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In Mammon, on August 5th, 1967, it rained.
Of course, it had been raining all week— since Tuesday, in fact. And not just raining, but bucketing; in great torrents that sprayed from the sky in thick, roiling clouds and swept through the desert streets. It was the type of rain that made you dread going out, whether walking or driving, and the type you were still hesitant to let your kids play in, for all it was summer. No raincoats or wellie-boots could keep it out, and those that dared now nursed the effects of colds: tears, temperatures, and blankets sticky with the feverish souvenirs of snot and cheap cough syrup. The air was electrified with spiked tensions and prickled moods— uneasy, like a child stirring from an unnatural sleep to surroundings both familiar and unfamiliar; gleaming shadows and many teeth leering out at them from the dark. The TV had been cut out since Thursday, and some shops had closed their doors Friday, and today, Saturday, as the rain and the wind continued to lash with no signs of abating, some wisely considered putting up protective measures around their thresholds in case of a flood, and others made calls and arrangements to stay a town, a few towns over for a while where the storm wasn’t quite as relentless. Built on buried graves of bloodied grounds, Mammon was the centrepiece of everything that brought hardness of luck and unprecedented tragedies. Ghost stories were already something of a jocular topic, whenever religion didn’t demand otherwise. Nobody could ever have considered that things were only just beginning.
But right now, people were poking their heads out of their doors, some of them making it all the way down their front steps to look this way and that, before deciding, “Well, he’s not here,” and hurrying back inside before the rain could soak them all the way through. When the lone young woman who dared withstand this weather inevitably came to knock on the door, she was met with a flurry of uncomfortable, half-sympathetic noises and gestures, doors that slammed in her face, and the repeated answer of, “No, haven’t seen him, sorry,” followed by the very rare assurance, “but I’m sure he’ll turn up soon.” And an offer to keep looking.
Thank you, the woman would say miserably, and the townsfolk would maintain their strained smile just long enough until whoever else was in asked who was at the door, where they would shake their head and sigh and say, “Blaylock’s lost her boy. Guess it was only a matter of time.”
The rain— which would clear almost prophetically by the time Sunday dawned— made it seem as though tomorrow would never come. A number of signs lined the roads, blown over onto the curb or caught in overflowing drains, or floating somewhere along the sluicing current, warning folks to keep off them. And they did. The roads that late Saturday afternoon were desolate besides the one Aston Martin splashing through puddles and small lakes as it drove in repetitive circles across town, impervious to the winds buffeting the sides. When it passed by Fredbear’s Diner for the fourth time, the near-constant rhythm of the window wipers continued once more, and once the worst of the raindrops had been swiped cleanly away, before more could gather, the woman inside glanced at the restaurant through the glass of the dashboard, then at the watch on her wrist that said it was a quarter past six. Not quite yet dark, although if the ever-colouring clouds had anything to say about it, certainly not long.
The parking lot at the side was a lot emptier than it would normally be on a Saturday at Fredbear’s, but still a few brave cars remained. There were probably more kids inside that lived just around the corner and had ran there, but every time she had checked up on this street today, fewer and fewer motors dotted the driveway, taken home by those who looked closer at the layer of water sheathing the pavements, and the newer one accumulating on the road, and decided, at various times, to cut their losses and head home.
There was one car, the woman knew, that would not leave. Not while the diner was still open, and not for a while after that. Tucked away around the back of the building, and secluded from the others’ of the guests, the manager’s car was a bright strip of colour cutting through the otherwise dull scenery of the desert. Still visible from her vantage point behind the stone wall of the place next to Fredbear’s, the purple paint of the car did not wash away in the rain, but rather seemed to illuminate; shooting all sorts of refracted colours into the grey and white sky where the sun, hidden behind a thick blanket of cloud, tried to hit it, gleaming and iridescent.
She considered that car as she drove by. Like she’d been considering a lot of things this week. It wasn’t relatively new, but it was sturdy, and it looked as such, subjected to regular maintenance and constant coats of fresh paint. That car had been a part of her life for longer than it hadn’t been. That car had been the bringer of excitement and joy and security she had never in her childhood experienced previously. This was the car that had been sweeping her up off the streets and away from her bleak life since she was... oh, just young. Too young, maybe.
Which, honestly, was what worried her.
She’d been in that car so many times she could close her eyes and find herself there. Cream walls with cream seats, covered in expensive leather and smelling like sex, or cannabis, or air freshener, depending on its most recent use. She could see the eyes lingering on her in the rear-view mirror every time her skirt shifted and could hear the radio rocking out Roy Orbison and Elvis, all of them cramped together because there was so much open space in the back...
