared his throat and drifted further on into the house.

“A demon thing spawned from that doll, the one with Duria in it.” She handed her brother the picture.

He held it carefully by the edges and squinted at large wet eyes and the fleshy barbs above its dark mouth. It had long bristled legs like an insect, mostly blurred from motion, sprawled out from a grayish curled body.

“What the fuck?” said Daiki. He frowned and sat next to his sister to look at the other pictures. “This came out of the doll?”

“Yeah. We tried to trap it in a cage, but the legs were skinny enough to reach right between the bars and open the latch. You should see the video Adam’s editing together from the footage. The doll got seriously gross and messed up and that’s before the head even popped off.”

“The doll was haunted by Duria? You didn’t tell me that was Duria!” He flipped through the photos. “The face is almost sort of human. Sort of. What the fuck.”

“Yeah there was no way I was gonna tell you that. What if you found a way to get her ghost back? I don’t like when you’re possessed and weird; just your regular weird is fine.”

“So now she’s just out in the woods somewhere?” Daiki handed the pictures back but still stared at the topmost photo with a look of concern.

“This thing is. You think that thing is Duria? We tried asking it, but it can’t even talk. It just hisses and crawls around looking freaky as hell.” Winter looked over to see Paul had changed into his pajamas. “Does Sid still bother you sometimes?”

“No, I haven’t seen him.” Daiki pouted. He missed Duria but knew his sister wouldn’t sympathize with that. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. I’m glad you got rid of him, whatever you did.”

Daiki looked quietly down at his hands. “Sure.” A kind of dread churned in his gut and he tried to summon back the weightless euphoria from his date. He thought about a weird creature that might be some weird reincarnation of his friend. Thoughts also crowded in to wonder if Sidney was going to call on him out of the blue and whether he could deter Sid and stay faithful to Paul, or if he’d feel as powerless as he always did and fuck everything up. “Where did you have her caged up?”

“In the woods near Adam’s place. We could show you if you want to come over tomorrow and see the video,” Winter offered.

“Yes. Please.”

---

Trees caught the rain in their leaves and dropped larger dribbles and drops down in scattered showers. Puddles formed between roots and reddish reeds. A rivulet flowed through a pebbly ditch near a thatcher ant mound. From the shadows of the trees, blinking eyes reflected the cool blue of the clouds overhead. A creature the size the raccoon scrabbled in the frigid damp undergrowth, tearing into dandelion leaves and digging the roots out with her claws. She’d done nothing but eat since she’d let herself out of the kennel, eat and grow. Beetles, half-frozen frogs, dandelions, nettles, a hibernating squirrel, whatever she could get her claws on that seemed halfway edible. Snails tasted foul, ants were a bit tangy but not worth the effort, and there just wasn’t very much out here in the winter. At least it hadn’t snowed and she could root around a bit easier. At some point she’d gone back and deigned to eat the dog food Winter had put out for her.

Digging up the dandelion roots brought up grubs and crunchy little rolly pollies. Dirt clung to her teeth and throat. She drank from a puddle then used it to wash her face. A car splashed through another puddle somewhere to her left. Duria followed the direction of the sound and found a bend in a highway. A raccoon had strayed onto the asphalt sometime recently and now its intestines smeared the oily pavement. She scuttled out to the roadkill, sank her teeth into the stiffened furry flesh, and dragged the poor thing off the road. The grub didn’t want to remember the girl she used to be when she tore furry hide aside and ripped off ribbons of meat. Duria scarfed down the meat and did her best to keep her thoughts empty. This wasn’t who she wanted to be, this wasn’t what she’d ever wanted to be. A flashlight lit her up and Duria froze.

“Oh god, is that really her?” Daiki asked.

“That’s the thing,” confirmed his little sister.

No. Not somebody who knew her. Duria hated for him to see her like this. She backed into the ferns, dragging the raccoon with her. She could see him now, in a black raincoat and holding a large flashlight. The boy they’d met as souls together stood a bit behind Daiki under an umbrella, and there was Winter in her green trench coat and a bucket hat.

“Duria?” Daiki called out in a concerned voice.

She remembered having warm skin and soft hair. That alone brought tears to Duria’s eyes. Hearing his voice from the outside felt wrong. It felt like watching a video of herself. She used spidery paws to wipe blood from her face and barbs and sighed from spiracles along her abdomen. Tears flowed freer and faster and she curled up, hiding her face behind her legs.

“Is it crying?” asked Paul. He craned forward to see. “It was eating roadkill.”

Staggered hisses created by the scrape of leg bristles came from the thatch of ferns and reeds. She didn’t have a voice but she could make whispery noises with friction. Duria gnashed her teeth and shuddered where she hid.

“She’s crying,” confirmed Daiki.

“Oh jeez,” said Paul.

Daiki started toward the pathetic, ugly creature. “It’s okay, Duria. How’d you get like this? Is that really you?”

“It got bigger,” remarked Winter.

Her brother found a stick on the ground and reached it toward the shivering larva. Duria caught the stick, bit it, and yanked it away. She held it in her forelegs and scooted forward, then used the end of it to reach toward Daiki’s face. He flinched away, so she held the stick still and waited until he allowed her to put the stick to his face. She traced a line first near Daiki’s ear, then over his cheekbone. He stared at her and she stared back, then she repeated the motion, drawing two short lines on the left side of his face near his temple.

“At the playground,” Daiki remembered. “With the knife.”

Duria tapped the ground with the stick and bobbed up and down.

“What?” asked Paul.

“The day before, no, the same day as when Sid killed her. She cut my face with a knife,” recalled Daiki. “This is her.”

“That’s completely normal and not creepy at all,” remarked Paul.

“She cut you? With a knife?” Winter asked incredulously.

“In a good way!” Daiki replied defensively.

“What’s ‘a good way’ to cut your face with a knife?” asked Paul.

Daiki scoffed and looked back at the weird grub. “It was sexy and cool when she did it. I don’t know how to get you to understand.”

“No, I think I get it. You’re just kinda fucked up like that,” Winter commented.

“Well, not, I mean. Okay, yeah,” admitted Paul reluctantly. “Yeah. Okay.”

Daiki got back to his feet. He watched the creature gnaw on the stick and crouch in a puddle. A moment stretched on with just the pattering rain. A car splashed them as it followed the curve of the bend at fifty miles per hour, headlights illuminating orange triangles set up to warn cars in the night that the highway changed direction.

“I’m going to make her something real to eat and bring it back out here. She shouldn’t be eating roadkill. I don’t know what else I can do for her, but I can cook. And I hate to see her like this,” concluded Daiki. “You got that, Duria? I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”

Duria waved a claw to show she understood. She knew him well enough to know he meant what he said, that he didn’t offer empty promises as comfort. The familiarity made her present situation feel all the more shitty and hope didn’t come easily. She hid under fronds and chewed on the stick until they went away.

---

Paul had a peculiar expression as he sat behind the wheel. Winter sat in the back, Daiki in the front passenger seat. The closest trunks of trees blurred past while the farther trees shifted just a mite slower, creating endlessly changing bar codes out of the light that fell between them.

“What do you do with that? When you know there are ghosts?” Paul asked. He drove a bit faster than he really needed to. “But then, not just that there are ghosts. That children can take the spirit of a dead person, a real person who once lived, and just put them in an object. Then that object, I’m not done, no, that object just ‘spawns’ a monster. A little creepy monster that doesn’t look like any one animal or even faintly human, but like some Heironymus Bosch demon that you might see playing a trumpet with its ass. You sister and her friends did that, somehow. People can just do that. But we don’t see little Boschian demons everywhere, so either they lucked out and happened upon the exact spell that turns a dead person’s soul into a haunted doll then into a catfish spider grub, or I don’t even fucking know. How did this happen? How is this just happening in my life, right now?” Paul demanded. “That used to be a person! Some years and a few incantations ago, but we knew a girl, and now she’s a thing eating roadkill and poking your face with a stick. I didn’t really know her, like I met her, went to school with her, but like, I barely remember her.”

“Stop sign,” said Daiki.

“Shit, yes, stop sign.” Paul slammed on the brakes and everybody in the car flew forward against their seatbelts. “Stop. Sign. Yes.” He took a breath.

