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tastes like sugar but it’s novocain
she’s grinding teeth so she can sharpen the pain
Aside from moments with Zizel, who’d drawn up the contract to turn her heart to gemstone, Susan Elford’s only real contact with the demons so far had been limited to the table in her attic, where she insisted on having meetings, because getting partial information was better than getting none. “I know you talk behind my back,” she’s told Zizel. But Zizel only giggles behind her hand.
“Of course we do, we’re demons.”
Sometimes Charlotte would stop to chat with her, but the way she drops information, veiled with a childish voice and appearance, is too unsettling for Susie to want to seek her out on her own. And, anyway, she took more to playing with Dorothy when she was around.
Rouge avoided her, was the one who cut her meetings short, insulting everyone at the table besides Zizel before disappearing to her own wine-red room. Which was nearly impossible to get to, by the way.
And Lime seemed to have other interests. She topped even Charlotte sometimes when it came to phony innocence, often doubling down on it when called out. Even at the meetings she was distracted, bored, interrupting conversations with points that have nothing to do with anything, or skipping out entirely because you guys are so bo-r-ing and who cares, you already made the wish, there's no going back, stupid.
So Susie was surprised when it was Lime who reached out to her one day.
She was hand delivered a sickly sweet smelling envelope by a gingerbread man missing half a head and two limbs, carrying a little mailman’s messenger bag around their crumbling shoulders. “Lady Lime would like you and um, Miss Dorothy, to come to her garden tea party.”
“You all can’t go outside, though.”
“Ah, yes, you see, the instructions on how to get there, it’s in the note… you see.”
Susie turned it over, thumbnail cautiously sliding underneath the wax seali -
wait.
“Is this honey?”
“It is, Miss.”
She grumbles, wiping her hand on her skirt before just ripping the side open to get inside. “Inside my painting? No one told me they were putting an extra dimensional space into my paintings.”
“Well, um, to be perfectly frank, Miss, um. Um…”
“They’re not exactly yours anymore, are they?” That was Zizel’s voice behind her, and Susie did a sharp turn to see Zizel in a dress that was just a little fancier than her usual. She’d been helping Dorothy into a little lavender sundress with a little white shawl. “This house belongs to us now, we have a contract,” she motions to a safe in the back of the room, empty besides one piece of paper stamped with blood. “So we don’t need to tell you when we’re adding things on.”
“What are you doing?”
Zizel glances back. “Getting Dorothy ready for the tea party. Lime will throw a nasty tantrum if we’re late. She’s, hm, well, harmless to us , maybe wouldn’t be able to do too much damage to you right now, but…” she clipped a decorative hairpin into Dorothy’s hair, smoothing the strands down with a hand.
The smell of honey on her hand made Susie feel sick. She storms forward and she Dorothy away from Zizel, moving both of them to the bathroom so she could wash her hands.
“I left your dress in there!” Zizel calls out.
“Miss, miss, wait! You’re supposed to eat me! Please!” the gingerbread also calls out.
Susie tries not to slam the door, for Dorothy’s sake.
“It’s a lovely dress, isn’t it?” Zizel comments, patting Dorothy’s head. In front of the newly sparkling painting, Susie pulls out her wand.
Dorothy nods between them, tugging on Susie's skirt. “Mama looks very pretty. Does Dorothy look pretty?” He mother has been looking more and more troubled these days, and she doesn't know how else to lighten the load.
It works, though. It’s the first time Susie has smiled in at least an hour. “Of course you do, darling.”
It’s an ethereal place. It almost stops her heart.
(well…)
Susie knows magic. Magic has been passed down through the Elford line for centuries, evading witch hunts and wars alike. She has a wand, a broom, little blown bubbles that let her travel underwater with a personal air source. Still, the magic a human can use on their own is severely limited, especially compared to that of a demon. She’s seen some of the rooms they’ve created, she’s pulled out shining mermaid scales and pearls from the pink sea, she’s met the tree spirits, she’s even seen some of Charlotte’s neon room. Still, she was always surprised by the details, the unsettling beauty of these haunted dimensions, and the whispers that seem to make up the air.
There's a perfect blue little river running off to the side, pale white and blue and pink and green grasses, clear orbs that she realizes are candy, stars that grow from the trees and scatter over the ground and into the river like leaves.
She keeps a tight hold on Dorothy's hand, already feeling her trying to wander off near giant candy orbs. (It’s an ethereal place, true. But it was made by Lime, or maybe Charlotte, a small chance Zizel, all on different spectrums of trust with her, and none of them trustworthy enough to make a room safe for a child. They wouldn’t have children in mind when they created these places, or even if they did, it would likely be to pull a nasty prank. She’s still wondering just what Lime wanted from this when she blew off all conversation before.)
“We-ell, it’s been a year or something, and I thought we never had a housewarming party, huh? and then I decided we would have it!”
She’s overeager as usual, with new pink bows in her hair, seemingly tied around very realistic looking cat ears. Her entire outfit is made of frills and bows, and pinks and lavenders and yellows, all cute, cute, matching the garden perfectly.
Susie purses her lips. “Eight months, actually.”
“Whatever. Sit down, sit down! The tea’s getting cold. Isn’t this place great?”
She sits, and Dorothy clambers onto a chair next between her and Charlotte - also in pale yellows and oranges and frills and bows. Instead of her usual hood, she also has a pair of very realistic rabbit ears tied into her curls. She picks at the threadbare eyes of her stuffed rabbit.
Rouge… is nowhere to be found.
“This isn’t her scene,” Zizel shrugs when asked.
Lime leans an elbow on the table, cutting in. “She likes darker colors. She likes red, lots and lots of red," she tips a teacup that smells bright like berries, and is a clear red that sees to the bottom of the cup. "But, not when I give it to her.” The design at the bottom is a pomegranate, sliced open.
Susie pretends she didn't even hear, and after a beat she notices Lime’s face fall.
But, not for long. Never for long. “An-y-way, who cares. Her loss. I really thought we needed to have some fun together, instead of, you know, playing pretend that you have any agency here anymore. I thought a different sort of pretend was needed, like princesses! Princesses and witches." Lime grins, "you and Dorothy can be the princesses, and I'll be the witch." She pauses briefly, and when Susie doesn't say anything, she continues on, "fine, fine, how about some question and answer with you this time?"
Susie sighs, "what sort of questions?"
"Like, what’s your favorite part of the house? Ooh, I should show you mine , I’ve got candy walls. You can eat them. Which, speaking of, you should have eaten that gingerbread man, he came back all sad, you sorta insulted him, rejecting him like that.”
Dorothy speaks up, still trying to help, “I like these glass candy balls. They’re pretty.” When Dorothy reaches out to get a cookie for herself , Susie reacts quickly, pulling her hand away.
At that, Lime laughs.
“They’re not poison," she tips her teacup again and looks straight down to the bottom, "and they’re not going to trap you here. You know, Mi-iss Susie E-l-f-o-r-d,” and then Lime’s voice twists back into something nasty. That horrible childishly mocking tone she doubles down on, making her sound all the more sinister. “You already trapped yourself. We don’t have to do a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g else. That’s it. It’s done. Like I keep saying - or, maybe that's a good question to ask. Why do you keep trying to call meetings when you know they’re just lip service, Miss Susie?"
Susie grits her teeth, hand moving to Dorothy’s head, reminding herself. Don’t yell, don’t say anything that you’ll regret. Not to a demon.
“Dorothy and I are still living in the house, even if it doesn’t belong to us anymore. At the very least, it’s only polite to tell us if touching this or that now will bring us to other dimensions. Dorothy is still a child, she could easily get lost. And some of the demons there can hurt us, can hurt her.”
“Well, this one doesn’t," Charlotte leans forward and picks up a new sweet. "Not right now, at least. Go ahead Dorothy.”
Dorothy hesitates, and Susie’s hand snaps forward to the sweets tray. When she gets one, she stuffs the whole thing in her mouth, nearly choking on chunks of cookie. Dorothy stares at her mother, waiting. Once Susie manages to swallow without experiencing any obvious magical side effects, and the tea to wash it down seems to help more than it hurts, Dorothy then accepts the one Charlotte held out to her.
“He-y, okay, another question, Su-sie."
Susie looks up.
“You made one of the strongest demon pacts ever . It’s been eight months, or however long. But you haven’t used it, you haven’t even considered using it. That's one thing we do talk about, by the way. Right, Zizel?”
Zizel takes a dainty sip of tea and nods. "Why haven't you used it, Susie?"
“Because…” Susie glances at Dorothy, “you know what would happen if I used it.”
“And yet you asked for it," Zizel continues. "You've never told us why. What's so important that you need this power, that it's so important to the future you would override the decisions of those th -"
Lime cuts in, "Hey, yeah, does Dorothy know she has one too? Did you tell her?”
Dorothy glances up at her mother. “Yes, I -” she’d been sat down by her mother before this, before the contract had even been signed, and laid out her reasoning, laid out cautions for Dorothy to take in the future, built a world where having a witch’s heart made sense. Lime and Charlotte seemed to disagree. "I know it's important. Mama said -"
“It’s to protect us,” Susie interrupts. “It’s to protect her.” Charlotte splits a piece of cake, shuffling half of it onto Dorothy’s plate. Dorothy only picks at the pieces as she stares between her mother and the others. Something’s wrong, but it’s an adult thing, one she can’t grasp. Just like everything else that had been happening around her for the past year. She wonders if she only agreed to being a part of the pact so her mother would tell her, trust her.
(And, in the future, Dorothy Elford will imagine a world where she had the wisdom of her adult self. One where she said “no, Mother, I won’t take it, do it to yourself if you must, but I won’t take it” instead of nodding along with a smile.)
“You know, some people would kill for what you have. They’ll kill Dorothy,” Lime turns her teacup over on her pale green elbow length gloves, staining the fabric a dark red. It smells like summer fruits. “I know a few people obsessed with it, people who would kill for a wish.”
“Witch hunts are starting up again. I can handle one or two people chasing rumors,” Susie continues, “I live in this monster mansion, remember? But the witch hunts are different. They’re bigger. You wouldn’t get it.”
It’s the first time since she’s met her that she sees Lime’s face go cold. Where she usually doubled down on her phony innocent act at every twist and turn, her face now seemed to contort into something close to loathing, pure and untouched. Zizel giggles again at Susie’s side, and a look around the table told Susie that something was wrong, the way all the demons were looking at her now (remorseless pity from Charlotte, bright eyed interest from Zizel, and such an un-Lime-like look for Lime).
“Oh?” Lime’s voice is a hateful strand of elastic, ready to snap, “And how will your witch’s heart help you? It disappears when you make a wish, you know. You know what happens when it disappears? It’s your heart, Su-sie, literally. It’s Dorothy’s. And it’ll be her daughter’s and her daughter’s and her d -”
“Do you think I like being so helpless that I would come to monsters like you for your twisted version of aid? If I can sacrifice my heart to have a reality altering wish to protect my family for years to come, I’ll make that sacrifice.” Lime's fingers curl into fists.
“A sacrifice? Huh.” Lime takes the large teapot from the center of the table, decorated with pretty fruits dancing in a circle. She smashes it to pieces. Dorothy ducks to Susie's side, closing her eyes. Something's wrong, and for once, Mama can't even pretend she has control over it. “You think I don’t know what that’s like? Maybe I don't.” Without warning there’s a flash of blood, Lime jabbing glass into her stomach over and over. When she stands, blood leaks from her soft green dress to the pretty pink tablecloth. Susie grabs Dorothy with both hands and jumps from her seat. She takes steps back.
And, Lime just laughs. When she does, the blood from the holes in her dress ooze out a little bit more.
Susie holds her daughter close and tight, but it's too late. Dorothy sees Lime pressing a fist into the wounds, widening them.
“Do you know what this feels like, Susie?”
(In the future, Dorothy Elford will slip her fingers under her daughter’s ribs after Mayor Levine cuts her open wide. She will widen the hole in her skin and rip the gem from her daughter’s chest and run and wonder about a world where her mother never did this to them.)
“That’s what they’ll do to you and Dorothy when they know what you have. Did you tell her that? I know we told you, it's the best part of the pact! And yet you complain all the time to Zizel and Rouge that we’re keeping things from you . Isn’t that a little unfair?” Lime leans in, grinning. She has sharp teeth and some remains of red strawberry on the corner of her mouth, nothing about the bows and frills soften her anymore when her dress is stained with blood. “Whatever, you didn’t really answer my question: what wish are you planning on making, then? We can only make negative things happen. We don’t save people . So, will you wish them all gone? Thousands of people, their blood on these walls, organs strung up like decorations so everyone will fear you?”
Susie stutters.
(In the future, Dorothy Elford will twist her daughter’s heart in her hands and make a negative wish - to destroy her granddaughter’s memories of them, so as to hide her own gemstone heart. She’ll wish for a world where her mother thought twice. She’ll die terrified, because she’s just met the only person in the world who makes her feel such hate. The only person who she will think: this person deserves to die, this person never should have been born. She’ll call out to the demons, someone, anyone, to take her heart from her before this man can get his hands on it.)
“So you will kill them. You know, Su-sie, I think you’re a little bit of a hypocrite. Calling us monsters. Calling us liars. I think you’d make a very good demon, given the chance to marinate.”
With no other response, Susie turns instead to run, wand out. They hear Lime's hysterical laughter behind them. If Dorothy closed her eyes, she could pretend that Charlotte or Zizel just told a bad joke. "It's okay, it's okay," she lies, and Dorothy pretends she believes it.
Lime looks at her hands, wet with blood. “Hey, you think Rouge’ll come play with us now?”
(In the future, Lime will watch over Mayor Levine’s shoulder as he advances upon Dorothy, the both of them bullet ridden and bleeding out. In the future, there will be a missing contract, and a mysterious strawberry treasure chest with a single piece of paper inside.
And Lime will see Dorothy’s heart in Noel’s hands and smile.)
“You missed quite a show,” Zizel tells Rouge later. “I think we were right to have Lime take part in this contract. It’s very amusing.”
“I don’t think I missed much,” Rouge rolls her eyes. “But as long as you’re having fun.”
(In the future, where Fiona Elford stands accused of witchcraft next to the Gibsons and many more, Charlotte stands behind her, unseen by everyone else. "It's hard to admit that your family made such stupid mistakes. If you want to blame anyone else for this, you can blame me. I won't take it personally."
In the future, where Sirius Gibson sobs over Dorothy's bullet-ridden body, Lime will ask Charlotte: “You think Susie caught all’a that?” And Charlotte will laugh.
“Where would she watch from?”)