“It’s an interesting thing, what we do in the name of our gods and our own salvation. Did you know they used to burn women at the stake, claiming them to be witches and devil worshippers?”
My stomach constricts.
“Even today, there are still those who search for a truth they cannot see, a truth they fear. Who will kill in the name of their god and in doing their god’s work.” She peels away from the window to pierce me with her sharp gaze. “But you already know that, do you not?”
I sense where Sofie is so smoothly steering this conversation.
“Your mother—”
“Is dead.” My pulse pounds in my ears as I match her stare, daring her to challenge that.
Only the faintest twitch of Sofie’s eyebrow hints of a reaction to my lie. “I see I’ve found a weak spot in your armor. So, you do not support her cause?”
She knows about my mother. Of course, she fucking knows. I school my expression. Losing my temper will only reveal my vulnerability. “You mean, her psychotic cult’s cause?”
It began harmlessly enough—an invitation to a group grief-counseling session in a church basement, meant to offer solace to people who had suffered a loss. That’s what it felt like—the loss of my father, even though he was still physically here, wandering the streets. We’d had our entire world flipped upside down, and I was relieved to see my mom making new friends.
But within weeks, our conversations took an odd turn. She started questioning whether maybe demons and witches did exist, and that what my father saw had been real.
Talk soon shifted to whispers of creatures living among us—hiding in plain sight—while the government covered up the truth and witches masquerading as nurses stole newborn babies from maternity wards. She even claimed she had seen proof of magic, though when I pressed, her explanation sounded more like vague riddles than anything resembling fact.
Talk of conspiracies and witchcraft and monsters consumed my mother’s every waking moment. I was fourteen and didn’t understand what was feeding these growing delusions, but I’d already lost one parent to the demons in his head, and I was afraid I might lose another.
She would leave for days on end, spending her spare hours in the old Baptist church that this group who called themselves the People’s Sentinel had purchased. We were barely surviving as it was, relying on food stamps and soup kitchens for meals and secondhand shops for clothes, but still she gave them all our money. I wasn’t surprised the day she announced we were moving into a run-down building the Sentinel had purchased for their growing “community,” in preparation against the coming war against evil. I screamed and railed, told her I wouldn’t go, that I’d run away. She held strong. I’d see the truth, she promised me.
I wanted to believe her.
For weeks, I ate and slept under the Sentinel’s roof, listening to these people—all branded with a tattoo of two interlocked crescent moons on the fleshy part of the thumb, the mark of “a disciple”—talk of otherworldly power and the spread of evil, hiding in the skin of the human form.
It was so consuming that a part of me wondered if there was truth to it. It would explain what my father saw, though it wouldn’t explain what happened to him afterward.
For her part, my mother was in her element within those walls. She quickly moved up in rank. I didn’t know what her role was, but she no longer worked at the grocery store, and everyone referred to her as “Elder” when she spoke.
She’d promised I’d see the truth, and I did, the night she took me to a wooded area outside the city. I witnessed her and the others tie a “witch” to a post on a pile of dry kindling and strike a match.
That’s the night I ran.
In some ways, I feel like I’ve been running ever since, running from what my mother did.
From what I didn’t do.
I still sometimes hear that woman’s screams in my sleep.
“And your father? Is he also dead?” Sofie asks, her tone mocking.
Mention of Eddie reminds me of Tony’s assault on him. Alton would have called for an ambulance. “No, but he’s ill.”
“And what ails him?”
“Don’t you already know?” What is this game she’s playing?
After a moment, she nods, confirming my suspicions. “So, you grew up surrounded by talk of demons, and yet you do not believe in them.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I have a better grip on reality than both my parents.” And a healthy fear of becoming like either of them.
“Perhaps.” Again with that curious tone. She doesn’t pry further, but she also doesn’t offer condolences. “How did you find yourself in this career path?”
I shrug. “One thing led to another.” And I like not starving.