“You’re also allowed to go after you stop,” reminded Daiki. “When it’s safe. Which it is.”

“I know! I have my license!” Paul replied.

“We broke him,” commented Winter.

“I’m fine!” Paul argued, unconvincingly. “If monsters and ghosts are real, why not mermaids? Dragons?” He looked around the intersection then cautiously pulled forward. “Do you think elves are little and dorky or tall and pretty? Or maybe they look like freaky demons, too. That’s a possibility. Apparently.”

“When you die I could put you in a Barbie,” offered Winter. She grinned.

Paul looked at her in the rear view mirror then looked at the road. He heaved a sigh heavy with stress and fury. “Why a Barbie?”

“Because it’s funny,” she replied.

“Why did you make a haunted doll in the first place? Was that supposed to lead to good things? What if she ended up getting a kitchen knife and killing people?” Paul asked.

Winter shrugged. “I didn’t think it would really work. Besides, better that she’s in a doll than in my brother. Do you know how creepy it is when somebody you love turns into somebody else?”

Daiki looked over his shoulder at her then looked out his window at the trees.

“My grandparents didn’t turn out to be who I thought they were,” muttered Paul.

“Okay, cool. What does that have to do with ghosts?” Winter asked.

Paul glared ahead at a road sign warning drivers not to “drug and drive,” with a presumably dead person’s name listed beneath. A cross decked with a wreath a short distance from the sign also marked the site of that person’s death. “Nothing,” said Paul.

“We weren’t hurting anybody,” said Daiki angrily. “We were happy. I love her, and I loved being her.”

“Yeah well I love you!” snapped Winter, rising against her seatbelt and grabbing the corner of Daiki’s seat. “Not her! Not you mixed with her!” She sat back down and hugged one of her knees to her chest. “I’m sorry she’s a Bosch thing, though. I didn’t think that would happen. I didn’t even think the spells would work. I’m sorry.”

Daiki sighed. After a few seconds he said, “Thank you.”

---

Back at the house, while Daiki darted about the kitchen with a kind of tunnel vision honed in on his task, Paul stayed out from underfoot. Winter grabbed the phone and went to her room to call a friend. Rei had been reading a book in the warm light of a lamp, but put a receipt between the pages and set it down when Daiki, Winter, and Paul came home.

“I see you’re all back,” said Rei. She got up and came over to sit next to Paul on the couch. “Where did you go?”

Paul hesitated.

She patted his arm. “While you fabricate a mom-friendly story about where you’ve been with my son, how about you put that on hold, actually. I was making small talk. There’s something we do need to talk about.”

“Oh, um, okay.”

She leaned her elbows on her knees and wove her fingers together. “So I can’t help but notice lately that you’ve moved in. Do you have any plans for independence? Where you’ll go from here and how you’ll get there?” Rei asked gently. She looked into his freckled face and tilted her head.

“I, um. Well…” Paul took a deep breath. “I’ve been working on college applications at school. So, I’m thinking maybe I’ll get into a dorm and I’ll move out when I go to college?”

Rei nodded. “I see. So, we’re just now getting into December. You moved in on November eleventh, out of necessity. The new school year at college will be in September of next year. So that’s…” She counted out months under her breath. “Or I could do it by numbers. September is the ninth month so ten months from now. Right. So your plan is to live in my house, in my son’s room, for most of a year. Do you have a Plan B?”

Paul shrank in on himself and toyed his fingers together in his lap. “Right. I guess I better get a job and, uh, find...an apartment?”

“Right, so when you sign a lease that is usually for a year. So you would need to break the lease to – Paul, honey? I’m not scolding you. I like you. I just want you to grow up, and I want to help you do that. I am trying to help you.” She put a hand on his shoulder and leaned forward to try to catch eye contact. “You’re trembling, Honey. Stop holding your breath.”

“Sorry,” managed Paul. He sat up with effort and tried to still his hands on his knees. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know anything about, um, I mean I’m not stupid -”

“Just a bit spoiled. I know.”

He frowned and looked a bit offended. “Oh.”

“There’s a laundry list of things I could go over about that, but let’s stay focused.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I heard you, I know. Thank you. I appreciate that you’re sorry, but I need you to work with me here and find a solution, not just apologize. You’ve apologized, I’ve accepted your apology, so let’s move on now. Breathe, Honey. Paul.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get you started on a resume. Come on, let’s go to my office and you can use my computer.” Rei got up and waited while Paul slowly got to his feet.

“I don’t know what I’ll put on it. I haven’t had a job and I haven’t even graduated yet so, um. I don’t know.” He followed her through the living room and into a small bedroom Rei had converted into a home library and office. It had bookshelves, some old art supplies, a paper cutter, and a heavy steel desk with a desktop computer upon it between stacks of paper, binders, and envelopes.

“What’s your job?” asked Paul.

“I’m an orthodontist,” replied Rei. She woke her computer up from its screensaver of branching pipes by moving the mouse.

The office chair squeaked when Paul sat in it. There was a smooth plastic mat underneath the wheels so it could roll around easier than on the carpet. Paul took the mouse and opened a new, blank document.

“Is Cooper your maiden name?” Paul asked.

“No. I remarried after the divorce from Daiki’s dad, and then didn’t want to go through the whole hassle of a name change again after I divorced again,” explained Rei. “Name changes are a royal pain in the ass. I mean it’s a bit easier with marriage or divorce paperwork, but there’s still getting a new social security card, a new driver’s license, getting it changed at the bank, and so on and so forth.”

“You -”

“So after my first husband took the kids after having a baby with Sarah, I was having a hard time of it and just sort of fell into another marriage. Things can kind of just happen when you’re depressed and vulnerable, y’know? It was stupid. But I came to my senses eventually and divorced again (much, much easier without custody battles), and now I am wholly done with that bullshit. And now I have my kids, and Sarah’s kid, and then now you as well, bless your heart.” Rei smiled a crooked smile and tossed her long hair behind her shoulder with a flick of her hand.

“Oh, wow.” Paul looked up at her, stunned.

“Let me get another chair so I’m not just hovering over you.” She left the room and came back with one of the chairs from the dining room set: a narrow wooden chair with a green cushion. Rei set it perpendicular to the office chair and landed heavily into the seat, setting an elbow on the desk. “Alright!”

“Alright,” echoed Paul.

Rei leaned in and got Paul started on a resume, talking over possible part time jobs, expanding his resume with volunteer work, and so on. Daiki walked in with a confused expression awhile later.

“I made cornbread and chili,” mentioned Daiki.

“Ooh, lovely! I didn’t realize you were making dinner,” said Rei.

“No, it’s for my friend in the woods. I mean, it doesn’t all have to be. There’s enough for everybody I guess, but she’s waiting and I said I’d be back in an hour,” Daiki explained.

Rei’s face fell slightly. “Did you make a homeless friend?”

“Uh...yes. Yeah, that’s technically true,” Daiki confirmed. “But, uh, can I have my boyfriend back so he can drive me back out there?”

That weekend, Adam brought the camcorder into the garage and trained it on the doll. He noticed its skin had gone from gray-beige to green mottled with black, and the dress had pale brown watery stains. The garage stank of rotting meat. He adjusted the tripod to an appropriate height, checked the charge of the battery, and focused the lens before allowing himself to be concerned about the horrible stink. First Adam checked the recycling bins to see if somebody threw garbage in with the aluminum cans or glass bottles and jars, but the smell didn’t rise from the bins.

Adam followed the stench instead to the doll, and saw the sticky sheen of meat juices on the plastic limbs, dribbled from the eye sockets, and soaked into the dress. A fly crawled out from under the skirt and buzzed up into the air before circling back around to land on one of the doll’s pigtails. Where the hair plugged into the plastic scalp, ichor had bled out of the holes and gunked up the roots of the shiny brown hair. Adam stepped closer with his hand over his nose and peered closer at the doll without touching it. He saw maggots spilling out of a hole in the doll’s back, crumbs of gray-green rotting meat, and an impression of writhing within.

“Daria?” he whispered through his fingers, keeping his hand clenched fast over his mouth and nose. “You did all this?”

The doll didn’t respond. He began to worry about what his mom would say when she found this disgusting thing in her garage. Adam left the camcorder recording and left to get dish gloves and a garbage bag with plans to move the operation to the woods where it wouldn’t stink up his home. On the way to the kitchen he stopped and went to the phone instead. He plucked the phone off its cradle on the wall and dialed his friend’s number.

