The day had folded into night like a bad memory, the kind that lingers but refuses to leave. The house, worn and quiet, seemed to carry the weight of everything that had happened, the air still heavy with unspoken things. The darkness wasn’t comforting, just the residue of a long, chaotic day that refused to let go.
Tissues surrounded Madison's sleeping form like fallen petals, evidence of tears shed until exhaustion finally pulled her under. The night had settled deep into the house, a living presence that filled every corner and crevice with watchful silence.
Snap - Snap -
Her eyes jolted open, pupils contracting painfully in the darkness. For a moment, she thought the sound was part of her dream—something chasing her through endless hallways, something with claws and hunger in its eyes.
Snap - Snap -
Madison rubbed her eyes, the grit of dried tears scraping against her knuckles. The sound was real. It came from somewhere in the house, a rhythm as regular as a heartbeat but all wrong. Too deliberate. Too harsh.
Snap - Snap - Snap - Snap -
Madison's breath caught in her throat as she slowly eased herself out of bed, the floor cold beneath her bare feet.
Snap - Snap - Snap -
She grabbed a pen from her desk, gripping it so tightly that her knuckles blanched white. Not much of a weapon, but the weight of it in her palm was reassuring. Something solid in a house that seemed increasingly unmoored from reality.
Snap - Snap -
Madison approached her door cautiously, each step measured against the strange rhythmic sound that pulled her forward like a hook embedded in her sternum. She pressed her ear against the door, listening for anything beyond the sound. Voices. Breathing. Anything that might tell her what waited on the other side.
The hallway was dim, lit only by a faint, flickering glow that spilled from the living room. It cast long shadows that seemed to move independently of their sources, as if they had agendas of their own.
Whoosh! Snap!
Madison pulled her bedroom door shut behind her, the pen still clutched in her fist like a talisman. She moved down the hall toward the living room, her steps careful and quiet. Her heartbeat had synced with the sound, her body betraying her with its animal response to rhythm.
She fumbled for her cell phone and turned it on, the sudden glow temporarily blinding her. She quickly dimmed the screen and tapped through to the camera app, switching it to live streaming mode. Her face filled the screen, pale and determined, the "LIVE" indicator blinking steadily in the corner.
"It's Mad here," she whispered to the invisible audience. "If anything happens to me, at least y'all will witness it. Talk about some spooky shi—“
WHOOSH! SNAP!
Madison's words died in her throat. She quickly flipped the camera around, pointing it ahead of her as she continued down the hallway. The sound was louder now, unmistakable. Something striking flesh.
WHOOSH! SNAP!
Fear coiled in her stomach like a cold, heavy snake. Still, she pressed forward, drawn by a morbid curiosity she couldn't suppress. Some part of her needed to see, needed to know what secret ritual was unfolding in her house.
WHOOSH! SNAP! WHOOSH! SNAP!
Madison reached the end of the hallway and held her phone out, the camera facing the living room. Her hand trembled slightly, causing the image to waver.
WHOOSH! SNAP! WHOOSH! SNAP!
She angled her phone’s camera just enough to catch the living room. Through the screen, she saw the front door cracked open, a cool breeze stirring the candles scattered around the room, making their flames flicker like nervous ghosts.
Inside the living room, the candlelight wavered, casting everything in an eerie, medieval glow—something straight out of a Renaissance painting of hell.
Faith knelt in the center of the room, bare-chested, her eyes closed in what might have been ecstasy or agony. Blood traced delicate patterns down her shoulder blades and upper back, trickling from numerous small wounds. In her hand, she gripped a flog—a whip of many tails, each one tipped with a small knot.
Grace stood over her, her face and neck gleaming with sweat that caught the candlelight and transformed it into something oily and unclean. Her eyes were closed, hands raised toward the ceiling as if reaching for something just beyond her grasp, her fingers straining toward the heavens.
"Come into this child," Grace murmured, her voice low and fervent, "on her knees, repenting and demonstrating her faith." Her voice grew harder, more commanding. "Harder! Let him know you acknowledge your wrongs."
Faith raised the flog and swung it over her shoulder with practiced precision.
WHOOSH! SNAP!
The tails bit into her flesh. Faith winced momentarily but maintained her composure, her face settling back into a mask of concentration. Grace showed no reaction, as if the sound of the whip and the sight of fresh blood were of no consequence.
Madison's hand went slack with shock. The phone slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor with a dull THUNK that seemed to echo in the candlelit room. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She rushed into the room, her foot landing with a heavy thud on the phone, silencing it just as the screen flickered to life again.
Faith's eyes snapped open. She instinctively covered her bare chest with her arms, shame replacing the trance-like state she'd been in moments before. "Oh, God!" she gasped, the words somewhere between prayer and curse.
Grace lowered her hands and opened her eyes. Her face contorted with fury as she spotted Madison standing frozen in the hallway. "Why are you out of your room at this hour!?" she demanded.
