The Devil Crept In

by Ania Ahlborn

And then the child ran into the wood. To find his friend where the devil stood. —Anonymous

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love None so devotional as that of “Mother.” —Edgar Allan Poe

“What if it had attacked you instead of running off?” “Then it would have ended up dead instead of scared,”

Jude had been ten, but his rage was big enough to fill a man twice his size.

Did he dare? No. He turned tail and booked it back home, because that house was a place neither one of them went by themselves. Not ever. No way.

He shot Stevie a stern, reproachful look. Then again, every look seemed hateful from eyes as deep-set and narrow as The Tyrant’s. He was as ugly as he was mean with his high, shiny forehead and his sandy-brown mullet. But it was that mustache that grossed Stevie out the most—an ugly upside-down U that crawled down the sides of his mouth like a dying caterpillar.

Her uncanny ability to pretend as though Terry existed in some parallel universe never failed to creep him out.

His heart was a butterfly trapped in a mason jar, beating fast enough to fill the sky with shooting stars.

She was hitting her breastplate with a closed fist, as if trying to crack her chest open to pull out her own heart. Stevie’s mom was attempting to stop her. Every time that fist came down, she struggled to keep it from making contact. But Nicole Clark was failing to make an impact with her sister. At that moment, Amanda Brighton was stronger than both Stevie’s mom and The Tyrant combined. What had once been quiet sorrow had now grown into a snarling, clawing beast.

A reflection of perfect friendship no matter how imperfect the both of them were.

“I’m sorry about your friend, Mr. Clark,” he said. No declaration that everything would be okay. Just an apology, which hung heavy with the promise that things would never be the same, no matter how hard Stevie wished them to be.

good news just needs to be good news. Sometimes, asking questions only dulls the shine.

Having answers meant knowing what you could have done to prevent those awful things from happening.

ROSAMUND ALEKSANDER HAD always wanted a child, and yet it seemed that her wish was constantly denied. She had tried everything, from old wives’ tales to homeopathic remedies. She prayed, confident that as long as she had faith, a little miracle would eventually make her whole. But it was hard to stay hopeful year after barren year; difficult to be optimistic when, after so many failures, even her husband, Ansel, seemed to have lost interest in the idea.

Hope, born dead in a bathtub. White porcelain left soiled with swaths of blood. And why? Had she angered God somehow? Had she done something so terrible in a past life that she was now the butt of some evenhanded joke?

Otto sat crouched in the shadow of the awning, watching his mother stand among the dead. He lifted an arm—not his own, but a disembodied limb belonging to the dead boy at Rosie’s feet—and brought it to his blood-smeared mouth, as if to remind her . . . This is your life. Because I say so. Because you are mine.

Stevie closed the distance between them a little more. He wanted to stand close—arm to arm, if he was allowed; replace the fear that had settled into the corners of his heart with the comfort of proximity. He would have reached out and given Jude a hug if he wasn’t so sure he’d get socked for it, but standing close was enough.

A riddle? Stevie hated those more than he hated math. The gunk inside his brain made both riddles and arithmetic problems almost impossible to solve. As if jump-started by his loathing for puzzles, a realization occured: time was running out.

“The answer to the question isn’t always obvious, Mr. Clark. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but sometimes a straight line isn’t the quickest way.”

“Of the devil,” she whispered to herself, watching as Otto casually worked on his special treat. “You aren’t mine. You can’t be.”

Ever since his dad died, it seemed that he’d been daring God to kill him, and God had nearly taken him up on that challenge.

national news: the woman who had cared for an affront to humanity, because a mother’s love is stronger than any other force; the woman who had turned her back on that love to save the life of a stranger. A saint hidden away, exiled by her own devotion.

Yes, he had made her life difficult. She’d spent his lifetime wondering what it would have been like without him, yearning for release. And yet, this wasn’t the way she had wanted it. Because it’s never the way you want it, she thought. The universe doesn’t care.

There, in the darkness of the basement, Otto began to free himself of his mother’s bond. And as she wailed in pain, a single thought pushed past the agony: He will be free. Without me, he will be free.