The Good Demon Read online

Underneath were crates and crates of my dad’s old records, all dusty vinyl and the torn cardboard sleeves. Music I half remembered from when I was a little girl, the names and sounds that blurred into my best memories with Dad.

  It was like walking into a new life, one where Dad was just a little older than I was, where he wasn’t all fucked up, where he wasn’t addicted to anything yet. There were records and records and records, and three shoeboxes full of tapes. Dusty, maybe, but only a little bit warped. I found the record player in a box nearby, with the cobwebbed old speakers and the frizzled ends of copper wire sticking out like frozen electricity. I carried it all downstairs and hooked up the stereo in my room.

  It was strange, dark music—Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Cocteau Twins, the Birthday Party, X, the Misfits, Bad Brains, the Cure. Mostly eighties stuff, with make-upped people in torn leather moping on the album covers in their glamour and despair. I started trying to dress like them, ransacking Uncle Mike’s for anything gothic and worn, combat boots and sparkles and ripped tights, like if I put on their clothes I’d be one of them, sad and romantic and not meant for this place. Those records conjured a dream world, one as moody and strange as I was.

  See, I knew in my heart that something was wrong with me. I wasn’t the same as other girls my age. I wasn’t as happy as them. My life had gone wrong somewhere along the way, same as Mom’s and Larry’s had. These records made a space for what was wrong with me. They took all my bad feelings and sang them until they were beautiful. They also let me remember a side of my dad that I’d long forgotten, that Mom and I never talked about.

  Mostly that Dad could sing.

  Dad sang in the morning when we woke up and Mom was cooking eggs. He sang soft and pretty when he shot up in the kitchen. He sang lovely when he worked, when he would come home high or drunk after late nights of playing music or bartending, he would giggle out of control, he would fall over on things and sing himself to tears. He mumble-sang when Mom would drag him to the shower cold and naked, the hot water long run out, while he shivered himself aware. He sang all kinds of songs, gospel songs, rock and roll songs, songs I didn’t recognize, songs he made up himself.

  Some days he’d wake up and say he was so sorry and that he would quit and he’d sing Mom a song and they would start kissing, right there in front of me, and I would go outside and play. It was like music was easier for him than breathing, than talking. My dad loved me, he called me his little muse, his little song—could you fetch me a drink, little Clare, little song? He loved me, he said I was his song and when you sing a song you send it off into the world, let the wind carry it where it may.

  There were pictures in the boxes too, mixed in with the tapes and records. Polaroids and glary disposable-camera pictures of Mom and Dad when they were young. Dad’s hair was spiky in some of them, Mom’s down near to her waist. Dad wore tight jeans and leather jackets, Mom long black dresses with rips in them. They were always laughing in the pictures, smiling over bottles of beer. It made me realize that those sad songs he sang weren’t all miserable, and that somewhere buried deep in the back of them was a smile too, or at least a smirk. I liked that.

  I knew Dad had made records, and demo tapes, too. There should have been more of those somewhere, but as far as I can tell Mom destroyed them all, tossed them out in the trash along with the rest of her old life. It was hard to blame her for it. Mom had a tough life always, I knew that. But I wished she had kept some of Dad’s music. It would be nice to have more than just my memories.

  The night I found the records I lay on my bed, listening to the Jesus and Mary Chain, a song called “Just Like Honey.” It was the least noisy one on the whole record, and I liked that. A touch of sweetness in the mangled world of everything else. I kept skipping the needle back, learning how to drop it soft, hearing that one song over and over again. I was on maybe my fifteenth straight listen when I rolled over on my bed and saw her standing there in the doorway, big tears drifting down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “I haven’t heard this song in a long time,” she said. “It was me and your dad’s song. Used to be our sweet song.”

  “Did you dance to it at your wedding?”

  She nodded at me.

  “I found some pictures, too. In the attic, I mean.”

  I grabbed the stacks of photos and held them out toward Mom. For a minute I thought she was going to take them, that she was going to sit down and talk to me about Dad, tell me stories, that we were finally going to stop pretending that he just didn’t exist anymore, that he wasn’t all around this house, real as a ghost.

  Mom shut her eyes.

  “Don’t you let Larry catch you with that stuff,” she said, and closed the door on her way out.