In the momentary chaos—Grace grabbed a sweater and tossed it to Faith, Faith hurriedly pulled it on over her bleeding back—Madison seized the opportunity to kneel down and retrieve her phone. She swiped quickly, cutting off the livestream, then pressed the phone against her thigh, hoping it didn’t betray her alternative motives.
"I, I... needed paper," she stammered, the lie forming itself without conscious thought. "Homework. See, dropped my pen." She held up the pen as evidence, keeping the phone pressed against her thigh, out of sight.
Grace strode toward her, each step punctuated with righteous anger. "Homework? At this time of night? What are you up to?"
She reached down and yanked Madison to her feet with surprising strength, her fingers digging into Madison's arm hard enough to leave bruises.
Madison used the confrontation as cover, slipping the phone into her pocket with a quickness born of desperation."Right now, I'm praying I didn't see what I just saw," she said, her voice steadier than she felt.
Madision’s voice is filled with curiousity and confusion, ”What was that?"
Grace's grip tightened as she pulled Madison toward the hallway. The older woman's face was set in lines of fury, but beneath it, Madison thought she saw something else. Something that might have been fear.
The hallway remained dim, barely illuminated by the flickering candlelight spilling from the living room. It cast long, distorted shadows that seemed to reach for Madison as Grace dragged her forward.
Without warning, Grace's hand shot out and flipped the light switch. Harsh overhead light flooded the corridor, the sudden brightness as violent as a slap.
"That was none of your business," Grace hissed, her fingers digging deeper into Madison's arm. "It's between your mom and God!"
Madison's bedroom door loomed ahead. Before she could brace herself, Grace hurled her forward with surprising strength. Madison's body collided with the unyielding frame, the impact sending shockwaves through her chest and shoulders. She slumped to the floor; the breath knocked from her lungs.
Looking up from this new vantage point, Grace seemed impossibly tall, her face contorted into something barely human. The overhead light created a halo effect around her head—not angelic but severe, like an Old Testament visitation.
“O.M.G., you're crazy!" Madison gasped, struggling to regain her feet, using the door frame for support.
Grace's face twitched, a muscle jumping beneath her eye. "You're driving me insane!” Her hands fumbled with the doorknob, twisting it with such violence that Madison wondered if it might snap off in her grip.
The door finally gave way, swinging inward. Grace shoved Madison into the room with both hands, the force sending her stumbling toward the bed. The door slammed shut with a finality that seemed to shake the foundations of the house.
Through the wooden barrier, Madison heard Faith's hurried footsteps approaching. She pressed her ear to the door, straining to hear.
Faith spoke up, her voice tight, “Don’t close the—”
"If you don't take action, I will." Grace's voice carried through the wood, cold and certain.
There was no audible response from Faith, but Madison could picture her mother standing there, trembling, rocking on her heels—a gesture so familiar it made Madison's throat tighten despite everything.
The front door slammed with enough force to rattle the windows, announcing Grace's departure. The vibration traveled through the floorboards, up the walls, and seemed to settle in Madison's bones, a physical reminder of the woman's presence that lingered even in her absence.
Madison stood frozen in the center of her bedroom, every muscle taut, her gaze locked on the closed door as if it were a living thing. The floorboards outside her sanctuary creaked with her mother's shifting weight. Faith's voice came muffled through the wood, a pleading cadence that made Madison's stomach twist.
"Maddy, please, I—"
Something snapped inside Madison then, a dam breaking. She lunged at the door, her bare feet slapping against the worn hardwood. Both fists connected with the door in a thunderous impact that vibrated up her arms and into her shoulders. The pain felt good, clarifying. She welcomed it.
The sound reverberated through the old house, a percussive echo of her rage.
On the other side, Faith flinched away from the door, her body thudding against the hallway wall. Her face flooded with concern, but words couldn’t escape her throat—only tears spilled from her eyes.
Madison could picture her mother—startled, frightened, deserving of every second of fear. Good. Let her feel something real for once.
Madison's breath came in shallow gasps as she stood inches from the door, her knuckles already reddening. Heat radiated from her skin, anger a tangible presence in the room with her. She didn't recognize her own voice when it tore from her throat, raw and primal.
"YOU'RE A TERRIBLE MOTHER!”
The words hung in the stale air of her bedroom, both too much and not enough. Madison pressed her ear against the door, listening. She heard it then—the soft, hiccupping sobs, the rustle of fabric as her mother slid down the wall to the floor. Madison closed her eyes, imagining Faith's tears cutting paths through her makeup, her mother's body crumpling under the weight of truth.
The rage continued to build, wave after wave crashing through Madison's body. Her lungs couldn't seem to capture enough oxygen. The edges of her vision darkened as her breaths came quick and shallow. A cry escaped her, something animal and wounded that she didn't recognize as her own.
Madison's knees gave out. she collapsed forward, her body folding into a position of supplication that felt both foreign and familiar. Her forehead pressed against the cool wood of the door, the barrier between them. Her hands, so recently weapons, now lay flat against the floor.
She remained there, breathing in the scent of lemon furniture polish and old wood, listening to her mother weep on the other side of a door that might as well have been an ocean.
Chapter 20