The woman slammed on the brakes of her car. The baby basket next to her would have gone flying through the windscreen if she hadn’t belted it in. A look downwards told her they hadn’t been harmed, and mercifully, hadn’t awoken. This consolation didn’t nearly erase the horror and the dread that was beginning to thrum through her veins.
She leaned against the steering wheel, putting her head in her hands. Goodness, she was right.
Or wasn’t she. It was such an inexplicable thought, an outlandish thought. What reason did she have to think it in the first place? He was so kind. So considerate. He’d given her everything. Was she not grateful? Except...
Except who picks a girl that young up off the street. Who puts to her what is essentially an ultimatum, one that she can’t refuse (because she’s so young): food, and showers, and clothes— nice clothes— and sweets and books and blankets and fairytales come true... in exchange for desire? She’d been the perfect victim. Too young to suspect, too vulnerable to be believed, and far too abused and conditioned to want to tell in the first place.
It was strange, wasn’t it, how in her mind, she could make her father a monster, but think the opposite of the one who really loved her. Who was she— to her father, to her mother and to all of those in Mammon except the men who loved her— if not the bad girl, the stupid girl, the slutty girl, the all-those-things-she-wasn’t girl, the godless girl who had a liking for cupcakes and a penchant for purple, and was called Jesslyn Blaylock.
It was wrong, what they had done. She’d never realised how much so until recently, her son beginning to approach that age himself. Her mother used to say, it was just men. But that’s not a thing most men do, do they.
But… it had never felt like an ultimatum at all at the time. Or even now. She had never felt like she was obligated. He’d enjoyed teaching her just as much as she’d loved learning, and, well, the sex was nothing to cry about. Before long, she’d started really craving it, too.
Come on, be reasonable, She thought, wetting her lips. Think about it logically. She was one thing, this was another. He couldn’t have taken Billy, because, because, if he had, she’d have known. It was that simple. He’d just be back at home, and was that not the first place she had checked, before she’d even really thought to look for him? And he wasn’t in Fredbear’s either, because although she’d been paid off for the week due to his disappearance, she’d still gone one of the days to poke around, in case he’d snuck back there when she’d been flushed and tight-lipped, the tray of cakes trembling in her hand that day as she brought it over to the table of women who’d just called her son a spiteful brat, a hellspawn, a bastard, to his face, and offered her colourful suggestions on how exactly she should discipline him.
But this was going to weigh on her mind for the rest of her life. Billy was in that trunk just as much as he wasn’t. Just like as long as he was missing, he was alive just as much as he wasn’t— forever suspended in limbo, in a state of both is and isn’t.
(Schrödinger’s Cat, he’d told her, tracing his lips along the shell of her ear, was an experiment in which a scientist of the same name sought to prove the instability of what we call reality.
She’d sat on his knee, just young enough for the gesture to still seem innocent, hanging onto every word, and waited.
The world consists of tiny dots of matter called particles, and the smallest particle of a chemical element is called an atom. The constitution of an atom is balanced with positive and negative charges—
And they’re made of particles, too? Jessie had chirped.
Hmm?
If the world’s made up of particles… that includes everything, right? They must be the smallest thing in the world! They can’t exist on their own because they have to be ‘part’ of something.
Very good, he’d replied, surprise colouring his voice. Yes, protons and electrons are made of particles. Now, hush. He smacked her thigh lightly. She blushed. When those charges become unbalanced, the atom decays. When it decays, it becomes radioactive. In this experiment, a flask of poison, a radioactive source, and yes, a cat, are all placed within a sealed box.
Jessie opened her mouth to protest against being cruel to the kitty, then closed it.
If an internal monitor detects radioactivity— which it may— then the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, and the cat is killed. His grip tightened around her waist when she flinched. But the box is still sealed. So, there is no way to determine if the internal monitor has detected radioactivity, and indeed, if the cat is dead. As a result, the state of the cat becomes that of a paradox— it both is and is not dead until it can consolidate as being either one through viewing. This is not the only example through which atoms appear to behave according to human supervision. But there’s a flaw in this conclusion. Do you see it?
Jessie sat in silence, thinking.
This is supposed to be an experiment of quantum physics… he prompted.
It’s… not possible, she said finally. You can’t have two realities existing at the same time. If it did, the cat would only exist on its own as long as a human was around it. But it goes and hunts mice and things, and has its own life, so it must also know what’s happening to itself inside the box.
Do you know what this experiment really proves?
She thought about it some more. Human ego. And— wait!— human… human perception. If people can’t be certain about something… then to them, the thing itself isn’t certain. Which is a really, um, aggorant?— arrogant!— way to look at it. Right?
