The pain was too much to bear. I could barely think. Even as I tried to detach from it, push it all from my mind, I could only focus on the sensation of every strand of my tissues snapping under the strain of being pulled in two directions. Snap went my skin, my muscles, my bones. Snap, snap, snap.

I no longer worried about being ripped in two, only because I knew I would be. The question now was just a matter of when.

The wooden thing beneath me had morphed again. It was no longer a chair, but had transformed into some kind of twisted tree without branches, almost like a kind of stake. I was now suspended in the air, bound to it. There was something almost funny about it—being tortured to death on a stake by a witch. Maybe, after she was done, she would light me on fire, too. I would welcome it. I wished for it.

Because all I wanted was for it to stop.

"Damn you," Matilda hissed. She was glaring at me from the circle's edge. "Release her!"

Inside nothing changed, but the ripping and tearing continued.

The old woman raised her arms and all the pulling seemed to increase. I screamed in protest.

"Release your grip, foul spirit!" she cried. "You have not been welcomed into this girl! Leave at once!"

But she did welcome me, a strange voice whispered through me.

No, I answered back, inside my own head. That night in the shop, I hadn't realized what she had meant when she offered to help me. I was drunk. I wasn't thinking clearly.

"She knew not what she did!" Matilda screamed back, like she could hear the voice inside my head, too. "She wants you no longer!"

She's right, I replied. I didn't know that when I accepted the ghost girl's offer for help, she was going to possess me. How was that helping? You lied to me!

I didn't lie, the voice responded.

"She does not need you!" Matilda cried out.

She does, the voice replied. If I go, she'll die.

I wanted to laugh. Dying sounded better than this.

"Liar! Liar!" Matilda screamed, spreading her arms as wide as they would go. "Foul, lying being! I will pull you out of her, one way or another."

Pain shot straight through me again, right down the middle.

This was it.

This was the moment it all ended and I was split in half.

Finally.

Just let it end.

"Shouldn't you be able to tell if I'm lying or not?" the voice came again, this time through my own lips. "That was one of your gifts, was it not?"

Matilda's all-white eyes bugged out from the folds of her face and she dropped her arms. For one blissful second all the pain and the ripping stopped. I hung limp in my wooden bindings.

"No..." Matilda whispered, taking a shaking step back. "No..."

The tell-tale sound of glass shattering echoed over from the next room, the room where Polly was barricaded inside. Matilda broke her stare and whipped around to look at the door.

"Pollaine! What in this green Earth are you doing?" she called, approaching the door.

There was no reply. The commotion continued on the other side—more sounds of breaking glass.

"Pollaine?" Matilda called again.

Again, no response. Then there was a loud thud outside.

More noise then. Stomping and rustling and swearing. The noise began to travel, running alongside the house wall until it reached a small door I hadn't noticed before, set in the far corner of the room. A few loud bangs and the door flung open, revealing Polly, her hair glittering with shards of glass.

"What the hell did you do?" Matilda cried from the other side of the room.

"You didn't block the window, you stupid hag!" Polly snapped back. She strode across the room, skirting along the circle's edge and barrelling down on Matilda.

Matilda raised her hand again, this time at Polly. Polly skidded to a stop, pushed back by whatever force Matilda wielded. But this time, it didn't hold long. Polly gave a shove against it and whatever barrier was there broke. Matilda staggered back, shocked.

Polly picked up pace again, snatching up a large book from one of the many piles along the way. As soon as she reached Matilda, she raised the book and smashed her in the face.

The old woman squawked and reeled back, stumbling over another pile of books and disappearing out of sight. As soon as she did, I was released from her spell. The wood's grip on me loosened as it returned to its chair form and I was dropped forward. Again I hit the floor hard. I lay there, limp as a corpse, waiting for my blood to pool out around me, seeping out of my many wounds. I didn't even want to think about what kind of state I was in after Matilda's demented attempt at an exorcism. Polly may have saved me, but how long would I last?

But no blood came. Instead, Polly was at my side, heaving me to my feet and dragging me across the room.

"Come on!" she grumbled under the effort of carrying me to the door. "We gotta get out of here before she gets up again! Can you walk?"

She didn't wait for an answer. We squeezed through the small door and out into a tangled, half-dead shrug. Polly dragged me through it, hissing as the gnarled branches nipped at her skin.

As the pain receded, my senses returned. "You sure she's getting up after that hit?" I croaked out, my throat raw from screaming, as Polly finally freed us from the shrubbery. I blinked and squinted at the sudden brightness of the sunlight. Despite all the horrors inside, it was a beautiful day.

"I don't know if you noticed," Polly growled back, dragging me across the overgrown lawn. "but she's a tough old bitch."

I rasped out a slightly hysterical laugh.

"If you can laugh, you can walk," Polly said, setting me on my feet.

I wobbled, but managed to stay mostly upright as long as I held tight to Polly. My body was in better shape than I thought, though I didn't understand how. Though it felt like the ache of my wounds reached all the way to my soul, my body itself felt... whole.

We had made it to the sidewalk. Polly's other car—a sleek if impractical Jaguar convertible—was waiting on the street. As we neared, she frantically jammed the buttons on her key fob. The locks popped open and she shoved me into the passenger side.

I slouched in the seat, my head resting against the window. The cool glass felt good on my too-warm skin. Polly threw herself into the car beside me and started the engine. As she put the car into gear, I had just enough time to look up at the house we had escaped. Matilda's house looked much worse outside than it did on the inside. It was a ramshackle little thing, something that we'd call a "tear-down" in the city. For half a second I felt bad that she was forced to live here, before quickly remembering that she wasn't some defenseless old lady.

Just as Polly stepped on the gas, the front door opened. Matilda, with a vivid trickle of red running down her face, stepped out onto the front step to watch us as we peeled away from her.

I had only caught a glimpse of her expression, but something about it haunted me.

Is she going to come after us? I wondered.

Yes, yes she will, the stranger's voice inside me replied.

A shiver ran up my neck. Obviously Matilda's exorcism hadn't worked, but the realization that the spirit was still inside me hit me like a truck.

Who are you? I thought back at it.

The voice didn't reply.

"Where the fuck are we going to go?" Polly muttered to herself, her eyes darting wildly around the streets as we drove. There was still glass in her hair.

"Your house?" I responded, my voice still gravelly.

"No, she knows where I live. If she comes looking for us—and I think she will—she'll look there first. And Luc's shop..."

"I'm not going back there," I said, but my voice held no conviction. As the adrenaline that had surged through me only moments before faded away, exhaustion crept in to take its place.

"I know, I know. Fuck. Fuck!" Polly slammed her hands on the steering wheel. "Here I thought she was some dotty old bat... All the while I was with her, I had no idea she was capable... That she would..." She shook her head. "Fuck, I'm so sorry, Rachel. We'll find another way to get that spirit out of you. One that doesn't involve you dying. First, though, we gotta find somewhere to lay low for a bit..."

"Mm," was all I was able to manage in response. I cared, or at least I wanted to. I just no longer had the energy to do anything about it. As Polly continued to mumble to herself, I slid down the window, my body going limp as it no longer had enough to keep me awake.

Then, in my last flickers of consciousness, the stranger's voice inside spoke up once again.

I wasn't lying, it said. I'm going to help you.

🔮

What do you think the spirit's plan is?
Do you really think it is trying to help Rachel?