I felt disoriented—dizzy with the sense that my Hallmark movie–worthy small-town landscape had been turned inside out.
I thought of the video clip I’d seen in Izzy’s room: how it made me realize that everything I thought I knew about my mother growing up had been wrong. The world was not as it seemed. She’d kept secrets, big secrets from me—worn a mask of her own. And hadn’t I done the same? Keeping secrets from my own girls? Pretending to be something I wasn’t?
Izzy spotted me, trained her camera on me for just a few seconds, no doubt capturing the unsettled look on my face. I did my best to smile at her, but I’m sure it looked more like a grimace.
“WHAT DID YOUthink?” she asked a little later, when she hopped into the car at the high school parking lot. She was still wearing the cloak and the black horned mask. Her voice came out slightly muffled.
Snow was falling hard, but the car was warm, the heater cranking away.
“You guys were terrifying,” I said. “I loved it.”
She nodded, the mask slipping a little. She reached up to adjust it.
“So what, exactly, were you all supposed to be?” I looked at her sideways, telling myself it was just Izzy in there. The red eyes glowed back at me. The horns looked sharp enough to draw blood.
Around us, other kids in masks were being picked up by their families. The door of the gym opened and boys on the basketball team came running out into the snowy parking lot in shorts and team jerseys.
“Krampus,” she said. “He’s a creepy figure from an old European legend that originated in Germany, I think. The Germans have all the great dark stuff. Anyway, Krampus came along with Saint Nicholas at Christmastime. Saint Nicholas gave gifts to the good little boys and girls and Krampus punished the ones who were naughty. He beat them with sticks. In some stories, he steals the children, even eats them.”
“You’re right,” I said. “That’s certainly dark.”
She nodded and continued talking excitedly from behind the mask. “It’s like the antithesis of how bright and cheery and commercial our Christmas has become. It’s this whole other dark side of Christmas, which is just perfect, right? I mean, here it is the darkest, coldest time of the year. What better time for a demon?”
She looked at me from behind the horned mask, its red eyes still turned on and glowing, watching me.
My heart seemed to skip a beat, then speed up. My fingers were trembling. I wished I hadn’t had so much coffee today. I swallowed down the tight feeling in my throat.
I heard my mother’s voice in my head:You, Alison, may call me Azha.
Izzy took off the mask, set it on her lap, and I felt myself relax. She was just my daughter again and it was a relief. I smiled at her gratefully.
“So are we going home or what?” she asked, running a hand through her hair.
I sat frozen, suddenly not wanting to go back home.
Home where my mother waited.
What better time for a demon?
“Sorry, of course,” I said as I turned the wipers on, put the car in drive, and pulled out of the high school parking lot.
The roads were covered with a thin layer of snow.
“Your mask is amazing, by the way,” I told her, glancing over at her. “Are those LED lights?”
She laughed, rolled her eyes. “No, Mom. They’re little pieces of legit hell coal.”
I laughed back, shook my head. “Well, can you do me a favor and try not to scare your sister with it when we get home? And no Krampus stories either, okay? She’s got enough nightmare material with the Rat King.”
She nodded, reached into the mask, and turned off the glowing lights.
We were quiet for a while. Izzy turned on the radio, then changed her mind and turned it off.
“Did you like Theo’s costume?” she asked, looking down at the mask, not me.
“Which one was she?” I turned left from Granite Street to Farm Hill Drive, which would take us all the way home. There were no streetlights out here, and the trees on either side of the road seemed to form a dark tunnel. The snow fell hard, limiting my visibility. I slowed, letting the snow tires and all-wheel drive do their work as we crept up the hill. The pavement ended and we hit the dirt road.
“The one in white.”