Clever girl, he cooed, nibbling her ear in that way that made her squirm. Schrödinger’s cat offered much more in the study of philosophy and psychology than it did in pure physics. Which was, in fact, his intention. The human mind cannot truly grasp a world outside its own existence, and clings stubbornly to its own perception of things. Visuospatial processing is not merely passive in the face of the prefrontal cortex. So, people believe that whatever they think is happening must be the truth. Arrogant is a perfect word to describe the mentality of such individuals— yet it’s only ever ascribed to the mentally retarded: predators, narcissists, sociopaths… Mankind is egotistical by nature. The same can be applied to perceptions of moral right and wrong, as well as factual right and wrong. It is not objectively wrong to poison a cat, as every person thinks their opinions are absolute. Yet they are merely that: opinions. The animal kingdom does not concern itself with such questions, and humans are rather just animals ourselves. These opinions are what informs notions such as religion, you understand.
Jessie, who at this time believed a little bit in God and a lot in morals, ran a few budding responses by her mental filter before settling on the most positive. That’s really fascinating! I suppose it makes a lot of sense. I think… she faltered, her mouth running away with her, but not necessarily wanting to close it . I think I want to study this sort of thing. Um, people. How they think. What they feel. And why. There’s so much, I just… want to understand it all.
He buried his face now in her neck, breathing deeply in what she thought might be pride or elation, and she could feel the crescent-press of his teeth, smiling right against the point of her pulse. That’s my girl, he whispered, and repeated it. That’s my girl. So pretty. So smart. So sweet. You’re just perfect. I’ll help you every step of the way.
And then he’d stood, making Jessie squeak and throw her arms about his neck; carrying her over to the desk in the study and laying her atop it; the glow of the fireplace filling the eye sockets of the mounted doll heads around the room in anguished flame, who watched in ritualistic unwavering as their shadows coupled in the dark).
Billy’s ghost, hovering between corporeality and transparence, waited to be assigned a form. And if it was up to Jessie, (which maybe, maybe it was), there was no contest which one she’d pick. He was alive. He was alive and he was fine, maybe a little sorry and scared, but nothing physical and nothing permanent, and the worst week of both of their lives would later become a story of faded indigence— maybe even laughter. She could imagine it so well: sitting in Fredbear’s, the five of them smiling and crying and kissing and hugging, the babies babbling happy nonsense, cooing and holding their arms out to whoever looked like they were about to give them attention, ruffling up her boy’s hair and telling him how much they all loved him— really, they did— despite his wrinkled nose and embarrassed ducking to get away…
A fantasy.
And, she knew it would trouble her if she didn’t check, so— just to put her mind at ease, and nothing else, she told herself— Jessie Blaylock drove into the parking lot of Fredbear’s, turned the corner, and stepped out into the storm that greeted her with a burst of rain and accosting winds. Squinting, she approached the purple car with growing apprehension. What would she do if he was in there? Oh, don’t think, please.
She placed her hands on the trunk. Thin rivulets of icy water escaped through the cracks of her fingers, chilling the tips. She breathed once, twice, shivering as her skin cooled from the wet kiss of her clothes, and lifted it up.
Nothing.
It was exactly the same as when she’d put groceries in there last week. Same colour, same depth, same much of everything, really. The only distinct difference— and even now, Jessie wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, she was so tired, so hopeful, so full of sick dread— was a faint trace of air freshener. Recent.
Uncertain if what she was feeling was relief or restlessness, and with her fingers getting colder by the second, she closed the trunk and made her way back to her own car.
A pair of eyes greeted her when she opened the door. Jessie reached in and rocked the basket, praying it didn’t wake the other, until they blearily blinked shut.
She didn’t strap herself in right away. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel, her reflection stricken in the mirror. Throat tightening, she moved to stroke the soft tufts of the other who had indeed been stirred, feeling her eyes burn as she shed tears for her past and present and especially for the dark sucking hole that was surely her future. Becoming a psychologist was something that had never materialised. Things like that required lots of school, and good marks in school, and that required good reading and good writing. Jessie could accomplish neither. No matter how hard she forced her eyes to focus, words on paper blurred, letters jumped and jumbled in confusing tangled messes. She couldn’t read unless someone read out to her and writing was just impossible. The way kids treated her at Blackwood was only another obstacle she couldn’t surmount, as much as she tried to think positive, let it all wash off her, offer friendship and understanding. She hadn’t graduated. And by the time she was college age and thinking about trying to get her GED, she was pregnant, and the door to a career which may have had a smidge of light still peeking through had slammed and locked completely.
