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I asked my phone if it was connected to the internet and it told me that it had a very close relationship with the internet. I attempted to pull up a web page and it informed me that it was not that kind of relationship.
Baristas, like bartenders, have Seen Things.)
Half the doctors on earth wouldn’t even bother looking at my chart, they’d just see a fat person and conclude that any and all medical maladies were my own fault for being lazy and overeating. Never mind that I could probably out-hike most of them and my blood pressure is exquisite.
I could tell the moment he saw it. He started, then gave me a very suspicious look. “What the hell? Is that a hand?” Oh thank god, he sees it too. Oh shit, he sees it too.
My heart was still pounding. Jesus. And Mom hadn’t reacted to the picture falling at all. What the hell?
if it came to light that Gran Mae murdered someone and buried them at the base of her roses, I would be horrified, but maybe not completely shocked.
Stepford-style developments had to be a breeding ground for the darker side of humanity.
She had wanted the fifties family so badly, my grandad coming home from his job at the office while she spent the day vacuuming the house in pearls and high heels, like June Cleaver in Leave It to Beaver.
Haha yes June in her pearls
she loves sam she won’t hurt her
When you grow up as the weird kid taking photos of bugs you get used to it, and when you later find that the world is full of other people who want to talk about bugs with you, it’s a glorious revelation.
Something was moving in the sink, but it was a dark spreading stain. Ladybugs. “Goddammit.” I leaned over the sink, my heart still pounding. They were pouring from out of the drain, spreading across the ceramic like blood. Hundreds of them, crawling
(I don’t like to step on anyone’s religion, but when you start mixing cocaine, free love, amphetamines, statutory rape, mescaline, and ritual black magic, you have crossed out of the religious-tolerance zone and into the perhaps-you-should-be-kept-away-from-other-people zone.)
Phil grinned at me. Dammit, I did like Phil. He was a good guy. He’d taken everything in stride, even when I was brandishing rose petals and imaginary weapons at him, and he was funny too. And he took care of Mom. And his T-shirt showed off pretty good biceps too.
lol
Southern etiquette demands that you never return an empty plate,
I lost my temper. She hadn’t seen the notes. She clearly knew something was going on with Mom. “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?” I yelled. “Because I can’t!” Gail yelled right back. “Don’t you think I would if I could?”
No, it’s nothing that straightforward or that … tangible.” “Tangible?” I snorted. “What, is the house haunted?” Gail was silent.
I turned the jar, staring at the teeth, dozens of them, hundreds, molars and incisors and bicuspids, all strangely small, as human teeth are. Some of them had been burned.
Finally I went and got my advisor and said, in so many words, “What the ever-loving fuck is going on here?” Dr. Abbot, who was an endless delight, took one look at it and burst out laughing. “They’re a kid who still has their baby teeth. The adult teeth all sit right above in the jaw. Looks freaky, doesn’t it?”
she got very weird about our baby teeth.” “No, she didn’t,” said Mom, almost automatically. “Yes, she did. Don’t you remember when…?” I looked up. Mom was staring intently into my eyes, shaking her head just a fraction. Don’t say it, that look said. Don’t say it. I stopped. I swallowed. After a long moment, Mom relaxed a little, probably because I’d stopped talking. She acts like someone can hear us.
the house wasn’t haunted until last year.” “What happened last year?” “I have no idea!” She slapped the dashboard in frustration. “Things just started happening. It was fine before that, and then all of a sudden she was back!”
She kept telling me that it was in great condition but I should repaint because the color scheme was so fun and so quirky but buyers didn’t understand that. Then she opened a cupboard and the shelves flipped up and twenty coffee mugs slid off and hit her in the face.”
She always pretended she wasn’t a racist old bitch, but she’d have worn a bedsheet if she thought she could get away with it.”
The thought that we’d had the mellow version was alarming.
Dad told me not to move back in with her. ‘Don’t let her drag you back in,’ was what he said.” She rubbed her face. “I wish I’d listened.”
but surely there’s a critical mass of human teeth where you’re pretty much required to go to the authorities.
Whoever was speaking was furious at the liberals, the Democrats, the communists, and, for some reason, the Amish.
Lmao
“You’re kinda ripped,” I blurted, which was not even remotely what I had been intending to say. Smooth. Yup. That’s me. Phil’s eyebrows shot up.
Lmao
“Who’s watching the house?” “Them,” he said, sounding irritable, and shoved my shoulder, pointing me toward the street. I blinked. The door shut behind me, but I barely registered the sound of the bolts being thrown. On neighbors’ rooftops, on the mailboxes, in the trees, and even on top of the cars, at least fifty black vultures were perching, and every single one was staring fixedly at my mother’s house.
“Vultures are extremely sensitive to the dead. Particularly when the dead are doing things they shouldn’t be.”
We belonged to two wildly different schools of thought when it came to the unseen world, and our practices were … very different.”
“I’m a witch. This is different.” I reminded myself that I was going to keep an open mind. “No,” Gail continued, “I’d probably use the word sorcerer for your grandmother. It’s not a kind power, not at all.
All she did was grow roses. Not the way that a witch would, growing plants to improve a place, to bring more magic about through hard work and sweat and weeding, but as if she were building a wall of thorns to keep something out.
My voice died. My dead grandmother was sitting at the table. “Hello, Samantha,” she said. “It’s so nice to see you again.”
“You must have learned magic from your father,” I said. Gran Mae’s rosebud eyes snapped back to me. “Magic. Yes, I suppose you’d call it magic.” “What do you call it?” “Power,” said Gran Mae. “Will. Everything is will. Will and blood. And occasionally teeth.”
Father was sorry too, when I finally got tired of him. Amazing how easy it was. All that power, all those years, and all I had to do was just let his other children in and walk away.”
“Stupid child. The ladybugs were your fault.” I blinked at her. “What?” “You gave the roses blood and demanded ladybugs. What did you think was going to happen?”
I suspected that Phil currently hated roses with an undying passion, but he tried to hide it.
“Don’t talk back to me, young lady!” “I am fifty-nine,” said Mom. “And I have been cooking for years and—and—I don’t care if you are my mother, you can’t make a ham cook in five minutes!” I was torn between the desire to cheer and the desire to jump in front of her and fend off Gran Mae’s wrath.
I don’t know much in life, and the last few days, it had turned out that half of what I thought I knew was wrong. But the one thing I did know was that nobody talked to my mother like that while I was around. I took a deep breath and yelled, “Shut the fuck up!” at the top of my lungs.
“Don’t want kids,” I said cheerfully. “Not even sure I want a husband, for that matter.” Gran Mae snorted. “You’d never get one anyway. You’re…” She paused dramatically, apparently about to unleash her ultimate cruelty. “… fat.” “Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.” I started laughing. I
Lmao
Against the wall behind her, etched starkly against the pale paint, I saw the shadow of a hooked beak and mighty wings.
She dragged her fingers over the tablecloth and I saw green stems coming from the tips like claws. Ah, I thought, very calmly. That’s what was combing my hair. I guess it wasn’t sleep paralysis after all.
“I didn’t make them. My father did … and they’re very, very angry.” Her hands were only rakelike rose stems now, as the petals piled at her feet. “The roses said stay away. I put jars of teeth and nails at the roots to keep the children out, but you were so smart, you dug one up and made a gap.”
It’s like the dark has weight here, I thought, then wished I hadn’t.
