The Cult

“Are you and Mommy going to get married?” Claire stood on the wooden platform I’d built for her, right up against the stove so she could see clearly. In her hand was a spatula, and she pushed our dinner around and watched it sizzle.

I stood beside her and brushed her hair past her shoulder, making sure it didn’t fall forward over the burners. I’d told her to put it up many times, but she never liked to. “No.”

“But she’s going to live with us?”

“For a short while.” I grabbed her wrist and directed her spatula underneath the meat to flip it over.

“I can do it. I can do it.” She yanked her hand away, jabbed the spatula forward, and made the chicken and oil splash back. The meat tipped over and dropped between the burners. Her face immediately fell, and she looked up at me, like she knew she was in trouble. “Oops.”

I grabbed the tongs and returned the meat to the pan. “Go slow this time.”

“But you don’t go slow.”

“Because I know what I’m doing.”

She fumbled for a while, that side of the meat burning with char, and then finally flipped it over.

I’d eat shit if she made it, so I didn’t care.

I was just happy to be with her.

“When am I going back to school?”

“Do you want to go back to school?”

She nodded, poking the veggies in the other pan. “I miss my friends.”

I wasn’t sure if she should take some time off, maybe see a therapist. But on the surface, she seemed fine, ready to move on with her life, somehow shielded against all the crazy-ass shit she’d seen. Her eyes had been down when she came to me, letting Constance guide her, so perhaps she just pretended none of it existed.

We finished making dinner and set the table.

When I retrieved Beatrice, she was lying in bed, in the dark, on her side.

Curtains were drawn over the windows, the TV was off, and there was a sense of death to the room. Like I was with a corpse, not a living person. I crept forward, trying to gauge if she was awake or just resting.

I got a view of her face.

She was awake, staring straight ahead, like she didn’t hear or see me.

She’d joined us a few days ago, and during her stay, she’d remained in her bedroom. When Claire and I went out for ice cream or went to the zoo, she remained behind. She didn’t need help with much, because she rarely left the sheets.

I stared down at her.

Nothing.

“Dinner is ready.”

She finally turned her head and regarded me.

“It’s burned…but edible.”

“Not hungry.”

Claire and I had been out of the house today, but I suspected she hadn’t eaten lunch either. “You should eat.”

“I know I should. Doesn’t mean I want to.” Her eyes turned back to the wall.

I lingered, hearing Claire pull out her chair across the rug at the dining table. “It’s not good for Claire to see you like this—”

“Yes, I’m a shitty mom. No surprise there.”

The words that would normally come out of my mouth remained restrained in my throat. There were a couple reasons for it. Pity. Compassion. But more importantly, it just seemed like a waste of time. “I’ll bring it in later in case you change your mind.” I shut the bedroom door and sat across from my daughter.

“Mommy’s not hungry?”

“She said she had a big lunch.” I took the piece that had toppled over the edge of the pan and had burn marks everywhere, and I cut into it like it was the juiciest piece of meat I’d ever eaten. “This looks good, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, Dad. I think I want to be a chef someday.”

It was better than what I did for a living—and not as a contractor. “Great idea.”

“Then I can cook for you all the time.”

When she was out of the house, I could resume my old life. My freedom would return. My lifestyle would kick back in. But it would never make up for her ghost in the house—as I’d recently learned. I’d love it if she invited me over every week to cook for me. Just to spend time with me. I swear to god, she was born yesterday, but now she was seven—going on eight. I only had ten years left.

It’d pass in the blink of an eye.

I would cherish every moment, even more now than before.

We finished dinner, and I set Beatrice’s meal aside.

Claire was happy to do the dishes, moving her bench over so she could rinse all the plates. We had a system, where she rinsed everything and then handed it to me so I could place it in the dishwasher. I didn’t have to make her do chores because she was happy to do anything with me.

I hoped that lasted a long time.

When the dishes were done, she got ready for bed, washing her face, brushing her teeth, and putting on her pajamas. Her vanity was white, French craftsmanship, and her bedspread was rose pink. Posters of ponies were on the walls. Her room reflected her personality to a T.

I sat at the edge of the bed and tucked her in. “Goodnight, sweetheart.” I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.

Her eyes were heavy, like it took all her energy to keep them open, to pretend she wasn’t exhausted. “What are we doing tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. Something fun.”

“Okay…” She closed her eyes.

I just sat there and looked at her, seeing her tug the blanket a little higher, so angelic with those cheeks. It had been hard for me to come in here after she was gone, and now I was back, looking at her just the way I used to.

I loved her so much it hurt.

Beatrice was still awake.

I set the plate of food on her nightstand even though I expected it to go to waste.

She remained on her side, the sheets to her shoulder, the curtains keeping out the city lights.

I turned to leave.

She sat up in bed, giving a quiet wince as she rested her back against the headboard.

I turned back to her, her arms and neck thin, giving her an emaciated look, not the svelte look she possessed when she was happy and healthy.

