I touched the blade to her chest. “I bind you.” I said it with all the quiet intensity I could muster.
She thrashed beneath me, made a whimpering sound.
“By the power of this knife, Descender, I bind you. You will not leave this body. You will not enter another.I bind you.”
“Alison!” Mark yelled from behind me. “What the hell are you doing?”
I froze, with the tip of the knife pressed against my mother’s chest, just over her heart.
“Put down the knife, Alison,” Mark ordered, stepping slowly into the room.
My mother was slack, unconscious. I watched and listened for a breath, but there was none.
Eight months later
FORTY-TWO
I’VE DECIDED WHERE Iwant to go to college.”
“Oh?”
“UCLA. Film school.”
I’d come into Izzy’s room to check in and see if she might want to invite Theo for dinner. It was a warm, late August afternoon. Sunlight filtered in through the windows—both the heavy curtains and the windows themselves were open, letting in a lovely breeze. Crickets and cicadas hummed outside. I could hear the soft bleating of Penny and Louise’s sheep, the occasional squawk of a chicken.
I’d been trying hard to fix things with Izzy, but ever since I got back from my six-week stint at Rabbit Hill, she’d been cold, more standoffish than ever. I was determined to keep trying, though.
Olivia was easy: as soon as I got home, she clung to me, chattered nonstop, showed me new dances she’d learned, begged me to read to her each night. We’d slipped back into our regular routine easily, as if I’d never been away. Only now our regular routine included her asking me to tell her stories about her grandma. Olivia missed her desperately and talked about her all the time. “Tell me again about the time she drove you to Cape Cod for fried shrimp,” she would say.
Izzy remained distant with me. She seemed closer than ever to Mark, and I was happy about that, but I couldn’t help feeling envious.
I looked around her room, saw it was a little tidier than usual. There was no sign of the Krampus mask. Her desk was still a mess of papers, notes, colorful energy drink cans.
“That’s terrific,” I said. “UCLA is quite competitive, but there’s no reason—”
“I’ll get in,” she said brusquely. “I’ve already been emailing with one of the faculty members there. She saw my documentary. She thinks I’d be a perfect fit for their program.”
Izzy’s documentary, simply titledMavis, had won the New England Young Filmmakers Award—she took first place, and got a $10,000 scholarship to the school of her choice. She’d entered the documentary into some other competitions and festivals and was still waiting to hear from them.
She had it open on her laptop now.
“I’m really proud of you,” I said. “It’s an impressive piece of filmmaking.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Moxie came up, looked into the room, lay down in the hallway outside.
I’d been in my studio most of the day and had finished up the final image forMoxie Saves Halloween—the cover print, which showed Moxie beside a cheerful jack-o’-lantern. My agent and editor were thrilled with the scan I’d sent them, and already asking about a third book—what holiday Moxie might save next.
I could smell the lasagna Mark was making for our celebration dinner. Olivia was in the kitchen helping him, insisting that she got to make the garlic bread.
I looked down at Izzy’s computer screen again. The film was open in her editing software. “Are you making changes? Editing it some more?”
She gave me a wry smile. “This is the director’s cut,” she said.
“Oh! I didn’t realize there would be a director’s cut. That’s cool.”
“Do you want to see the new ending? Thereal ending?”
