Page 55 of Devil Inside

The string of lights constricts. The glow of each bulb seethes as the tendrils branch and stretch out further along the wall. A trick of the mind, perhaps, but it feels so real to her. The illuminated ivy finds her legs, weaving over her knees, her waist, wrapping around her body, before finding their way in. The thorns, each bulb, burn. They light my way in.

Let me in, I say one last time.Let me be your muse. Let me make you a star.

A bright, shining star...

“Yes,” Cara gasps. That’s all it takes. All I need. Acquiescence. Cara, my vessel, relents. There is just enough of a fissure within her to slither through and settle.

There’s no pain. I simply swell, filling out our host, water pouring from a pitcher. I expand, take shape. My tongue becomes a root, reaching down deep, branching out and grabbing hold.

This is my favorite part.

WhereIbecomewe.

The borders of our beings coalesce into one. No pain, no more fear. Just the gentlest rush of water pouring over. Her body is so warm. It gives us presence. Depth. We stretch our limbs, every muscle singing in their bindings, finding the limits within our sinew, testing their threshold.

We find the precipice of ourselves. The very edge of our body. When you exist without flesh, there is that fascination when you reach the sudden end of oneself. The limit of skin. There is no going beyond these bodies. You exist and that is all there is.

So we will live, confined inside. The gift within these limitations is sensation. To be granted touch, taste, sound, and smell.

It is a blessing, we believe. We have been granted the pleasure of your senses.

To feel.

Blessing. How strange. Maybe Jordan is making a believer out of us after all.

We are a blessing. The darkest blessing.

Now that we have our tender vessel, our familiar face back on again, it is time to take the night. We must find him. Yet another grain of sand in a desert of so many.

A needle in a haystack, as they say.

Jordan.Sweet, gentle Jordan.

Our river.

imaginary friends

Cara

Cara didn’t have many friends growing up. The lack of childhood pals worried her parents to no end, so when she mentioned she had made a new friend, conveniently named Sara—Cara and Sara, neither had anhat the end of their name, another thing they shared in common—her mother not-so-secretly breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Hallelujah, she said, well within Cara’s earshot.At long last.As if that was the end of any worries over Cara’s awkward, gawky preteen phase. Case closed, let’s call it a day.

What her mother didn’t know was that Sara was an imaginary pal assembled out of necessity by Cara herself, a make-believe classmate to get Mom off her back. Stop fretting.

Cara was twelve when Sara entered her life. That was definitely on the older side, manifesting an imaginary friend, but Cara didn’t care. She considered it a craft project:

Make Ur Own Make-Believe Pal.

Cara created a complex backstory for Sara, including such details as where she grew up (Canada), when she moved to Virginia (age ten,the summer before fifth grade), what color her hair was (jet-black like Siouxsie), her choice in clothes (mostly black, some jeans, mostly leather, but not real leather because she was a member ofPETA), her choice in music (The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division), her favorite movie (Legend, duh), which—surprise, surprise—were all Cara’s absolute favorite things, too.

Sara was the idealized version of Cara.

Cara could never dress like her fantasy counterpart. Mom would never let her, not in a million years, so Sara became something of an imaginary mood board.

Whatever Cara wanted for herself she projected on her pretend pal.

Cara became quite adept at manifesting Sara, filling in the gaps for a life that never existed. One might say Cara knew more about Sara than Cara even knew about herself.