When the Devil wants you

Chapter 2

Morning arrived too soon.

Aunt Margaret’s car pulled up at exactly nine AM. Black and sleek and so clean it looked wrong on our dirt road. She stepped out wearing heels that would sink into the ground and a dress that screamed money.

“Ivy.” She air kissed near my cheek. Didn’t actually touch me. “You’ve grown. Look at you.”

I looked the same as three years ago. She just hadn’t paid attention then either.

“Margaret.” Grandma came out. The mother and daughter looked at each other. Something passed between them. Old hurts maybe. Ancient arguments.

“The funeral was yesterday?” Aunt Margaret asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it. Work has been insane and Richard had that conference—”

“It’s fine.” Grandma’s voice was flat. “She’s packed. Ready to go.”

Just like that. Like I was a package being shipped off.

Uncle Richard emerged from the driver’s seat. Tall. Graying hair. Expensive watch. He nodded at us. Didn’t say anything. Popped the trunk.

“Is that all?” Aunt Margaret stared at my single suitcase like it personally offended her.

“That’s all,” I confirmed.

Grandma pulled me aside while Uncle Richard loaded my pathetic bag. Her hands gripped my shoulders. Eyes boring into mine.

“You call me. Every week. You hear me?”

“I will.”

“And you work hard. Make something of yourself. Don’t waste this opportunity your mother bled for.”

My eyes stung again. “I won’t.”

“Good.” She pulled me into a hug. Quick and tight. Then pushed me away before either of us could start crying again. “Go on now. Before I change my mind.”

I climbed into the back seat of the car. Leather. Cold against my legs. Smelled like new car and wealth.

The engine started. We pulled away. I twisted in my seat. Watched Grandma standing in front of our little house. Getting smaller and smaller. She didn’t wave. Just stood there. Solid as the earth.

Then we turned a corner and she was gone.

“So Ivy.” Aunt Margaret turned in her seat to look at me. Smile plastered on. “Are you excited?”

Excited wasn’t the word I’d use. Terrified maybe. Numb definitely.

“Sure,” I lied.

“The girls are going to be so happy to meet you. Stephanie and Caroline. They’re around your age. Well, Stephanie is twenty one and Caroline is nineteen, but close enough.”

I remembered them vaguely. Loud. Spoiled. Had thrown a tantrum at that Christmas visit because they got the wrong color iPhone.

This was going to be hell.

“Great,” I said. Keeping my voice neutral.

The drive took three hours. Countryside gave way to suburbs gave way to actual city. Buildings got taller. Streets got busier. Everything was concrete and glass and moving too fast.

I tried to take it all in. Street names. Building heights. The way the light reflected off windows. But there was too much. It overwhelmed even me.

We pulled up to a house. No. Not a house. A mansion. Gates and a circular driveway and architecture that belonged in magazines.

“Home sweet home,” Aunt Margaret announced.

This wasn’t home. Home was a creaky house with a leaky roof and lavender soap smell.

But I didn’t say that. Just grabbed my suitcase when Uncle Richard opened the trunk and followed them inside.

The entry hall was bigger than our entire living room back in the village. Marble floors. Crystal chandelier. A staircase that curved up like something from a movie.

“Stephanie! Caroline! Come meet your cousin!”

Footsteps thundered down the stairs. Two girls appeared. Both beautiful in that expensive way. Perfect hair. Perfect clothes. Perfect everything.

They looked me up and down. I saw the judgment in their eyes. The way they took in my wrinkled dress from the funeral. My single suitcase. My complete lack of sophistication.

“Hi,” the taller one said. Stephanie probably. “Nice to meet you.”

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Your room is upstairs. Third door on the left,” Aunt Margaret said. “Why don’t you girls show her?”

I followed the cousins up the stairs. They didn’t talk to me. Whispered to each other instead. Loud enough that I could hear.

“She looks like she shops at thrift stores.”

“Mom said we have to be nice.”

“How long is she staying?”

“I don’t know. God, I hope not long.”

The third door on the left opened to a small room. And I mean small compared to the rest of this place. Probably normal sized anywhere else. But here it felt like a closet.

Single bed. Small dresser. Window overlooking the back garden.

“Bathroom is down the hall,” Caroline said. “Dinner is at six. Don’t be late.”

Then they left. Closed the door behind them.

I stood there in this strange room in this strange house in this strange city. Set my suitcase on the bed. Opened it. Stared at my meager possessions.

What was I doing here?

I moved to the window. Looked out at the manicured lawn. Everything perfect and trimmed and artificial.

Mom had wanted this for me. Had saved and sacrificed so I could have opportunity. Could have a future.

But right now all I felt was alone.

I sat on the bed. Springs creaked. Not used to weight probably since this was clearly a guest room nobody used.

The photo of Mom and Grandma and me stared up from my suitcase. Mom’s smile. Real and warm and everything this place wasn’t.

“I miss you,” I whispered to the photo. “I miss you so much and I don’t know how to do this without you.”

The photo didn’t answer. Of course it didn’t.

I lay back on the bed. Stared at the ceiling. Plain white. No cracks. No water stains. Just perfect emptiness.

Hours crawled by. I unpacked my pathetic clothes into the dresser. Took maybe ten minutes. The rest of the drawers sat empty. Mocking me with all that space I had nothing to fill.

At five thirty I heard movement downstairs. Voices. The clink of dishes.

Dinner at six. Don’t be late.

I changed into the least wrinkled thing I owned. A simple blue dress Mom had bought me for my twenty first birthday. Brushed my hair. Looked at myself in the small mirror over the dresser.

I looked tired. Hollow. Like Grandma at the funeral.

Downstairs I followed the sound of voices to a dining room that could seat twenty people easy. The table was set with china that probably cost more than our car back home. Crystal glasses. Silver utensils.

My family sat at one end. Aunt Margaret. Uncle Richard. Stephanie. Caroline. They’d changed for dinner. Like it was an event.

“Ivy, sit here.” Aunt Margaret gestured to a chair. Not close to them. A few seats down. Separated but present.

I sat.

A woman I hadn’t met came out with plates of food. Probably a maid or cook. She didn’t look at me. Just set down the dishes and disappeared.

“So Ivy,” Uncle Richard said. First words he’d spoken directly to me. “Your grandmother tells us you’re quite bright.”

“I do okay.”

“Margaret says you have some kind of special memory?”

There it was. The thing that made me useful. Different. Worth mentioning.

“I remember things well,” I said carefully. “Details mostly.”

“Fascinating.” He cut into his steak. “That could be quite useful in the right profession.”

Stephanie snorted into her water glass. Caroline kicked her under the table.

“We were thinking you could enroll in some courses,” Aunt Margaret said. “Get proper certifications. Maybe business administration or—”

“I appreciate that,” I interrupted. Probably rude but I didn’t care. “But I need to find work first. Pay my own way.”

Aunt Margaret’s smile tightened. “There’s no rush. You’re family.”

Family. Right. That’s why they’d seated me down here. Why they were already planning my future without asking what I wanted.

“Still,” I said. “I’d like to work.”

“Well.” Uncle Richard dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “We can discuss it later. For now just settle in. Get comfortable.”

Comfortable. In this house that felt like a museum. With these people who looked at me like I was a charity case.

Sure.

The rest of dinner passed in awkward small talk that didn’t include me. Stephanie and Caroline talked about some party. Uncle Richard mentioned a business deal. Aunt Margaret commented on the food.

I ate in silence. The steak was perfectly cooked. The vegetables seasoned just right. Everything tasted like cardboard.

After dinner I excused myself. Went back to my small room. Closed the door. Leaned against it.

One day down. God knew how many more to go.

I changed into the old t-shirt I slept in. Climbed into the unfamiliar bed with its too soft mattress and too many pillows.

Sleep wouldn’t come.

I kept thinking about Grandma alone in that house. About Mom’s grave with its wrong colored coffin. About everything I’d left behind.

Around midnight I gave up. Got out of bed. Found the jeans and sweater I’d worn earlier. Put them back on.

I needed air. Needed to clear my head. Needed to feel something other than this suffocating wrongness.

The house was dark and quiet when I crept downstairs. Found a door that led to the garage. Inside sat three cars. The black sedan we’d arrived in. A silver sports car that probably belonged to one of the cousins. And a bicycle.

Old. Looked like it hadn’t been used in years. Probably belonged to Stephanie or Caroline when they were kids and still pretended to do normal things.

I wheeled it outside. The night air hit my face. Cool and sharp. City air. Different from home. Smelled like exhaust and concrete instead of grass and earth.

But it was something.

I climbed on the bicycle. It wobbled under me. Been a while since I’d ridden. But muscle memory kicked in. I found my balance.

Started pedaling down the driveway. Through the gates that were thankfully open. Out onto the street.

The neighborhood was deserted. Big houses with their lights off. Everyone asleep in their comfortable beds in their comfortable lives.

I pedaled faster. Let the wind whip my hair. Let the movement clear some of the fog in my head.

I didn’t know where I was going. Didn’t care. Just needed to move. Needed to feel like I had some control over something.

The streets were empty. Streetlights cast orange pools of light. I wove between them. Shadow to light to shadow again.

My mind was still back in that village. Still standing by that grave. Still watching Grandma get smaller in the rear view mirror.

I wasn’t paying attention.

Didn’t see the intersection coming up. Didn’t see the stop sign I blew right through.

Didn’t see the car until it was too late.

Metal scraped metal.

The bike jerked sideways. I flew forward. Hit the pavement hard. Palms scraping. Elbow cracking against concrete.

Pain shot through my arm.

And then silence.

I lay there on the street. Breathing hard. Staring up at the sky. No stars. Light pollution blocked them all out.

A car door opened.

Footsteps.

Expensive shoes appeared in my vision.

“Are you out of your mind?”

The voice was deep. Cold. Dangerous.

I looked up.