“Hi, can I talk to Winter?” Adam asked.

“Who is this?” asked Daiki.

“Adam.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure. Hold on.” Daiki set the phone down.

Almost a minute later, Winter picked up. “Adam?”

“The doll changed!” he told her.

“What did it do?” she asked.

“It’s got maggots and flies and meat! It’s rotting! I don’t know how or when but it’s real, I swear. I gotta get it out of my garage.”

“Good thing you didn’t keep her in your room,” commented Winter.

“No kidding. I want to move it to the woods, but it might get stolen by a coyote or a bear or something now that it’s got meat.”

“Maybe tie her down or put her in, like, a cage?” suggested Winter.

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Do you have a cage? We have a cat carrier, but it’s hard plastic on the outside and we wouldn’t be able to film the doll once it was inside. We have to do something before my parents find it because they’ll just throw it away.”

“My grandpa had a wire cage he used to trap squirrels. He used to trap them with peanut butter on crackers then release them at the park,” said Winter. “I’ll ask Rei if we still have that, or something like that, and see if I can come over. Are you filming her now?”

“I am. Of course. This is wicked. Gross, but wicked.”

“Sweet. I’ll call you back.”

After they hung up, Adam found a pair of yellow dishwashing gloves in the kitchen hanging near the sink and a black garbage bag from under the sink. He put the gloves on and ran back over to the garage. When he got inside, he stopped and froze in place. The doll was twitching and rocking. Flies buzzed in a whirling cloud over the doll’s head and more maggots spilled out onto the crate from the doll’s back. The neck split apart and the head pushed up and to one side as something began to crawl out from between the doll’s shoulders. Adam backed up and grimaced, watching transfixed. The head tumbled off, bounced off the edge of the crate, and fell to the floor. Lanks of hair fell out of the holes in the scalp while crumbs of grayed fuzzy meat and squirming maggots tumbled from the neck hole as the head rolled across the floor.

Out of the splitting, bulging neck a kind of new head shoved itself through and opened a maw of shiny black teeth. Catfish barbs stretched out from either side of a snuffling little knob of a nose and watery silver-blue eyes bugged out. A mottled fish-white face about the size of an apple looked back at Adam. The plastic arms in turn popped off and four long, spindly arms covered in moth-wing scales stretched out from the holes and gripped the edge of the crate. Still wearing the doll, the creature crawled forward, spilling maggots along the way as it threw itself down to the floor. The plastic torso split open upon impact and a chubby creature bodily wriggled forth. At first the dirty red dress clung to the creature, but it peeled the cloth off with the ripping of velcro and cotton and tossed it aside. Behind the shoulders of slender arms ending in small, sharp claws, a shrimp-like body curled around itself, fuzzy underneath and plated above, ending in a hard chitin fin. Adam moved forward and popped the camcorder off the tripod so he could point it down at the floor.

“That’s so gross!” Adam commented in awe, then added, “Diabolical.” He checked to make sure he was still recording. “Good, good,” he muttered.

The creature grinned up at Adam with her broad mouth of sharp black teeth, then scuttled under the shelving unit into hiding. The boy knelt down and aimed the camcorder into the shadows, but the camera didn’t pick out any details out of the darkness. He panned the camera over the broken pieces of the doll and the ripped dress, then tried to get a good view under the shelves again without getting too close. Minutes passed and he couldn’t see anything, so he put the camcorder back on the tripod, angled it down, and got a broom to clean up the maggots and broken pieces of discolored plastic. While cleaning, Adam noticed a bulky red flashlight with a handle and fetched it down from the camping supplies. He turned it on and aimed it under the shelving unit. All he could see was dead bugs, spider webs, and dust. The phone in the house rang. Adam set the flashlight down and went inside.

“All I found was -” Winter started to saw when he picked up the phone, but Adam cut her off to tell her, “It got away.”

“The doll got away?” she asked. “It can move now?”

“No, something hatched out of the doll like an egg. Some kind of monster. Just burst out! It was crazy! I got it on tape. You gotta see it!” raved Adam.

“No way.”

“But it crawled off in my garage and I can’t find it anymore. I don’t know how it managed to hide; the thing was like almost a foot long. It was some kind of monster, or a demon!” He paused and looked back at the garage door apprehensively. “I don’t think I can sleep until we find it. That thing was super freaky. That squirrel trap would be perfect.”

“We don’t have my grandpa’s squirrel trap,” said Winter.

“No? Dammit!”

“I guess we didn’t keep it after he died. That’s wild though. I never ever heard of a haunted doll hatching monsters before.”

“Me neither! It doesn’t say anything about that in the book,” said Adam. “Are you coming over?”

“Of course!”

---

The amalgam of Duria and the parasitic wasp hound larva clung to the back of a box of barbecue equipment. It trembled and turned its watery eyes to look around in the dim shadows behind the shelves in Adam’s garage, then found a nook between boxes to stop and groom itself. It no longer smelled the atrocious stink of rot that clung to its carapace, though it did not care for feeling so sticky and gross. For the moment it just found and snacked on maggots and bits of gray meat from inner elbows and the fuzz on the underside of its body. It could hear Adam sweeping up the broken doll a few feet away. The pieces clattered from the dust pan into a garbage bag which he then tied off and stuffed into one of the bins. Duria crept along between the shelf and the wall, moving through dusty spider webs and scraping its back against the wall, moving closer to the door. Adam heard the scraping and looked up. He peered between boxes and caught sight of one of Duria’s legs where its foot hooked around a part of the shelving unit. The boy shuddered and backed off a step, then turned as he heard the doorbell ring. Duria tried to get closer to the door to the house but didn’t make it in time before Adam shut the door behind him.

A minute later Winter and Adam returned to the garage.

“Ewww it smells rank in here,” Winter complained and closed her hand over her nose.

“I cleaned up the mess. It’s probably the thing that stinks,” speculated Adam.

“Did you just put the bag in there?” she asked and pointed to one of the bins.

“Yeah.”

“Throw it out outside.”

“Oh. Okay.” Adam dug the trash bag out of the bin and carried it with him back into the house to take out to the outdoor bins.

While he was gone, Winter looked around curiously. She heard something move and saw the shape through a gap between two crates. A small pale face looked out at her and hissed. Winter shrieked and ran out of the garage. Duria crawled out from behind the shelves, reached up, and tried its claws at turning the doorknob. To its delight, if it stood up on the rear claws, leaned itself against the door, and reached up, it could wrap the padded claws at the end of its forelegs around the knob and twist it. The door fell open and Duria scuttled into the house. It found itself in a living room, two closed doors in an alcove to its right, the front door to its left, and an open plan living room that led right into the kitchen ahead of it.

“There it is!” Adam cried out. He’d just come in from the sliding doors on the other end of the house.

Duria hissed again and crawled behind the couch.

“It stinks!” commented Winter. “It’s so weird! Gross!”

“We gotta capture it.”

“I’m not going near it.”

They heard the creature chittering behind the couch and its long jointed legs scrabbling against the wall.

“If it climbs up the wall like a spider I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I will kill that thing,” threatened Winter.

“Don’t kill it!” Adam pleaded. He hadn’t put the broom away yet so he grabbed that, then searched around until he found a hard plastic box full of legos. “Here, we’ll trap it in this and keep it alive and take pictures of it.” The box was about two by three feet and about a foot and a half deep. It could definitely hold Duria, but it would not be comfortable quarters for any length of time.

“How will it breathe?” Winter asked.

“You were saying you were going to kill it a second ago.”

“Yeah but if we’re going to keep it alive, let’s keep it alive, not suffocate it.”

Adam thought for a minute as he peered behind the couch. He could see the dark shrimp-like shape and could just make out its buggy weird face. “So is that Daria now?”

Winter snorted. “Duria was human. That’s a creepy little monster thing.”

“But if it has her soul in it, isn’t it still her?”

She shrugged. Winter crouched beside Adam to watch the creature pace restlessly in its hiding place. “We need like a dog kennel or something. A wire cage. I could use nails to poke holes in the box so it, er, so she doesn’t suffocate, and then we can ask Josh if he has a kennel. He’s got dogs.”

