I call out forLisa who comes at a run, with Sam charging up the stairs only moments later. In the dark, wearing that long bluenightgown, Alice appears to be levitating. She looks otherworldly, transformed. If someone were to ask me right now whether I believe she is possessed, I would tell them without hesitation yes, completely. Her hair hangs around her shoulders in knots and tangles, skin slick and shining and bruised looking. Black bile seeps between her lips and trickles down her chin, eyes so white and round they are rolling marbles. She makes that noise again—guck!—and that’s when Sam steps up behind her, hands locked beneath her ribs. I hear Lisa cry out, “What the hell are you doing?” but I know what he’s doing, he’s saving her. I grab Lisa, pulling her back as she charges at Sam, her teeth bared. I have to lock my arms around her but still she struggles, calling Sam a bastard, telling him to keep his hands off her daughter. Sam pulls Alice toward him sharply and she jolts backward, white eyes gazing sightlessly toward the ceiling. Sam locks his fists together and thrusts them toward Alice’s diaphragm again and again, the cords on his neck straining, his mouth drawn down with effort. Alice grunts wetly with each upward thrust, her head thrown back, mouth open and drooling thick globs of foam.
Finally she makes a wet hacking sound and something flies from her mouth, hitting the wall opposite with a sharpclack.Alice slumps against Sam who staggers back against the wall behind him, almost tripping over his own feet in an effort to stay upright. Lisa runs to her daughter, cradling Alice in her arms and searching her face for injury. I crouch down beside the object Alice expelled with such force, hesitant to touch it, but too intrigued to leave it alone.
“What is it?” Sam’s panting, one hand against the wall to support himself. His face is a deep, vivid red.
“I think it’s—” I hesitate. I’m loath to go near it, especially covered in all that stringy black bile, so I slide my hand insidemy T-shirt and use the fabric as a glove, picking up the small round object and weighing it in my hand. “It’s a hagstone.”
I carry it carefullypast Sam, who is massaging his chest with an unsteady hand, and down the hallway to the bathroom, tossing it into the sink where it clatters onto the plug. I swill water over it, surprised at how big it is, the skin of the pebble the color of old leather. The hole is off-center but the stone is almost perfectly round and almost as big as an egg. No wonder she was choking, I think, looking up as a shadow falls over me. It’s Lisa, standing in the doorway with an ashen, shocked face. Her arms are folded against herself and she can’t seem to stop shivering. I can hear it all through her voice.
“Do you think she needs the hospital?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it was is out of her now.”
“Is that it?” She nods toward the sink, her eyes narrowed. “Is that what was in her throat?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I was about to watch her die right in front of me. I thought”—her voice falters and she heaves in a jagged sob before continuing—“I thought the witch had got her.”
“Lisa, listen to me—” I begin calmly. She immediately brushes me away.
“Oh I know, I know. I sound mad, don’t I? Maybe you would, too, if you’d lived the last few months that we have. Fevers and witches and those horrible noises coming from that chimney. It’s enough to send anyone up the wall!”
She snatches at the toilet roll, pulling off enough to blot her eyes. I watch her soberly, wishing I could think of something to say that would take the weight off her, even just a little.
“The day I arrived I told you I’d help you. I meant it, Lisa. Me and Sam, we’re not leaving till we know what’s going on.”
“I think we’re beyond your help now,” she says, sadly. “There’s going to be a Riddance, you mark my words.”
I switch off the tap, drying my hands on my pajamas. That word again. “Riddance.” It chills me.
“What is that? A ‘Riddance’?”
Lisa glances quickly back down the hallway, as if fearful of being overheard. In profile I can see the strain on her face more clearly; the fine lines sketched around her lips and netted at the corners of her eyes, her lips chapped and blistered.
“It’s a tradition, Mina. Banathel has always had a Riddance. It sweeps away the bad.”
Lisa’s honey-colored hair has worked free from her ponytail, curling around the jut of her collarbones. She tugs at it nervously.
“How will that help Alice?” I keep my voice low.
“By driving the Devil out.”
“You mean like an exorcism?”
“I mean like a ritual.”
I stare at her for a beat before Sam’s voice cuts in from down the hallway.
“Lisa? Alice is asking for you.”
“I just want to save my daughter, Mina,” she tells me, hooking her gaze onto mine before turning away. I stare after her, feeling a slow horror forming in the pit of my stomach, something which burns dull and painful and as blunt as superstition.
THIRTY-TWO
In the morning the sky is a soaring cobalt blue, the heat layered so thick it is hard to breathe. I take my coffee outside and stand in the shade of the tall privet hedge, studying the writing that has been scratched into the pavement among the stubs of candles and empty wine bottles. The same two words appear over and over and over, creeping all the way to the Webbers’ front gate in bright paint and pastel chalks.
Good Riddance! Good Riddance!