She hadn’t minded it though, really; she wouldn’t trade motherhood for all the knowledge she could ever hope to obtain. Besides, she had been a little apprehensive at the prospect of leaving town— she hadn’t ever gone further than St George for a few days, and never anywhere past Hurricane on her own. But still, things seemed to become… different. Once Billy was born, both of their focus (including her own) turned to him, and as he got older, tension and disagreement and almost-conflicts began to seep in where she’d never dreamt they would before, tempered by the mounting resentment that was growing between the two of them. She did her best to teach Billy his numbers and sums— which she’d never had much interest for and had even less skill, yet was still a simpler language to her than written word— but he’d surpassed her almost immediately, and soon she found herself unable to answer his questions. The ones she did answer weren’t good enough, and he told her so— along with some of the things his father appeared to have said about her intellect.
She hadn’t known what was worse: that he was lying or that he wasn’t, and the answer became clear when she’d asked— though Billy insisted until he was blue in the face that he hadn’t misinterpreted, that he was telling the truth. As father and son split apart and were only together at work or for special occasions, Jessie felt her world close in on her, and for the first time, she began to wonder if maybe she’d made the wrong decision after all. When she’d gone to his father with her answer to morality— that it was based entirely on empathy and harm done to others, and it didn’t matter if animals were different because humans had the mental faculties to make this distinction— he laughed and shook his head, and wouldn’t tell her what was funny (though he insisted it wasn’t her: no, really, my dear, just some old joke tickling this old man. Go back to your cupcakes). She got the same reaction with the other one (strange, smiling looks and low, long laughs), and soon enough, Billy laughed at her too. She laughed with them, of course, masking the hurt in her voice because she supposed it was pretty silly. What did she know anyway? She had never finished high school let alone earn a degree of any kind, had never been anywhere special, and the only book she had ever been able to ‘read’ back to front was a cookbook. She knew she wasn’t smart in the way they or Billy or their young friend were; she wasn’t logical or pragmatic or erudite, but she thought her way of thinking at least counted for something. Even if it was only in a girlish way. When she talked about it, they were receptive, and instead of laughing, they noticed and complimented her whenever she opened a discussion— but it was compliments that cut right through rather than made her flutter like they used to. (You have quite an imagination; wow, those clouds must feel really soft— but most people wouldn’t think about looking up in the first place; that’s a great point, baby! God is meant to be a man! Well done!) Eventually, she had felt so small and silly and stupid, that she just didn’t talk much anymore, filling her head with recipes and love and sprinkles instead, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying into her cupcakes.
She really was pathetic. Wasn’t that what she’d been told growing up, every time she burned the dinner, or been caught sneaking out, and couldn’t lie still and keep quiet and take her punishment like a woman? Of course some nice words from a kind, fully grown man condescending to her wouldn’t change that. No wonder everybody scorned her. And then she agreed to try for another baby because that was all girls were really good for, and her mind needed to be taken up with something. Two— two!— babies certainly did the trick, but her heart had sank when she found out they were girls. Which was strange because she’d always wanted a little girl. Deep down, she knew why she was uneasy, but she buried it beneath the positives, the things she was looking forward to about having identical twin daughters.
But there was two of them, and girls or not, she was overwhelmed because she was stupid, because she was pathetic, because she still didn’t know what to do with the one she’d had— and she didn’t. She didn’t know. Because sometimes he did things she really couldn’t understand, although she’d had sections of books on child psychology read out to her, and even had personal advice on how their brains worked.
Where did I get him from, she’d asked his father one day in the break-room, tapping her fingers together miserably. I’m not like that at all, am I?
Of course not, he’d hastened to assure her, teasing. You’re far too sweet. But already she was thinking of her own father, and although she made sure Billy didn’t spend too much time around him, he still could have picked up something.
Maybe it’s genetic, she’d wondered aloud. There had been a section on that, too.
Maybe, his father allowed with a smile. But I wouldn’t worry so much. He is, after all, just a kid. He’ll outgrow it. And if he doesn’t, well, so what? Boys will be boys, just let him be.
Boys will be boys, she thought, and believed it. But still felt perturbed with every squashed bug and burnt magnifying glass, every fleeting, gleeful gleam of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on from eyes that sometimes looked large and painted-on.
When she brought it up again, the reaction wasn’t quite so pleasant.
Jessie . Smile gone, clipped tones. You’re trying my patience. There’s nothing wrong with the boy, it’s all in your head. I’ve told you, haven’t I? Just stop being overbearing, and focus on the girls. You’ve been so pushy lately. You’ll stunt his growth, or something.
He wasn’t a bad kid, really, he just worried her sometimes.
Like how he worried her now. She felt so tired, so hopeless. As horrible as the thought had been, her heart had still swelled with despair when she hadn’t found him in the trunk. That had been her last resort. She’d already been round every house in the neighbourhood at least twice, every public place. Even the ones that were closed now, she’d still checked in the beginning. She’d gone out as far as the quarry, even circled the canyon for a skateboard, or a sandy head fallen off the edge. And although people did not like Billy, just like they didn’t like Jessie, and the rain hindered a lot of their progress, they’d still put up a pretty good search themselves. When she passed Gallifrey’s yesterday, she’d seen the sign planted in the window, blurred with rain, notifying people of Billy’s disappearance, detailing his appearance, (what he was wearing and when he was last seen), and asking those who had any information to please call the cafe’s phone number, during the business hours six am to ten at night.