“Ooh, right. I’ll call him.”

“Duria?” Winter called out. “Duria, is that you?”

Duria chattered her teeth and hissed. It looked back at Winter and scowled. Adam looked through his address book and found Josh’s name, number, and address.

“So you filmed the whole thing?” Winter asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. Let’s get her or it or whatever into the box before we watch it, okay? I don’t like it just hanging out in my house.”

“Of course,” agreed Winter. “Duria? Did you turn into a bug?”

When Duria tried to speak, air emerged from spiracles instead of its mouth and it just managed another hiss. It scratched at the back of the couch then curled up and turned away. Adam spoke to Josh’s mother on the phone while Winter sat and watched the creature to make sure it didn’t slip away. Adam hadn’t put the broom and dustpan away yet, so to make herself feel better Winter laid the broom handle across her lap. After Adam hung up, he and Winter coordinated to herd Duria out from behind the couch with the broom, catch it with hands protected by oven mitts, and shove it into the box. Only after they shut the box did they remember Adam’s plan to punch holes in the lid with nails, so Duria watched from inside the cloudy semi-transparent white box as Adam used a hammer to plunge nails through the thick plastic.

The chemical smell of plastic fumes clouded in on all sides. Duria groomed its belly fur and under its tail fin, finding bits of meat to snack on. The box moved and cold fresh air seeped through the nail holes above Duria. Adam and Winter had carried the box out into the woods near his house. Frost covered the ground and dry brush grew between sparse narrow trees. Some time later, the kids transferred the creature to a large wire kennel that smelled strongly of dog. Josh rested his hands on his knees and let out a low whistle in appreciation then took out a disposable camera and began snapping pictures. Duria bared its teeth and climbed the wire grid, hanging tenuously upside down then lowering itself down and huddling in a corner. Winter opened the hatch to put in a bowl of water and a bowl of dog food as Adam set up his camcorder on the tripod. After a few minutes of hanging out looking at it, the kids wandered back to Adam’s house and left Duria out in the woods.

Paul sipped some tomato juice from a tall glass and toyed with his hemp choker while he stood idly in the hallway. He watched Adam and Winter set up the doll at the end of the hall outside the bedrooms on a wooden chair, with the camcorder on a tripod fixed toward the doll.

“Have you heard of the whole Y2K thing?” Paul asked.

“Yeah,” confirmed Adam. He stood back from the camcorder and pursed his lips.

“What do you think is going to happen?”

“I think all the computers are going to die. And then we’ll just turn them back on again because they’re just machines, and it will be fine,” speculated Adam.

Paul nodded and finished his juice.

Adam continued, “But before they all get turned on again, the gap in radio interference will allow a time traveler to get through. And they’ll warn us about, oh, I don’t know. Plague or aliens or something. But only a fringe group with no influence will believe them, and the warning won’t lead to any meaningful changes. And the time traveler will be stuck here with the small cult that forms around the warning and they’ll do the whole kool-aid thing and that will ultimately accelerate the plague the traveler warned about, and half the world population will die.”

“Really?” Paul asked, amused.

“I don’t know. I just made all that up. But it could happen,” replied Adam.

Paul nodded. “Yeah, maybe. You’re probably right.”

“I hope not.”

After a minute, Paul asked, “You know that ghost is real, right? A girl your age died and now you put her into a plastic doll? How would you like to be stuck in a doll when you die?”

“I think it would be sick as fuck to be stuck in a doll after I die,” Adam replied. “But I’ll let her go. I just want to see what happens.”

---

For hours she had filled the plastic as a pool of trapped spirit, stagnant and curdling. With some effort Duria could rotate the glass eyes in their hinged metal casing again. Her presence had started to discolor the inside of the plastic to a washed out salty gray, and a mottled bleed of that seeped through the thin shell into grayed lividity mottling the lower portions of the pseudo limbs and frame.

In her pickled fury, Duria sank back into a familiar cavern. Whispers echoed into hushed nonsense within the dripping walls. Creatures crept just out of sight; sightless fish darted about puddles and ponds. Blue as ocean depths, with long black hair in a shaggy mane behind pointed ears and a birdlike face, the small goblin woman stood only a couple feet high but had condensed, thick proportions. Rub had dressed herself in scraps of dark fabric sequined with pinecone scales and beetle shells. She had sharp eyes under heavy eyebrows, and a corvid’s profile. From what she could see, a glimmer of light reflected off of a puddle teaming with tiny white fish onto a pale cavern wall with contours of melted wax. The spun silver light wavered in the indistinct shape of a sulking maiden with dark eyes and long flowing hair. Rub sat herself on an outcrop of rock marbled with mildew and kicked her feet over the pond. Her pupils had maxed out so she could see perfectly well that there was no light source to reflect off of the silty surface of the puddle.

Echoes whispered, “I had a real body. A real body. We were him together. Give it back.”

“Nae doin,” Rub replied to the damp air. Her voice matched her profile: a raven’s raspy articulation.

“We did everything together. Years. Every. Second. For years. Give it back,” the whisper added resentfully.

“All things gether, eh?” Rub asked. “No per-snail space? Gross. Yer beau broke off, did he? I’d snap off too ta gimme summa that breathe-room. Nunna that join-at-the-hip bullshit.” She bent forward and snatched a fish out of the puddle with her little hand, then tossed it in the air and caught it in her beak. “Snacky.”

The splash scattered the reflection into resentful distorted faces on all nearby walls and the low, spiked ceiling then settled back to the same surface as before. Now the maiden stood on her feet with head tilted. Her hair fell over her uncertain shape and she lifted a hand to push her hair out of her face. “Where is the beast?” she asked.

“I dunno. I’m here alone wi’ ees fishies n bats n grubs,” listed off Rub. “And yous.”

“A real body. We were him. Together. Give it back. I’m not a doll.”

“If yer not, how’s that pullstring making you pete’n’repeat over again?” Rub teased. She stretched her limbs and took in a deep breath of the dank spore-filled air. “Did yer together self have a name?”

When Duria didn’t reply, Rub said, “I don’t go stealing names as some fae doing. Just chewin fats wi’ ya, glitters.”

“What’s a fae?”

Rub grimaced. “Fer fuck’s sake. Fairies? Naiads? Goblins? Ya hear any beddy-by stories when yous wick?”

“I did.” Duria went silent for a few beats. “Why are you in the underworld?”

“Ees sorta goblin thing. Hobs do houses, naiads do the wet. Somebody gotta dredge in the decay unner soil,” explained Rub.

“I had a real body,” the maiden began again.

Rub hopped down from the rock, splashed through the puddle, and continued on through the low, pinching passage carved by water through stone. “Lemme know when you got that sorted. Catch you later, puddle ghost.”

The light scattered into dancing facets before disappearing. Rub’s calloused fingers and bare feet felt their way through a cave now in complete darkness. The close tunnels and pitch dark held their own comforts; she could neither see nor be seen. Around the corner, phosphorescent fungi jeweled the low ceiling in pale blue. Rub picked a fish bone out from between her teeth and flicked the bone fragment into the dark.

The sound of running water and traces of starlight guided the goblin to a grotto where melted glacier pools kept glass bottles frigid under a pattering waterfall. Bats chased moths out past the arched roots of trees gripping the wet stones. Rub lifted out a dark green bottle and uncorked it to toss back a burning cold swig of heady mead. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and, noticing a friend, held out the bottle to a goblin with soft, dumpy features and elbow antennae enjoying the breeze on a root under the sky. Muk grunted gratefully and accepted the bottle in both hands. They tipped it back gently toward their own tusked snout and took a long, thoughtful sip before passing it back.

---

The words curdled inside and Daiki could not will them to vocalize, so he flipped open a journal to a blank page and wrote:

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I miss being able to talk clearly and smile and it feels like part of me is missing and broken when she is not part of me anymore. Without her I must be so boring. I want to join into conversations and show my emotions on my face. It is so pathetic that I am more alive when something dead is possessing my body.

Pretty sure my mom is a bit tired of you staying over all the time. When I’m alone I just want to find you again and even if I am just silently leaning on you and we’re not doing anything special it’s really nice.