Her arms crossed over her chest, and she bent her knees, her feet sliding across the sheets and filling the silence with movement. Her eyes were down, and she gripped herself like she was stuck outside in the cold.

I sat at the edge of her bed.

“I’m going to my parents’ place in London.”

“A change in scenery will be good for you.” I assumed she would go alone, because I would not let Claire leave when I just got her back, when the pain from her absence was still so raw. “Take a break.”

Her eyes remained down, her slender fingertips gently caressing her arms. “I’m not coming back.”

I stared.

“I don’t want to be here anymore. This place…” She shook her head. “It’s not home anymore.”

Anger flushed into my system as if through an invisible needle. “I’m not letting you take Claire.” Nonnegotiable.

“I wasn’t going to.” She lifted her gaze and finally met my look.

Disappointment. Rage. Fury. “You can’t do that to her.” Claire was in my care most of the time, and her time with her mother was seldom and short. I was already her full-time parent. But I didn’t want my daughter to ever feel abandoned. “Especially after everything she’s been through.”

Her sigh was deep, like the words she hadn’t said already exhausted her. “I’m a shitty mom. Let’s just be honest about that.”

“And you’ll be shittier if you leave.”

“Benton, come on. You hate me—”

“And I’ll hate you more if you go.” My voice rose. The anger got the best of me. “I will help you through this in whatever way I can. You need to live here for years to get back on your feet? Fine. You need financial support? Fine. My daughter needs her mother.”

“Let’s not pretend that I wanted to have her—”

“But you did. And I will always be grateful for that.” Beatrice was just a warm body in bed for the night. Meant nothing to me. I was indifferent to her existence. When she told me she was pregnant, that was when the hatred began, because a woman who meant absolutely nothing to me was now a part of my life forever. My commitment to the Chasseurs was broken. The life I’d envisioned for myself…gone. But when she’d said those words, that she didn’t want to have it, that somehow made everything worse.

I had to convince her to go through with the pregnancy.

Then I had to beg.

Many, many times.

And fuck, I was glad that I did.

She stayed quiet, her eyes drifting away. “I love her. I do. But…I’ve never wanted to have kids, and having her just reinforces that belief. I’m not good at it. I’m here out of obligation. And being in that horrible place…just showed me how terrible of a mother I really am.”

“She came back unharmed. Give yourself more credit.” Claire was exactly the same, the happy, bubbly little girl who made me a better man. There were no bruises, no scratches, any sign of trauma in any way. She was returned to me in the same condition that she had been taken. It made me sleep well at night.

“That wasn’t because of me…” Her arms tightened over her chest. “Constance was the one who looked after her most of the time. I was too mentally disturbed to think about anything, really.”

The brunette woman came into my mind, the look on her face before I shut the door in her face.

“The Malevolent would stare at us through the windows inside the church. Claire was scared…so Constance taped paper to the glass, blocking them out. There was nowhere you could go where they didn’t stare at you, unless you were inside your cabin. It gave us another asylum.”

I’d only seen a glimpse of the settlement so I couldn’t piece together how it looked, but I imagined those freaks everywhere, their horns on their heads, staring like mindless monsters. When I imagined them even glancing at Claire… it made me want to kill them all.

“When they took me away to…hurt me, Claire was left behind. The barrier between our rooms was locked, so she was alone. Then one of the Malevolent came…and tried to get her to take the pill.”

All the old pains in my knuckles suddenly came back. The adrenaline pumped my heart, the rage burned the blood in my veins, and the deep breaths I took fueled my body to destroy. My fingers rolled into fists, and I instinctively flexed and pulled my tendons over my hands, wishing they were bloody from the corpses I’d mutilated.

“Constance saved her…and killed the Malevolent.”

My breath released with relief.

“I couldn’t have done that.”

“How did she kill him?”

“She stole a knife from her demon.”

“What happened to her?”

“Nothing,” she whispered. “They just watched her do it. It’s a fucking freak show…”

My hands released, the tendons relaxing.

“Even if I had been there, I don’t know what I would have done. When they took me to carve my wings…they wanted to do the same to her. They took her from the cabin. Constance tried to stop them. Begged them to stop. Nothing worked. So, she put the dagger to her stomach because she knew her demon was too obsessed to risk losing her. That was how it stopped. Because of her. She said she would take her life if anyone looked at Claire again…and it worked.”

I stared at my hands, overwhelmed by the tale. My daughter almost… I couldn’t even finish the thought.

“I wanted to give up.” She suddenly got choked up, her voice breaking, the tears cascading down her cheeks.

My eyes remained on her hands.

“But she told me not to… I would have done it if it weren’t for her.”

My hand didn’t reach for hers. I didn’t provide comfort. Nothing.

She cried for a while, her loud tears filling the dark bedroom. “I can’t stay here, Benton.”

I didn’t ask her to stay. Not this time.

“I’m sorry…”

Her words fell on deaf ears.

Green eyes pleaded in silence. Desperation filled the air between us. A broken voice begged for my help. The voice of a woman who’d killed to keep my daughter safe.

And I’d shut the door in her face.