But so far, no dice.
He must be so scared, Jessie thought as she cried , because she couldn’t again face the possibility of him not being out there, somewhere. He must hate me so much. I’m so sorry, baby. Those ladies didn’t mean what they said. I love you. You’re not a demon.
Jessie cried until her chest hurt and her throat was hoarser than it had been that week. When she was done crying, she started around for a tissue, and when she didn’t find one, wiped her face on her sleeve. She needed advice, and had no one to turn to. She didn’t feel like going home yet. Or to the house out by the canyon (he wouldn’t understand). She didn’t want to wait in the oppressive silence, or face the disappointed shrugs, the comforting hugs. This was something she had to do on her own.
Making a decision, she twisted the keys back into the ignition. As the engine roared to life, she made a U-turn around the parking lot and drove back down the street she came. It took around ten minutes to get to where she needed to be, and as she turned the corner down into a scheme she hadn’t been to in almost two years, she questioned whether or not this was something she was really going to do.
As a child, in a house with clocks that often broke, Jessie had used the sky as an indicator of celestial movement, and so instinctively glanced out the window of her car (the grey and white abyss bore down on her where clouds weren’t saturated darkly), and then she remembered her watch— a very nice and very expensive watch— which had one hand at eight and the other pretty much on top of it.
The old military base had still been around when Jessie was born. If she dug deep into the crevices of her mind, sometimes she could imagine herself running through metallic corridors, pushing away objects she had been too young to assign meaning to, hoping that one day, she would actually get through the doors into a big wide world which was full of kindness and colour, where she could be scooped into the arms of some nice person who would take her away from the base, away from her parents. That person had indeed come, but he had waited several years— and had been amongst those within the base to begin with. Her childhood’s end was now called Cawthon Road, and a stretch of earth within this area was dug up to accommodate the tiny cul-de-sac she used to live in: neat, newly-built cottages with stone walls and thatched roofs, slabbed thresholds and gardens with artificial grass obstructed by freshly-painted fences. Residences that smelled like yellow soap on a Monday, and smoked barbecues on Saturday and Sunday. Some kids had toys: dolls, figurines— even bikes— and they played with them out on the stone steps of their houses on hot summer mornings whilst fathers recoated fences and mothers hung laundry from clothes lines, and chirped away to neighbours in gardens over.
But not Jessie. Her memories consisted of oppressive blackness; there had been no pretty garden to play in besides small slabs and overgrown weeds and her hallways had been filled with shadows, cutting holes in her heart that sunlight could not heal, and only purple could penetrate.
Mammon was minuscule— she must have been down this street a million times in the past decade. Yet it seemed, she thought as she inched her car behind an arid clump of cacti, like coming home after running away as a miscreant child. This was her town reputation. Jessie wasn’t sure whether or not it could be considered true anymore. After all, she hadn’t visited the house she technically still lived in very much after the night she ran away, and even less once she got pregnant with Billy. She hadn’t been back since her pregnancy with the twins, because she was too mentally drained to deal with the backlash, and once they were born (girls, girls, both of them girls) she knew she couldn’t ever go back until her father was dead in the ground.
Ten yards away from the house now. Jessie switched off her engine and settled in to wait. At half past, she switched it back on just to enact the window wipers— which became a constant yet necessary evil if she didn’t want her view to be completely obstructed by rain. At ten to, as exhaustion was just creeping over her body in a warm, soothing hug, a groan rose from her right, followed by a chorus of wails. She laid her head back and stared at the ceiling. When it became too blurred to see anymore, the cries had been amplified twofold, so she willed her hands to move, unbuttoning her shirt and then slipping into the baby basket to remove one of the hungry occupants. Feeding was a long, tedious process that she found most of her day either doing, or preparing for, longing for the days where she’d only had to do it the once. Her latest car caged her elbows in with wide movement; this was something she had to do individually. Although she did her best not to choke the infant, her other child’s crying for her disturbed Jessie more than it ever had, stirring a spiral of depressive thoughts that threatened to consume her. When she got to feeding that one, it was like a sigh of relief. When she finished and managed to keep herself from leaking, she placed the second baby back beside the first, who was wide awake and talkative, and gripped by an insatiable urge to kick her shoes off.
Jessie checked her watch again as she bent for a third time to try and wrestle the footwear back onto stubborn feet. It was now twenty to ten, and the sky hung heavier over the neat little row of houses. There had been no break in the rain since she’d arrived at her spot— she worried he’d give it a miss tonight— but sure enough, her father was out of the house and into his car with a cigar in his mouth bang on quarter to, unnervingly unprotected from the onslaught of rain drenching his clothes. Her heart lurched suddenly at the thought of his headlights roving over and seeing her— but he was already driving down Cawthon street, already turning the corner before she saw the small space through the trees light up as he switched them on.
A few breaths of calm forced themselves out of Jessie’s lungs before she turned her attention to the matter at hand. A wave of childish fear squeezed at her throat when she thought of what she was about to do— a tiny, broken part of her that begged to be safe, begged to be silent and invisible. A breath, not a breath. The lump was too big. Her fingers tapped together. Wasn’t there someone, anyone else? There had to be. Anyone was better than this. She could not go into her mother’s house and endanger herself, her children. She could never leave them in that environment. It’s only for a few hours oh but what if something happened she could never forgive herself if—
Thunk.
Jessie looked down.
A pair of shoes, lined with green cotton, lay innocently on the floor.
Melanie laughed at her.
Jessie drove towards the house.
____________________
Elizabeth Blaylock watched the rain and did not move or breathe.
The bruise on her cheek pulsed in tandem with the patters. She was alone now, and didn’t have to pretend to be invisible, but now was as best a time as any for a moment of silent solemnity. Questions rolled around in her head like soft brittle pieces of skull, most too frightening to answer. Overhead, a thunderous ebony seeped into the clouds as night fell, leeching away the scant light day had brought with promises of floods to come.
An omen.
A twin golden glow flashed through the curtains of the window opposite, haloing the roses of the wallpaper skewed a sulfur yellow. Elizabeth sat stiff and white as marble, lips pursed together— but she drew in a tight breath through her nose and held it, exhaling as she stood. It was a long time coming.
Elizabeth opened the door on the second knock. She knew who would be there and had not decided yet to turn her away, but she still moved to slam the door in perfunctory greeting.
A hand wedged in to stop it from closing completely. Elizabeth allowed the door to swing back, revealing the young woman who stood on the front step, drenched down to her bones.
Elizabeth eyed what she was holding. “Well, my girl, I see you got yourself in some trouble.”
“No, ma’am.” Her daughter gestured to the baby basket. “Just had twins, is all.” She stuck her chin out, and met Elizabeth’s gaze determinedly— a spark in full flame even as the rest of her face sagged in exhaustion. “And Billy is missing.”
“So I heard.”
“Can I come in?”
Elizabeth leered, a grin full of teeth. “And why exactly should I let lying little parent-defacing, devil-cavorting whores into my home?”
The flame dampened in Jesslyn’s eyes. Her entire face crumpled and she bowed her head. A sick sliver of pleasure shot through Elizabeth, and she opened her mouth to dish out more when Jessie looked up, re-igniting.
“Because you’re never going to see me again.”
Rain sizzled. At the side of the house, water droplets plinked heavily off a metal pipe. Elizabeth stood aside.
Jesslyn closed the door behind her and slipped her shoes off. Elizabeth peered at the infants swaddled in the baby basket, identical to the inch. She scowled at the tufts of fine blonde hair, the round pale blue eyes, and she couldn’t help but snipe, “You even know which one them belong to?”
“Does it matter?” Jessie shot back.
Elizabeth scoffed. She took the baby basket from her daughter and placed it on the sofa, then shambled away to the kitchen. No, she thought as she poured the kettle. No, she supposed not.
“I don’t suppose he’s come back here at all? You’ve not seen him anywhere around the house? Or the base?”
“Can’t say I have.” Elizabeth placed two cups of tea on the coffee table, moving to sit across from her daughter on the sofa.
“And you’d tell me, right?” Jesslyn stared at the steam rising from her cup. “If anything had happened… you wouldn’t… you wouldn’t cover it up?”
Elizabeth scowled. “And just what is that supposed to mean? Who do you take me for?”
Jesslyn’s eyes were wide and sad. Something in Elizabeth burned hot; her fingers flexed around the rim of the cup. She reminded herself that she could not throw the liquid at her unless she wanted to bring the devil to her doorstep. Not that it had ever stopped him from coming knocking before.
An uncomfortable silence followed in which babies slept and tea grew cold. It was into this silence, as Elizabeth thought about trees and serpents, that Jesslyn asked eventually, quietly, “Why did you marry him?”
Why? Why, indeed? She did not have much choice in the matter, destitute as she was, but that wasn’t the answer Jessie needed, was it?
“He wasn’t always as he is today,” she said finally. “Quite the charmer, your father was. And handsome. There was none of this… temper. Smoking. Gambling. He drank, but I didn’t know about it. There was many things about him I didn’t know.