But it’s probably dull for you when I am just sitting next to you drawing or some shit like that. I look like I’m just absorbed into my own little thing but I like having you there. You’re so graceful and beautiful and I love the sound of your voice and every detail about you.

When you go to college I’m still going to be in high school. What are we going to do? You don’t have to stick around close by just for me. I don’t want you to go to some shitty college just to be where I can see you every day. I’m not worth it, believe me. That sounds so manipulative like I am trying to make you feel guilty but I’m not. I’m sorry I’m sorry. I mean it.

You’ll meet somebody who you can really talk to who isn’t just some horny pathetic loser and you’ll be happier, and I want you to be happy. So it’s okay. But I’m not breaking up with you. Fuck. I don’t know what I meant to write. I love you.

Daiki read back over the few pages he had filled, tore them out of the spiral-bound journal, then crumpled them up and ate them.

Rumors and dick scribbles covered the inside of the stall and piss puddled on the toilet seat. The partitions were yellow, with a bent metal lock on the door that the janitor had replaced more than once, leaving small holes where the screws had held on prior latches. Calvin gathered a wad of flimsy one-ply toilet paper and wiped the seat off so he could sit down. The chains hanging from loops on his baggy black pants clattered against the extra zippers as he undid the rhinestone belt and dropped his pants to his ankles. The cuffs of his hoodie had holes he’d cut to slip over his thumbs, so he unhooked the cuffs and rolled his sleeves halfway up his forearms to wipe in front without getting his shirt dirty.

Calvin heard the door to the boy’s room open and shut as he stood up to redo his fly, fasten his belt, and flush. He tried not to draw attention to himself when he emerged from the stall to wash his hands. The teachers still made him use the girl’s locker room for gym and he felt pretty sure he’d get in trouble for using the boy’s bathroom if anybody brought attention to it.

Stepping up to the counter of sinks on one wall, he turned the water on and glanced in the mirror. The glance turned into a stare. She had gotten older along with him, and had the same figure he hid under a binder and baggy clothes. Even from behind he could recognize his twin using one of the urinals. Multiple aspects of that confused him. There she was, long, messy brown hair in a low ponytail, wearing a black mesh shirt over a black tank top, faded black jeans with a wallet chain and leather belt, belt currently undone to take a piss. Calvin snuck a look over his shoulder and saw instead some kid with a film of short stubble over his scalp, glasses resting on his ears, bangs falling over his eyes. Skinny, none of Duria’s curves, but still somewhat familiar.

Calvin looked back to the mirror and pressed his thumb to the button on the soap dispenser, squeezing out a small puddle of orange soap into his palm. In the mirror he still saw his sister: the little notch in the top curve of her ear, not a scar but part of the cartilage. Their mom had joked that it matched up with a bump in Calvin’s ear, like they’d come from an assembly line and snapped apart at the ears. The constellation of moles and freckles on the back of her neck, and how the baby hairs curled in a delicate frizz. And new details, like how her hips filled out and her waist thickened, accentuated by the stretch of mesh across her middle. The splash and patter on the urinal stopped and she shook out droplets before putting away what shouldn’t be there.

“What the fuck,” Calvin muttered.

Daiki opted to ignore him since he didn’t want to talk to anybody in his present situation. That hadn’t sounded like a high school boy’s voice to him, though, so when he zipped up he stole a look at who washed his hands behind him.

“Oh,” said Daiki. That tracked. He remembered the name Duria had heard from the Saturnine Beast for who his, no, her twin had become. He also remembered asking if Calvin had named himself after Duria’s broken face. A sympathetic crunch of ice under his skin made him clench his teeth remembering pain he’d never felt, the taste of blood in his mouth, loose teeth, mangled flesh. Daiki took a deep breath and his face went numb then returned to normal. He could almost still taste the blood.

Calvin rinsed his hands and kept his head down. After a moment’s hesitation, Daiki stepped up to the other sink and pushed his mesh sleeves up his wrists to wash his hands. Many boys would skip this step after just a piss, but ghost possession by a girl had unusual side effects sometimes. Their reflections met eyes despite neither particularly wanting social interaction in the boy’s room. Calvin had a look like Daiki had committed some faux pas or left his fly wide open. Daiki looked down and confirmed he’d done up his fly and buckled his belt. He recalled their last interaction.

“I’m not going to try to kiss you again,” Daiki assured Calvin.

Calvin’s already hostile glare focused further.

Daiki cringed. “Never mind.”

“What does she even have to do with you? Why do I see her now?” Calvin growled and snatched up the front of Daiki’s shirt. “Give her back, slimy little cocksucker.” A cold breath of air like an opened window bit right through the thin cotton of his hoodie and all the layers beneath. He shivered and dropped Daiki, who fell rag doll limp to the floor and smacked his face on the gross tile. A prickly, clammy cold washed over Calvin’s skin and he spasmed, breathless for almost a minute. He stepped over the body on the floor and felt along the walls, trying to steady himself. His head swam and he felt queasy, head too loud.

“Because he is one!” Calvin replied to the air. “Fuck. No, I don’t give a shit.” Instead of returning to class, Calvin staggered drunkenly through a nearly empty hallway, leaning a hand against the lockers. “You’ve changed,” he muttered, and slipped out one of the side doors of the high school, almost tripping over his feet on the pebbly paved path. His hands found the painted steel railing as he reeled. The campus shifted in front of his eyes: hilly lawns of dead grass, single-storey brick buildings, and decorative boulders. The bell tower with a low bench encircling the base, bell long gone. The air smelled of rain and cigarette smoke. To his left trees grew on a hill over the athletic fields and stairs led down to the gym. In front of him stood the assembly hall with it’s multiple double doors and wide patio. To his right, paths led to the offices and cafeteria, with more classrooms beyond that, arranged in three long parallel buildings with classroom doors leading into outdoor halls broken up by courtyards with vending machines and wooden benches.

A tangle of memories from two different souls rose up around the school. That one kid who played violin in the halls. Trying to hold hands with Audrey, but her jerking her hand away and giving Calvin a strange look. Friends passing around a small, abridged Kama Sutra while sitting on the bench by the bell tower and Daiki smirking at the illustrations. Hyun giving Calvin a piggy back ride and running down the corridor one time between classes. Audrey helping Paul with his Spanish homework and giving him dreamy looks. Calvin trying to figure out which one he felt jealous of and realizing he felt a bit more into Paul than Audrey. That girl he met freshman year, skinny as a whippet and disturbed in a way he found hot and scary. How he hadn’t seen her since freshman year. The missing posters that showed her smiling even though she never smiled, only smirked.

“Shit, the basement!” Calvin remembered. “We never found somebody to unlock the basement.” He tread carefully down the stairs one step at a time. “Is it the missing girl? What missing girl? My friend. She.” Calvin leaned over the rail and hurled. It was Sid’s back with the eggs in it. It made Calvin’s skin crawl and itch. “We need to get her. Or whoever is down there. Get Hyun, and Paul, and...find...They’re in class. Duh.” He didn’t feel like he could go back to class even to pass time until his friends could come with him. Paul could drive them there. They’d need a crow bar, and Hyun’s rifle, a couple baseball bats because they didn’t all have rifles, and flashlights. What if they got caught? Which would be worse, Scott or the police?

In the whirling tides of thoughts and memories that collided in Calvin’s mind, he realized Duria hadn’t come alone. She’d gotten too enmeshed with Daiki to exorcise cleanly away from him, even when Calvin dragged her back. He needed to make sure Daiki’s body still breathed.

“No! Fuck you,” Calvin retorted. “I don’t care what happens to that creep. I’m not going back for him. You. Can’t. Make me. Do. Anything.” He sat on the steps and held his head. He’d need to hide before a teacher found him. One of the souls got Calvin up on his feet again. He crept around to the far side of the gym into the trees where the PE teacher made them take their nature hikes. A couple kids smoked at the bottom of the steep hill. Calvin sat on a log and rested his head on his knees, rocking slightly as he tried to tether together a coherent enough self. Too many souls.

---

“Uh, no,” replied Hyun. “I’m not taking my rifle into hobo central to break into some building.” He sat in his room with his friends, tapping his thumbs rapidly over the controller in his hands, face reflecting the pale light from the television screen. His friend looked ill.

Calvin sat on Hyun’s bed and held his head in his hands, short brown hair already askew from running his sweaty fingers through it. Not ill, crazed. The boy breathed too fast. He’d had to step into the bathroom to take off his binder before he’d pass out.

Hyun sat on the beanbag chair, a bulky lad with an oval face and short, black hair. He was in the Jr. ROTC program, a “pickle,” and enjoyed basketball and hunting. He wore desert camouflage cargo pants and a long-sleeved raglan tee, brick red. Paul sat with his legs crossed, leaning back on his palms and looking with distant concern at Calvin’s apparent mental breakdown. Paul had blossomed through his growth spurts into a slim, elegant young man with medium-length brown-black hair and light brown skin. He was on the school wrestling team and excelled in the pottery class. Paul wore a brown t-shirt with a colorful surfboard screen print, a dragon pendant and a shell necklace, blue jeans, subtle eyeliner, and lip gloss.

“Baseball bats, and a crowbar, and a gun, and we bust in and break her out of there. I’m trying to remember. How to. Get to.” Calvin repeated and hit the side of his head. “If there’s a her. There was somebody in there. Gotta be.”

“Who are you proposing we rescue Rambo style?” asked Paul, leaning forward to get a clearer view of Calvin’s haunted expression.

“Gotta be Bev. Girl who went missing two years ago. But they never found her body or anything, like they did with my sister. Bevie. You remember Bevie?” Calvin replied and scratched at his wrist, trying and failing to stop rocking.

“No, I never met Bevie. I heard of her, though,” replied Paul. “You think you found her?”

“They did. We. They.”

“She’s seriously weirding me out,” complained Hyun.

“He,” corrected Paul. Hyun ignored him.

“We didn’t actually see her, though. She. My s- I. I didn’t see her, I just heard her. Other side of the locked door under Scott’s place. It’s not really his place. It’s enough his. You know what I mean. Somebody is down there. Guy called it a dungeon.”

“Sounds absolutely real and not at all dreamed up from, what, meth?” Paul remarked then asked, “What the hell are you on?”

“Ghosts,” Calvin whispered.

“Get her to leave,” Hyun told Paul. “I don’t want this kinda shit going on in my room.”

“Yeah, because bringing him out where other people can see him freaking out is way better,” retorted Paul. “He’s never like this. Something is wrong.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Come on, dude. Put the game down and actually look at Cal. Have you ever seen him like this? When he’s high he’s just really chill and giggly, and beer didn’t do this to him either.”

“I don’t care what it is,” complained Hyun. “She’s wigging out and it’s my room so I can kick out whoever I want.”

“Fine, but you’re being an ass. Come on, Cal.” Paul got up and gently helped Calvin to his feet. “Let’s get you some water and a snack, alright? We’ll come down from ‘ghosts’ together.”

Hyun called Paul a slur under his breath and leaned in closer to the screen, relieved when his friends closed the door behind them on their way out.

“I’m not tweaking,” protested Calvin irritably. He bumped up against the banister, then just leaned there, scratching at his elbows and staring at the floor.

Paul gave him a gentle smile and patted his shoulder. “Of course not.”

“Fuck. My body is still there. Just left me on the floor there. Fuck,” cursed Calvin.

His friend put an arm around his shoulder and guided him down the stairs. “Let’s get you a tall glass of water, or juice, or I could make you some tea. You can have a PB&J and sit down for awhile in the dining room. Oh look! There’s Snickle. Maybe the cat will -”

The cream point Burmese fixed his blue-eyed stare at Calvin. Snickle’s hackles rose and he let out a low warning growl.

“I’ve never seen him do that before,” remarked Paul.

“It’s okay, Snickle, there’s just more of us,” Calvin assured.

The cat streaked off down the stairs, made a few laps between the laundry room and the front foyer, then hid behind the curtains where he began to wail piteously. Paul gave the curtain a puzzled look as he brought Calvin to the dining room. He sat Calvin down at farmhouse style wooden table half covered in stacks of paperwork and mail. A lazy susan sat in the middle and held the salt, pepper, napkins, and hot sauce. Calvin sat in the wooden chair and fiddled with the edge of a woven grass placemat. Snickle’s paws thundered on the carpet as he rocketed off to a new hiding place.

“So what can I get you?” Paul offered.

“T-jui-ea, tea, I want tea,” decided Calvin. “Juice is good. What kind of juice?”

Paul’s brow furrowed but he looked in the fridge. “Orange.”

“Tea. Black tea, no sugar or milk. I could make it,” Calvin replied.

“No, you just sit there. You’ve got ghosts, remember?”

“Right.”

Paul fetched down a mug and a box of assorted tea bags. “Earl Grey or English Breakfast or Orange Spice?” He listed as his fingers danced across the top of the assortment.

“Earl Grey.”

“I’ll have it to you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” Paul’s grandparents had raised him and it showed sometimes. “Tell me about the ghosts.”

“I’m not a ghost if I’m still alive. She’s dead, but I have a live body to get back to. At least I hope I do. If my body died because he stole my soul, I am going to be so fucking pissed,” Calvin explained in a deeper voice than usual. It wasn’t supernaturally deep, just a different way of framing his tone using the same vocal chords as before. He then switched to a voice not too far removed from his usual speaking voice and said, “But I’m dead. Sid fucking murdered me at the park. He says it was on accident, but I don’t give a shit. And he hurts Daiki anyway so it’s not like I got away by dying. It’s kinda fucked. Daiki’s used to it. Please add sugar to the tea! I don’t care if he doesn’t like sweet things; I do and it’s been too damn long since I had sugar in my tea or coffee. Please?”

The microwave hummed, a mug of water rotating on its plate under the yellow glow within. Paul stared at Calvin and stood absolutely still.

“Please?” Calvin asked again.

“Sure. One lump or two?” Paul responded stiffly.

“Two. I usually only get to talk to Daiki because anybody else finds it creepy if I come out to chat. I mean, I get why. I am dead, so, usually we don’t get to talk to people, y’know? You seem pretty nice, if condescending. Have we met? What’s your name again?”

“Paul Summers.”

Calvin tilted his head and put a hand to his chin. “Did you go to Lucas Middle School?”

“Of course.”

“And you used to be shorter.” He pointed at Paul in sudden recognition. “You! You’ve changed a lot over the last three years. Ha! Looking good, man.”

The microwave beeped. Paul opened the paper wrapper and dropped the tea bag into the mug, tying the string to the handle. “This isn’t funny, Calvin.”

“I thought you wanted to meet us,” Calvin replied. His voice dropped a little, “It’s helped to speak individually. Two took some getting used to, but three is ridiculous...You make tea in the microwave? Where’s your kettle?”

Paul smiled tensely and held up a finger. He opened the fridge again and fetched out a beer. He found a church key held by a magnet to the side of the fridge and used it to pry off the cap. After chugging the beer down, he grabbed another then wandered over to sit in a chair next to Calvin. “Okay. So. Tell me about dying.”

“Considering I got kicked and stomped to death, it hurt like hell. Then I met a weird beast with ten rooster legs and a lot of teeth, and he told me he ate some of my time.”

“You went to Hell?” Paul asked with surprise. Well, some surprise. He touched the small gold cross he wore on a fine gold chain at his throat.

“Just some underworld. Not Hell. That’s when I found out in another version of events, Sid didn’t kill me three years ago but more like a year from now, and Scott had me in his basement instead of Bevie. So even though it’s really not my fault she’s down there, it’s Scott’s fault, I still know she’s down there so I gotta get her out, right?” Calvin explained earnestly. His voice switched a little again. “We don’t know it’s Bevie down there.”

“What are their names?” Paul asked.

“Daiki is alive, and then there’s my dead sister Duria, who’s been possessing him so long they’re literally inseparable,” complained Calvin. “Of all the freaks, why Daiki? Gross.”

Paul took a long sip from his beer then wiped his mouth. He nodded slowly, leaning an elbow on the table and looking a bit uneasy.

“I’m making the tea,” Calvin decided in the deeper voice. He got up and found an electric kettle. “Microwaving the water when there’s a perfectly good kettle. What are we doing here?” He took the tea back out of the mug and poured out the tea Paul had steeped for him into the sink.

“Nothing wrong with that,” muttered Paul. “You wasted perfectly fine tea.”

“Didn’t even time how long you were going to steep it for.”

