“We’re going down.” Poppy opened the basement door.
I stopped short. The first few cement steps leading down into the darkness looked ugly and menacing. “Wait—why?”
“I have to show you something. I think I found it.” Her voice held both determination and a hint of glee.
“Found what?” The conversation felt increasingly hard to follow. I was Alice in Wonderland, trying earnestly to gather information and getting only mystical riddles in return.
“I’ll show you.” She switched on the light and started down. When I didn’t follow, she tugged at my hand like an insolent child.
“Poppy, this is freaking me out.” Her pulling was making me bend forward. “Basements are creepy. Especially this one.” I suddenly remembered the candle game, the flash behind me in the mirror, the candle going dark. I’d accepted that it had just been my imagination, simply drafts moving sheets around and blowing candles out. But now, when the worlds were bumping up against each other, it felt possible that something really had been down there.
“Do you want to see it or not?” Poppy hissed. “Hurry up, before Chitra gets back.”
Sounds drifted up from the basement—a woman talking, very seriously, her voice echoing. “There’s someone down there.”
“There might be.” Poppy said it grimly. “Come on. You’re the only person I can show.”
“Why?”
“Because you already know.”
“Know what?”
“All of it. You suspect, at least.”
It felt slightly embarrassing that I had no idea what she was talking about. Then another thought arose.
“What about Wren?” I asked. Somehow the fact that she was showing me and not Wren caused me to finally start a slow descent. “Isn’t she your bestie? You didn’t tell her?”
“Of course not,” Poppy said.
Halfway down the steps, the woman in the basement’s voice switched to a whisper. Daphne? Was she down there, away from the party? The cold rushed up at us and I shivered.
“So what are you showing me?” I asked.
“Proof,” Poppy declared.
“Proof of what?”
“Of what she does. That she’s not who she claims to be.”
We stopped at the bottom of the steps. Poppy bit her bottom lip as she turned on the light. No whispers. I imagined Daphne watching us, hiding behind a stack of boxes. Maybe we looked like ghosts to her. Ghosts decked out in red clothes and shiny heart necklaces.
Poppy let go of my hand. “Over here.” She strode towards the left. “It’s this wall.”
A sound came from the right. A single footstep. Then a brief exhale.
Not Daphne. It was too large. Much larger than Poppy or me.
I froze, struggling to listen. Then came slow, deliberate steps scraping against the cement floor. It was moving away from us.
Poppy was by now out of sight to my left. It sounded like she was moving boxes around and muttering to herself.
“Alex.” The whisper came from the right, from deeper in the maze.
I would’ve expected to be more scared. But as it was, I just felt curious. This creature had tried to communicate with me before, during the ghost story game. But I’d run off before it could speak.
Now I followed it deeper into the basement, past towering stacks of boxes and sheet-covered furniture. The space was a winding labyrinth, lying underneath the house like its unconscious mind. It was pitch-black now, but I somehow knew the way.
A small hand slipped into mine. It was Christina, my best friend with the butt-length hair, and we were again lost in the woods. Only this time we were moving towards the creature, not away from it. The cement floor was now a spongy path of rotting leaves. Leaves and branches scraped against my arms and I pushed them away.
Christina was ahead of me, pulling me behind her. I couldn’t see her in the dark, but I got a whiff of the vanilla body spray she’d loved. I felt a rush of grief, as if she were dead, even though she was right in front of me.
Christina had been the friend I’d had the longest. When I’d had a real life, a mom and dad and house and neighborhood. After the woods, it had all been ripped away.
“I missed you,” I told her, and she squeezed my hand.
We came to the clearing. I couldn’t see it but I could sense it. Christina let go of my hand and I gasped.
“Wait, no!” I whispered.
And then gentle hands—many sets of them—took hold of my arms and led me to a couch. A couch in the middle of the clearing! An owl hooted and crickets chirped all around.
“What is happening?” I asked. The moon came out from behind a cloud and I could see: the short, soft-handed creatures were all wearing hoods.
Christina had fled; she was gone, back into the woods. But I felt excited and triumphant. We’d missed the opportunity to behold something incredible all those years before. But now it had brought me here. It was giving me a second chance.
And then she appeared, lit up like a neon sign. Cross-legged, she still rose above me. Her arms and legs were the size of tree trunks; her bare breasts large as basketballs. Her body glowed orange-red like a furnace.
Lamia.
The whispers fell silent. A great and terrible beauty emanated from her, a power so palpable, it surged off her in waves. She could kill me with the flick of a finger. And yet she was conscious of it, her strength and my lack. She felt only love and tenderness for me.
She stood, shrinking down until she was my size, and came closer. Heat poured from her like she was the sun. We stood face-to-face. Her eyes glowed, constantly changing color.
And then I stepped forward and kissed her.
The heat from her lips spread through my body. She grabbed my hips, pulling me towards her, and her touch burned through my skin and muscles and bone. She slipped her hand into my hair, gripping the back of my head.
The hooded creatures that had led me to the couch were back, surrounding me and taking off my clothes. I acquiesced, shifting my hips and lifting up my arms. I was now naked before her. She yanked me back to her, her tongue like a burning coal in my mouth.
And still I kissed her back. I longed to be consumed. There came the distinct thought that I might not survive this encounter. And that would be okay. Wonderful, in fact. She was life and death itself, and both were the same, really, just two sides of the same coin. And what was here in this world, anyway? Betrayal, disappointment, failure. Maybe the next world would burn it all away.
I was encased in flames now, miraculously unharmed. I exhaled as she embraced me. Her bare flesh was smooth and so hot it was cool again. A flat palm caressed my hair. A tongue flicked at my neck. A finger trailed down my breast, over my nipple. Kissing and caressing her back, I squeezed my eyes shut. If I opened them—if I really looked into the depths of her own kaleidoscopic eyes—then it would all be over.
The hushed whispers around us settled into chants. The creatures were watching us, protecting us, worshipping us. The chants undulated like a wave, in time with our strokes. They intensified as our soft touches turned to grasps. I reached between her thighs. She took my hand away.
First, you. The words appeared in my mind, alien sounding, like another language I could somehow understand.
She pulled me onto the couch. She was above me, below me, all around, enclosing me. It was like she had extra limbs, curling me into her like a spider. Her fingers slipped against me, inside me. Everything went red behind my eyes. Time fell away.