“When he asked to marry me, there was no reason for me to say no. And that’s how it was then. Nowadays, a man has to be perfect for a girl to even consider marriage, but… he had money, and there were no serious flaws, so why wouldn’t we live together in matrimony? He wanted me, so I wanted him.
“Everything after that happened slowly. He did not flip into another man as… as a snake shedding skin. The bills did not pay. Glass bottles appeared in the trash. He began to stay out later and later. He would go into thunderous rages, slam his hands on the table, throw things near but not quite at me… but then he would take me in his arms later and apologise. There were other things, but he told me I was a loony, that all my stock was, that maybe I should be sent to the loony bin up Salt Lake. By the time he put his hands on me, I knew I deserved it.”
Silence ticked on in the room. The sympathy burned bright in Jesslyn’s eyes. “Point is,” Elizabeth went on quickly. “He wasn’t what he seemed. Sinners can be spotted a mile afar, but the devil himself is a master of deceit. This is what I tried to tell you.”
“You did.” Jessie slid her pained gaze to the baby basket. “I think,” she said slowly. “I think I always want to see the best in people. I don’t want to believe that someone can be… can be so oblivious and not even try to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, but…” Her face fell and shoulders slumped. “Sometimes I think that’s the problem.”
Anger bubbled up again in Elizabeth, along with the urge to slap the self-righteousness from the face of a sinner, but it burst quickly, vapourised into realisation.
“… Some people don’t cause pain out of ignorance more than they do out of knowing it’ll hurt,” Jessie was saying. “It’s not in spite of the consequence, it’s because of it. There… there must be a word for that. I don’t know it. And I think… that’s awful, you know? To be that way.” She laughed, a high string of syllables, each shaded in with the black of her bitterness. “And you know what I think? I think I want to help them. To make them better people. Gosh, I really am just perfect for them, aren’t I? Maybe I’m just being silly.” She forced a smile, though it didn’t quite mask the despair in her eyes. “I love them. Both of them. I do. And I love Billy, and the girls, and you, and even father. But love is dangerous.” Her breath hitched. “And I’m in a lot of that danger.”
“Enough of this,” said Elizabeth, quiet at first, but growing in confidence with each word. “I am tired. How is the truth not clear to you?” she demanded. “How can you not see the divine intent? Eve was tempted by the guile of the serpent and ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Her sin was the first of all sins, because she was susceptible to trickery. How many women are the same? Look at your own situation. And— yes— even look at mine. The woman is naive and rebellious, and so must be guided by the man. This is the word of God, and surely His word is evident— even to impertinent little girls who presume to know better?”
“I feel like that has less to do with women being stupid than men just not being very nice. We rely on men for everything, and if women are taught we must be guided, then of course we wouldn’t question—“
“Don’t argue with me,” Elizabeth snapped. “As I was saying—“
“—I mean, if I’m gullible by nature and that’s a variable which should be controlled, how come whenever I questioned anything—“
“Lucifer’s influence!” Elizabeth hissed. “Why are you in my mouth? Come away from him and come home. Quit that… that heinous place you serve your confectionary. Go to the church, repent for your sins. Leave the boy,” she said, and soldiered on before Jessie could balk. “It’s been a week. He’s gone. I’m sorry. But you can put it all behind you! Put those girls into an orphanage for someone decent to raise them. And focus on God. Find a man— a godly man,” she added. “And get out of town.”
Jesslyn looked at her, that strange pitying smile playing around her lips. “You know, it’s funny,” she said. “That’s almost exactly what I was planning to do. But I was thinking of taking night classes for nursing or something. I would just love to be a teacher and even a secretary would be all right, but I’m a total dunce at reading. And I’ll need something that pays pretty well,” she added with a wide, pointed stare. “Because, I’m sorry, but the rest of your suggestion is abhorrent. Love may be dangerous for some people, but it’s different for your children. At least, it should be. I refuse to abandon mine.”
“Who fed you?!” Elizabeth was on her feet now. “Who carried you like a disease for nine months? Who spent forty-four hours in labour? Who gave you the joy of creation?!”
Jesslyn flinched back, but inched herself towards the babies. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I really am. I certainly do not enjoy seeing the way you’ve been treated—“
“I don’t need your pity,” Elizabeth scoffed, but turned away.
“— But no more did I enjoy the way I was treated. I know you have your views, but it’s… it’s just wrong to treat children that way. I know you need something to take your anger out on, but—“
“Oh!” Elizabeth laughed, high and angry. “And you act like you are exempt! Has it not occurred to you that your bastard would be with you now had you not abandoned him in the rain? Now you know how I felt every time you embarrassed me!”