  We never did have that talk about Dad, but she didn’t rat me out to Larry either.

  “When did you get into records?” Larry asked me a few weeks later.

  “They’re mine,” said Mom. “Had them up in the attic all along.”

  “Vinyl is a pain in the ass,” said Larry. “Bump the damn needle and it’s ruined forever. CDs are so much easier.”

  “But less fun,” I said.

  “I guess,” he said. “Glad you found a new hobby. Just keep it down, alright?”

  Sometimes Larry actually wasn’t so bad. Sometimes he could be pretty okay, considering.

  But that didn’t help me now, awake and wired in the middle of the night with no one to talk to and nothing to do.

  It was in the lonely hours like these when I missed Her most. The way She could fill me with warmth and with light, like a candle lit inside me. Now all I felt was alone.

  I couldn’t sit around depressed like this all night. I had to do something.

  Larry had fixed my door, but he also removed the lock, so I couldn’t rely on any warning before he flung it open and stuck his fat head in to spy on me. I had to be sure they were asleep before I did anything that actually mattered. It was all silence downstairs. Now was the time.

  I slipped the rosewood jewelry box out of my purse, and the orange notebook, too. The box had a tiny silver clasp on it.

  I knew I shouldn’t open it.

  It wasn’t mine, after all. It belonged to Uncle Mike’s daughter, and it was probably precious to him. I’d stolen it for a crazy old lady I didn’t even know, who Uncle Mike said was evil. Whatever was inside this box was strange and most likely dangerous. I knew just looking at it could get me in all kinds of trouble.

  So, yeah, of course I opened it.

  Here’s what I found inside: a gold-painted Easter egg with sequins glued all over it. A boll of cotton still attached to the stalk. A cut-off chicken’s foot with a red ribbon tied around the ankle. Golden rings on a metal loop, too small for my fingers, like they were meant for a child. And at the bottom of the box, a rolled-up strip of leather, about the width of a page from a book, bound by a piece of ribbon.

  I loosened the knot and unscrolled the leather. It was rough, strange-feeling, like it was made out of some kind of animal I didn’t know. On it was scratched a series of designs and scribbles, a feather and an eyeball and what were maybe words, an impossible language of slashes and symbols that I couldn’t begin to decipher.

  It was like a treasure chest that belonged to some senile witch doctor, a hoarder of half-magic junk. I didn’t understand how this stuff could be worth a thousand dollars. There had to be something secret to it, something I didn’t quite get yet. What if Uncle Mike’s wife really had been a witch, and Cléa was, too? Maybe this stuff was what she used to cast spells. Could that be why Miss Mathis wanted it so bad? Was she some kind of witch as well? I picked up the orange notebook. The handwriting inside was scraggly and tough to read, like it had been written by someone’s left hand. I could feel a tremble to it, the way the pages seemed to shiver in my hands. There was something to this book, something sinister and wonderful and full of secrets. A single name was scribbled on the inside cover in the same confused,
staggery handwriting: KEVIN HENRIKSON.

  I began to read.

  My name is Kevin and I have a demon. It is my demon, my very own.

  It first came to me in a dream. I was a kid, a little one. It wasn’t anything, not a body or nothing, just a Feeling.

  In my dream I said to that Feeling, what’s your name?

  The Feeling said I don’t have a name.

  I said to the Feeling are you a girl or a boy?

  The Feeling said I’m a spirit. We aren’t like people.

  A spirit? I said. Like a ghost?

  No it said.

  A demon? I said.

  If you like. But I can be your friend.

  I said I’m only friends with boys.

  It said okay, you can call me Nicolas. That’s a boy’s name.

  And then I woke up. It was all in my sleep.

  My hands shook I was so excited, and my heart slapped against my chest. It was like reading my own story in some other weird kid’s words. It felt so good to know that someone else understood. I knew that She had intended for me to find this.

  I read on.

  Nicolas came back to me night after night. Nicolas could do a whole lot of things. One time Nicolas told me to shut my eyes.

  Have you ever seen Paris? said Nicolas.

  I said nuh uh I haven’t.

  Shut your eyes said Nicolas and I did.

  At first nothing happened and then something did.

  I was flying. I was flying but I wasn’t alone. