Page 49 of Feed Your Fiends

And then it clicks when I see a flickering lamp light through the thinning trees. A sign’s behind it, one I know by heart even without seeing the scrawling, half-faded letters:Little Wing.That bulb’s been flashing for as long as I can remember, the glass encasement filled with dead Libellules, dead dragonflies.

The other streets don’t have these old lamps any more, but this street with my old home is stuck in a time capsule. No, not stuck, simply forgotten for the shinier, newer neighbourhoods.

Suddenly, my coat pockets are heavy. No, just the right pocket. I reach inside and feel the key Mum had given me and roll it between my fingers. Home. A respite, right? But this place has been nothing but hell. Evil even when the devil, Jarett, vacated it. His minion, Jaime, still inhabits it, though.

Which evil force did I want to face tonight? I look over my shoulder, but Gant’s nowhere in sight.

The car.Something about the car set him off into another flashback of the crash. He’s too traumatised to drive, and yet he’d tried to, just to get me to go ‘home’ with him.

I look ahead at my childhood home now.

Home.

Not here. Not there. Not anywhere.

But for tonight, I choose Jaime.

I hobble to my feet and out into the clearing. The street feels so foreign as I stumble down the pavement to house number nine hundred and twelve. I never thought a number could give me a visceral reaction, but it does. Maybe if it weren’t so obscure. So ordinary. Anyone could live in house nine-hundred and twelve. Maybe it had been triple six, or the dreaded number thirteen, or even thirteen twice, I could’ve anticipated all the horror that came with living in that house.

But it’s just a normal house from the outside. Normal and ugly with its pea green and brown exterior. The lights are on, yellow and bulbous in their spiderweb-strewn glass encasements. I step onto the wooden porch, and the boards groan beneath my weight. Beaulieu’s porches are all made of sturdy stones that are older than I am.

I trace the oval, bumpy glass of the wooden door and goud myself to knock, but I don’t. Ultimately, I stick the key in the slot like I’ve done since I was seven and quietly stroll across the matted shag-carpeted threshold.

Soft voices are filtering from the left. Well, real-life voices. The others are coming from the TV program. I can see the flickering images between the counter and suspended mildewed cabinets of the breakfast nook. One person seems to be whispering to another…the other is mumbling to themselves incoherently.

I creep into the dark kitchen. The only light source is streaming from the open refrigerator doors. There isn’t much in it, but the few items that line the shelves have been burned into my brain since I was conscious of my existence. Beer, in the tall, thin, white can with the red stripes I’d once mistook for giant candy canes. I can still remember the exact sound as Jarett crushed one on my back, just slightly heavier than the crunching of aluminium foil from how thin, delicate and sharp they are. I never mistook them for peppermint sticks again.

But it’s not the beer or the scent of raw meat, chicken wings no doubt, soaking in a yellowy mixture of spices that’s bound to be lemon pepper that draws my attention next. No, it’s who’s splattered on the linoleum floor beneath the counter. Last time, it was me, Mum, and her mug. The one her parents orphaned her with amongst a whole slew of scattered dishes Jarett had thrown at us.

Dishes Jaime promised to make and replace in her ceramics class she attended for all of two weeks before seeking Jarett out at the local bars again.

My heart thuds to a stop as I stare at Jarett, who’s staring up at the popcorn ceiling and focusing on something that isn’t there. His lips are moving, but a sound only drifts out every few mumbles. Mum’s at the breakfast nook, coaxing him to come out.

Seconds drift by until, with a defeated sigh, she places the glass she’d been holding on the floor beside him. The sound of it hitting the ground alerts Jarett to stop his head shaking. He looks at it, dips his head, then his tongue, and laps at the water.

“What the…” I can barely get the words out. “What the actual fuck is going on?”

Elle

“Elle?” Jaime whips around to face me, her hand flying over her heart. Then the shock slips away, replaced by a smile as she comes toward me with open arms that I spin away from.

I point at Jarrett. “What’s he doing here?”

She glances over her shoulder, drawn by the sloppy lapping noises. “Oh…well, Ellie, you’ll never believe what happened at the club tonight.”

But Icanbelieve it.

Harod. The band. Jamie and Jarett’s band.

“That Night played,” she smiles weakly. “Harod told me Jarett had come in earlier that same evening when I saw you on the sidewalk.”

Of course, he did.

“He must’ve seen the poster, or maybe Harod told him. You know the night that we met, that band was playing—”

“Are you slow?” I ask her curiously, genuinely.

“Elle-”

---