“So sue me.”

“Is there an egg timer?” Calvin began to fuss about the kitchen in a way so completely unlike him that Paul almost laughed. Calvin got out a skillet, bread, butter, and American cheese. “I can try a grilled cheese without getting the shits! Real cheese. Oh, you need to try ice cream! I told you I don’t like sweets. You should still try it. Do you butter the bread first, or put the butter in the pan? Mayonnaise? Fuck no, that’s gross.”

“Butter the bread,” advised Paul, leaning his chin in his palm and smiling. He found it fascinating how Calvin’s voice changed around as he spoke to himself. Paul sat up when he heard a key in the lock and quickly hid the beer under the table, but it was only Hyun’s big sister visiting from college.

Da-eun set her purse on a chair and hung her puffy white coat on the coat rack. “Hey Paul!”

Paul lifted the beer from under the table and toasted her cheerfully. “Hi, Dee!”

Calvin peeked around through the kitchen doorway. “Oh, Da-eun!”

She looked pleasantly surprised. “You said my name right.”

“What does he normally call you?” Calvin asked, the “he” being himself.

“Hyun’s friends normally call me ‘Dee.’” She smiled. She had the slender, tall frame of a model, with lustrous black hair styled into waves down her back with subtle brown highlights. She and her brother got her height from her mother, a cold woman from Germany named Anamadelyn who toured in a rock band and didn’t see her family much. “I don’t think I ever told you my actual name. I don’t like to hear people butcher it or tell me how ‘difficult’ it is.”

Calvin smiled ruefully. “Oh, yeah. I never came up with a nickname like that but I get what you mean.”

“People have trouble with ‘Calvin’?” Da-eun asked and raised her eyebrows.

“Ducky, Dyke, Dicky...that’s just some recent ones,” Calvin listed off. “Oh. Right.” He put a hand to his breasts and looked down. “Um, that will be difficult to explain.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Paul asked cheerfully.

Da-eun shook her head. “Did he pick a new name or something?”

“Um, don’t worry about it,” said Calvin. He went back to preparing dinner for himself.

She walked into the kitchen and watched him work. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

“It’s just grilled cheese.” The kettle clicked off and he poured the steaming water into the mug over the tea bag. “Did you want some tea?”

“Sure. I don’t like people telling me not to ‘worry my pretty little head’ about things. Tell me what you meant about people messing up ‘Calvin’ to sound like ‘Ducky.’”

“Back to Paul’s question on if you believe in ghosts, though I’m not a ghost unless I died today. My name is Daiki.” He got out another mug and tea bag and poured out more water from the kettle.

Da-eun’s smile thinned. “Don’t take a Japanese name, white boy.”

“No, Calvin’s name is Calvin. I’m Miyako’s little brother, Daiki, in here with the twins.” He handed her her tea. “Duria and Calvin. This is Calvin’s body, Duria is the ghost, and I should still be alive, but I’m displaced into Calvin. He left my body in the boy’s room at school and refused to go back and check on me.”

Da-eun held the mug under her nose and inhaled the steam. “Is this for a creative writing class? Because it’s kind of confusing.”

Calvin sighed. “Sure. I’ll have to work on that. Thank you.” He looked at Paul fishing yet another beer out of the refrigerator behind Da-eun. “Dude, I wanted you to drive us! Now how are we gonna get Downtown to break into Scott’s basement?”

“I never agreed to that,” Paul replied as he pried off another cap. “And I argue that suddenly believing in ghosts warrants a few drinks.”

Calvin scowled. “I don’t care for being around drunk people and I thought since you seem to believe me now that you’d help us.”

“Who’s Scott?” Da-eun asked. She sipped her tea.

“We think he’s a pedophile with a girl in his basement,” explained Calvin. “So we’re going to need a crowbar to break in, bats to defend ourselves if he catches us breaking in – oh, that’s right. He wouldn’t call the police on us because he’s squatting there, and a Viper. So.” He outlined the plan he’d worked out. “But since neither Hyun nor I drive, I had been hoping Paul would take us there, but that was before he went and got tipsy.”

Da-eun nodded. “I’ll drive you.”

Calvin grinned and twirled the spatula in his fingers before flipping the grilled cheese sandwich in the frying pan. “Hell yeah!”

Winter returned home that afternoon and found her brother sitting at the table dipping plain cake doughnuts into black coffee. She smelled eggs, the coffee, and strawberry-scented something. Winter set her backpack on the floor, took her shoes off, and hung up her turquoise raincoat. As she drew closer, she saw Daiki knelt in the chair, not quite sitting on his ankles. When he looked up from his snack, Winter drew back and stopped without knowing exactly why.

“Hi. Are you going to start making dinner again?” Winter asked.

“I feel...kinda...sick,” Daiki replied in a small voice.

His sister pulled out a chair and sat down, still not sure why she didn’t feel entirely comfortable about her brother. “So you’re going to go back to bed?”

Daiki pasted together strange bits and pieces of phrases slowly and carefully, still using that odd, higher voice. “I’m not even really...good at...make these…” He made a face and shook his head. “Birds? Ocean? What?”

“Are you high?” asked Winter.

“Song birds – still not – not even really – here.” The remix shifted tones between pieces and Daiki grimaced with the effort of talking without, well, Daiki. He’d hidden away and left Duria there to pilot without him. “Gross – Sid?” he said, grimaced, and took a sip of coffee.

“You’re kinda freaking me out right now,” confessed Winter.

Duria looked helplessly out of Daiki’s eyes at his little sister and stopped trying to piece together sense out of her limited phrasebook. She shook her head and set the doughnut on the plate. When she started to sit up her breath hitched and she shut her eyes, gritting her teeth.

“What’s wrong?” Winter asked.

Daiki shook his head, mouth a tensely drawn line, and got up very carefully from the chair. He looked down at his quivering hands, marveling for a second at this involuntary tremor, then hugged his arms to get them to stop. “Tell – my – share. Too hot inside. I feel – gross.”

Winter got up and shook her head. “Stop it, Daiki. You’re being too weird.”

He shrugged then walked slowly back to his room. His sister followed from a distance until he shut the door behind him. Duria tried to leave this new body but separating the ink back out of the water got too complicated.

---

In the morning Daiki got dressed in his uniform and rode his bike to school. After he’d locked it to the rack, he ran directly over to where the buses drop off students. Dezeree rolled his eyes when he saw Daiki waiting for him.

“You’re back,” Dezeree said and shouldered past Daiki. “Great.” One of his friends had used her father’s beard trimmer to tidy up Dezeree’s hair into a regular boy’s haircut and Dezeree had spiked it with hair gel.

“Your hair looks nice,” Daiki remarked. He hurried to catch up and unconsciously reached to hold his sis- to hold Dezeree’s hand.

Dezeree jerked his hand away and shot him a look. “Thanks.”

“Are you Calvin yet or is that later?” Daiki asked.

Dezeree stopped. “What?”

“I mean, at some point you pick that name out. Is it from the funnies or what?” Daiki thought a moment. “You said the fracture was called something like calverian or something. You didn’t name yourself after my face, did you?”

Dezeree had been squinting at Daiki in angry confusion but now burst out, “Your face? What the fuck do you mean name myself after your face?”

“Her face,” Daiki corrected. “The, um, the autopsy email. Look, I wouldn’t even bring it up because even I’m not that insensitive.” He pinched his wrist and concealed his chagrin, internally screaming at Duria for putting those thoughts to his words. “I just, um.” He grabbed his ghost’s brother’s hand and pulled him aside into an alcove between the lockers and the water fountain. Dezeree yanked his hand back and glared at Daiki impatiently.

“Gonna share?” Daiki asked and quickly took Dezeree’s face in his hands to kiss him firmly on the lips.

Dezeree pushed Daiki off, stepped forward with the push, and swung his fist in a reflex-quick haymaker to Daiki’s face. Dezeree punched hard. Daiki staggered and covered his hands with his face.

“Get away from me!” shouted Dezeree. “I knew you were some kind of freak, but you’re mental, too. Don’t ever, don’t you EVER!” He spat on the floor.

“It didn’t work,” Daiki lamented. His cheek and the bones beneath throbbed.

