Don't leave me, the girl said in Bethany's thoughts. I need you.  I want to be your friend, Martha.   No one ever called her Martha, not unless she was in trouble, and then  the three-name rule applied:  Bethany Martha Taylor!  It always came  with an exclamation, and always the three names strung together.  No one  called her just Martha.  No one, of course, but this girl in the  mirror, the girl with the dark hair that was her but wasn't her.  The  girl that spoke in her head. 

Don't leave me, Martha.

     "Stop it," she said.  "Stop!" 

      Billy stopped in his tracks, as did a few of the other exiting  movie-goers.  They cast her and Billy glances of passing but minimal  concern, faces that Bethany did not like.  No one looked at her like  that – like a spoiled misbehaved child. 

And they shouldn't, said the girl in the glass. You're  better than them, Martha.  They're cattle, nothing more than mewling  lambs awaiting the slaughter.  They're not friends like you and I. 

      "We're not friends," she shouted!  "I don't want to be your  friend!"  And she didn't.  She had when she first looked into the glass.   She had wanted to be this girl's friend as much then as she had those  years before when she had lied to her father.  Yet now that she saw the  girl, she did not want to know her, and she definitely did not want to  befriend her.

     More faces turned to take in the scene, and Billy grew deeply concerned.  He leaned down and looked his sister in the eyes.

     "Who are you talking to?" he asked.

      Of course he knew.  He had to know, didn't he?  He and dad had been  warning Bethany about the girl in the mirror her entire life.  He knows and he doesn't want you and I to be friends.  He wants to keep you from me, the voice said.  Don't let him keep you from me, Martha.

     Her  belly rumbled then and her insides twisted.  Something heavy and dark,  something alien gripped inside and pulled on her like a puppet.  She  could feel it wiggling in, searching for the proper hold, and for a  moment it seized control.  Bethany lashed out then, slashing at her  brother.  Her nails caught on his left cheek and she could feel the warm  trickle of blood as she cut into his flesh.

     "Son of a bitch," he cried, and fell back. 

More  heads turned, including that of an usher.  Bethany could see him  calling for someone on his walkie.  Her dad had one like it on the farm.   Only this man was distorted somehow.  The usher's face took on a  grotesque countenance; all the faces did, her brother's face, those of  the onlookers, all of them.  Beneath each pallid mask of flesh something  squirmed pushing out against the thin skin barrier – something seeking  an exit.

     Bags of meat and bone and  blood.  Nothing more.  So easy.  Just puncture the flesh and it all runs  out like air from a balloon.  Do you like balloons, Martha? She  had never had a balloon.  They shined, and dad said she might see the  girl in the mirror in the reflection.  He thought she'd see her in  everything.

And would that be so bad you little bitch?

     "Leave me alone!" she screamed.

That's  when the manager turned the corner. Bethany could hear the manager  shouting to them.  "What's the problem here?"  His voice came from a  distance, echoing and hollow.

That was when  Billy noticed the girl in the mirror.  He never told Bethany what he saw  in the glass, but Bethany knew he saw her, or at least some version of  her.  Suddenly he scooped his sister up in his arms and rushed from the  theater, the manager shouting after them.

"Hold up!  Come back here!"

The  sound of footsteps followed them out the door as they ran out into the  blazing sunshine, and it was bright, so bright.  It hurt Bethany's eyes.  

I said don't leave me!  You leave me and I  will hunt you down and I will flay you like a deer and leave your  fleshless corpse strung up by your ankles to drip dry!  And I'll make  sure you feel it, Martha – every bit of it.  Do you want to know what it  feels like to be flayed alive, Martha? 

Bethany  burst into tears, and as the glass doors clanged shut behind them,  Bethany could see the girl staring back at her.  Was that blood on her  face?

The door burst open, again, the manager and the usher running out.  Did they think Billy was kidnapping her? 

Isn't he?  He's taking you away from me.  I'm more your family than he is.

"You're  not my family!"  She wasn't her family and the nasty girl needed to  shut up.  Bethany felt ashamed then, ashamed that she had ever wanted to  see this girl; ashamed that she had defied her father by lying to him,  by coming to this theater; ashamed because she knew now that she was a  sinner in the eyes of God. 

"Honor thy father and thy mother," she whispered, "that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee."

"Hush," Billy said.  "Shut your eyes."  His voice trembled, yet still soothed.  Bethany shut her eyes.

"Just don't listen to her.  I know it hurts." 

He  was right; it did.  Bethany began to hum a tune in her head to block  out the angry words, but as she did a headache built within – a great  giant headache the size of a mountain.  And still inside her the unclean  thing tugged, trying once again to seize hold.  She began to cry.

"It's okay," Billy said.  "Mom cried, too.  Every time."

His  voice was in her ear, soothing, as he swung open the door and thrust  her on the passenger seat.  Yet it was so distant as well... and he was  wrong.  It would never be okay.  Never, again.

That was the day that Bethany became Daddy's little demon.

The  door slammed shut and the engine started, but Bethany wasn't excited  anymore.  The sounds of the truck held no magic for her, not now.  All  that remained now was the darkness, with her eyes pressed shut, and that  tinny voice ringing in her head. 

Come back to me, Martha.  Look in the mirror and come back to me.

      And in the blackness, as she pressed her eyes tightly shut, she  could see that face grinning at her, pale with bright red lips and jet  black hair, that ghostly face of the girl in the mirror.