Her gaze flattened. “Okay, I know I’m not perfect, but I will not allow you to criticise my mothering. It was five minutes! Time-outs are effective! He gets over-excited! And I’ve told him— going to Fredbear’s is a privilege. If he can’t behave, he can’t be there. It’s not even about punishing him, it’s about making it a good environment for everyone! You all got so mad when I just let him do whatever, but now you don’t like the fact I’ve taken your advice? If I were to beat him, you’d say I was an abusive monster and act like you’ve never done the same thing, but you won’t get the satisfaction of saying that because that is a line I will not cross!”
“Don’t you raise your voice to me, young lady! I don’t care if it’s in front of your children, just because you’re a mother doesn’t mean you’re too old to go over my knee.” Jesslyn thrust her arms out in a are you kidding me? gesture, like Billy probably hadn’t witnessed something like that in his own house. But when Elizabeth did it, she was the monster.
“This was a mistake.” Jesslyn shook her head and grabbed the baby basket. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll go now.”
“That’s right,” said Elizabeth loudly. “Just leave and abandon your poor mother. Leave me for two years and come back the next time you need help. How did I raise such a selfish harlot?”
“If,” said Jesslyn, swinging back round. “You take issue with how little I visit you, or the fact that I haven’t been back since I had daughters, maybe you should ask yourself why that is. This is not a healthy environment for them. I won’t leave them with him.”
“Ah, yes. Heaven forbid they receive some discipline! They may not grow up to be whores, and then you would be disappointed, I’m sure!”
Jesslyn looked at her for a long moment, searching Elizabeth’s eyes. “You’re never going to admit it, are you? You’re never going to…” A sheen of water filled her eyes. “ acknowledge what he really is. That beating was never the worst of it.”
Rage seized Elizabeth. “I always knew you were a slut,” she spat. “That’s something I never needed to deny.”
A strangled noise came from Jesselyn. Tears rolled freely down her face. “If that’s what m-makes you feel better,” she sobbed, still trying to keep her voice light. “I guess I’ll get out of your hair. Goodbye, mother.”
“Then I suggest you hurry up.” Elizabeth felt no guilt, no hesitation. All she wanted to do was make Jesslyn hurt. “Time is ticking.”
Jesslyn got one foot out of the door, then suddenly stopped dead. She stared at the wall, tears paused, face perfectly blank. “Oh,” she whispered, mouth curving around the shape. Then she blanched. “Oh.”
“What?” said Elizabeth, frowning. The anger fled from her, leaving only confusion. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
But Jesslyn didn’t hear her. She stared off at some point in the distance, with that far-away look she used to get daydreaming about some silly thing. “Too big for the shelf…” she muttered. “But what if… what if the shelf was made that way on purpose?”
“What in the devil are you talking about?”
She looked at Elizabeth now, her eyes holding a wild light. “It’s about death,” she said, and laughed. Or screamed. Then cried. “The song’s about death. That’s what it… I can’t… I don’t believe—“
And just as quickly as the trance had been, it went. Jesslyn’s face hardened with determination, and she thrust the baby basket at Elizabeth. “I need to see him! He used to love it when I was right. I need to know… look after them for me? Please? I’ll be back before he is.” She ran out in the rain, leaving Elizabeth spluttering, and threw herself into the car. The headlights glowed like the eye of a waking dragon, ready to breathe fire. Elizabeth watched as she drove past the house and along the corner, the expression on her face of an almost relieved dread.
That was how Elizabeth would always remember her daughter. A girl whose mind she would never understand, whose love she thought foolish, but unmistakable. Time passed. Elizabeth watched the window. The babies, dressed in complementary colours, but who Elizabeth could not tell apart, began to stir and then cry, Mary calling for mama. She ignored them. She watched.
Time passed.
When Leo finally stumbled in, asking what the fuck she’d been up to when he was away, Elizabeth had no choice but to tell him the truth. He declared that he was not running a goddamn charity and would not be watching the little bitch’s brats while she went to make more of them— but then, upon closer inspection of said brats, seemed to change his mind.
True to her word, Elizabeth never saw Jesslyn again. Not in the streets, or in Gallifrey’s, or even… even in that wretched place. No one came to collect the children. No one offered to help. Elizabeth had to buy twice the amount with the rapidly dwindling allowance Leo gave her, and slap them silent whenever they cried. All she could do was raise them as she’d raised her own daughter, but she knew the devil would slip back for its own eventually.
Time passed.
On the night of August 5th, 1967, it rained. And not just rained, but bucketed; in weepy torrents that sobbed from the sky and bolts of lightening over Victorian mansions. Inside this mansion, a grandfather’s clock marked seconds, hours, years, ticking down the moments for the next phase of the plan. The clock saw all, guarded more— and for ninety years, it ran, in the sleepy town of Mammon, where people left unaccounted for and screams went unheard.