“Don’t you ever touch me again!” hissed Dezeree into Daiki’s face. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” He didn’t wait for an answer and slipped into the crowd. A few kids who’d seen stuck around to smirk at Daiki.

“Did you just kiss a boy?” a girl asked. “Gay!”

“No, I know that girl. She’s just ugly,” another girl told her. Somebody laughed.

“Reee-jected,” a boy commented.

Daiki shook his head and headed to his locker, murmuring words to himself as he walked. “No, I can’t now. I don’t know why it didn’t work. You’re in here so you know how hard it was to just, to kiss her – sorry, him, to kiss him like that. In front of everybody, without permission...” He put his coat and backpack in his locker and dug his books and binder out of his backpack. “You weren’t possessing Sid, though, so maybe the kiss was a coincidence and not how any of this works.” He walked to homeroom, sat down at his desk, and opened his binder to a blank page so he could talk to Duria in writing instead of aloud. There was too much noise in his head together to make much sense of a conversation internally.

Sory abowt the kiss. I don’t kiss Dezz on the lips so that wuz weerd 4 me 2.

I’ll get over it.

Back at yor hous. I never did that baforr.

That?

Sid.

Oh, that. Yeah. Sorry you were there for that.

It is not yur fault. R you OK?

Daiki tapped his pencil eraser against the paper and thought about it. The chairs squawked across the floor as the class rose to take the pledge of allegiance. He put his hand on his chest but didn’t say anything. The chairs squawked again as the class sat back down. Their teacher, a Black man with short, graying hair, began to take roll call from behind his desk. The room had the beige yellow color of nicotine stained teeth. Fluorescent lights between the ceiling tiles illuminated heavy metal-framed desks and matching chairs. Some sunlight slipped in between the blinds over the radiators. Posters around the room reminded kids not to smoke, provided common homonyms, displayed a map to the nearest fire exit, a world map, and so on. The chalk board had a colorful paper frame taped up around it, with “Mr. Hilton” written across the top along with today’s date. October already?

Tell me if yur not OK, Duria wrote.

I thought I was, but nothing about how I’ve been lately was fine. I don’t have any right to miss you as much as I did, but since you died I didn’t care what happened to me and I let himDO NOT EVEN THINK ITS YUR FALT DUCKY!!!

Daiki set the pencil down, shut his binder, and balled his hands into fists to either side of the binder on his desk. Within his fist, his fingers fidgeted and scratched at his palm and thumb. Duria rattled around inside for another minute or so before she settled down in the back and gave him space. She didn’t mean to, but she kept remembering visceral details from yesterday and playing them over and over on a fucked up loop. Having a body again only to feel it invaded twisted her up and she wanted to go haunt incorporeally again. “Sick sick sick sick,” Duria repeated in Daiki’s mouth inaudibly as Daiki participated in class.

Duria nestled in a hollow under an outcrop of rock, finding a little sandy nook to lay her head and pull her knees up to her chest. Torturing her murderer had been fun, but causing Dezeree to wig out had not been the plan at all. It’s not like she had a plan anyway. The cave felt cold, but cold felt natural and fine. If anything, cold felt rather sleepy. The craggy rock tunnel seemed carved from rusty, deep red stone that sheered off easily under her hands. Duria picked shards of rock off and let the stillness hold her for an indeterminate length of time. Claws scrabbled along, ten feet equipped with clicking talons strutting in undulating waves. A thick animal smell wafted down toward Duria: musky, dusty, like a stray cat. She peeked out of her nook and saw the large beast she’d seen running away when she first awoke in this place. Its large eyes, shaped much like human eyes, saw her immediately.

“Who are you?” Duria asked.

“The Saturnine Beast,” it introduced.

“Oh. Do you have a name?”

“Not as much.” It weaved closer. Just its great, shaggy head could fit her inside of it if it didn’t have headmeat and bone taking up room. “Do you?”

“I’m Duria,” she replied and held out her hand.

The Saturnine Beast extended a foreleg and gently clasped her hand between its toes. “I’ll be pleased to make your acquaintance once I know you won’t be acting up like – well, you wouldn’t remember. I ate that moment off you so it never happened.”

Duria smiled uneasily. “Uh huh.”

It laid itself down and folded its feet underneath its long fur. The colors of its scales, hair, and eyes shifted from one blink to the next in a subtle parade of galactic colors. “You had been under the impression that you were dreaming, and had certain expectations for what that meant regarding what we would be doing.” It bared its teeth in a grimace. “You were fifteen.”

She scoffed. “Fifteen? I only just turned thirteen!”

“Yes. I ate your time,” it replied patiently. “You no longer have ever reached the age of seventeen.” The Saturnine Beast blinked its enormous eyes. “I may have overindulged, as I meant to only feast upon a couple years and consumed twice that. It will be a bit before I can comfortably devour existence again. A year is rather a lot to digest.”

Duria sat and mulled over its words for a minute. It laid its head on its fur-shrouded feet and sighed, sending billows of dust rolling across the uneven ground.

“So, I lived to be seventeen before?” she asked. She couldn’t claim to understand even half of what it said.

“Not anymore.” The Saturnine Beast grinned. It could eat her in just one or two bites, if it chose. Perhaps it already had?

“Then you ate me?”

“Four years of you.” Its eyes widened slightly to regard her even more intensely.

Duria faltered under the unflinching gaze of those giant eyes. “So you killed me?”

“No.”

“But you ate me, but I’m still here, but I died...sooner.”

“Precisely.”

Duria looked down and thought a bit more. “Did I taste good?”

“The opening flavors closer to the surface of your seventeenth year had a tart acidity, not unpleasant but a bit sharp. That first bite took off two layers, so sixteen and seventeen muddled together in the masticating. Fifteen was offensive. Fourteen scared me and I simply had to crush that last year out before you turned into something quite horrible. Thirteen seems fine enough so far. I don’t like to nibble off the same person too much, and chewing close to trauma gets a heady spice to it I only like in small doses.”

“Wow.”

The Saturnine Beast shrugged five shoulders in sequence.

“Can you tell me about the time I used to have?” she asked.

It regarded her placidly. “Maybe,” it replied after a few second’s thought.

Duria toyed with her hair and rocked slowly, doing a butterfly stretch and savoring hazy memories of having bones and muscles. “Please?”

“Well, if we’re being polite now, I suppose I could tell you just a little. But it won’t be strictly chronological. You, malnourished and numb, concealing the rusty kitchen scissors you just used to kill a man. Red hair dye and tools for confinement and control. Extended nourishment on beer and the frost from the freezer in a cellar refrigerator. Air rifle and brambles in a gully where morning glory saps the trees and a large tire lies partially submerged in mud.

“Starting a new medication just before a Halloween party where you dressed up as a dominatrix and watched a movie with your friends. Your friends holding you and lending you a shirt to cover up with as you cried about nonexistent rabbits going into a nonexistent ocean. A job as a dishwasher at a bar and grill. Rides home with two coworkers who give you beer and seed. A first trimester miscarriage.” The Saturnine Beast went quiet for an intermission to mull with its eyes closed and talons scratching at stone.

“Manipulating yarn between two sharp points to teach your fingers a craft. Your girlfriend’s infant inconsolable in your arms. A friend who gave you rides home from work instead of the coworkers, and another who deposited toxic glue onto the cock of one of those coworkers. A Burmese cream point cat named Snickle who farts when he’s happy, and the ball-shaped shark he pretends to disembowel. Getting drunk on candy-infused vodka given to you by your current and former killer while at a gathering with your art college friends.”

The Saturnine Beast ruminated for another interval, then opened its eyes.

“I got pregnant?” Duria exclaimed.

“Twice, but you did not birth any children. The second died with you.”

“What the fuck!” She ran the other details through her mind. “Which friend put glue on the coworker’s cock?”

“Daiki Hikaru.”

“Neat. Who did I kill?”

“Scott Mason-Whitney.”

“Did he deserve it?”

The Saturnine Beast blinked at her calmly but did not respond to this question.

“Alright…” Duria moved on after awhile. Time had no measure. “Who was my girlfriend?”

“You had two, sequentially. Heather James and Zoey Wilson.”

“Were they hot?”

It smiled. “You are asking an underworldly creature whether the girls you dated in high school were attractive.”

She nodded.

“I do not know or care,” it informed her through its many, many teeth.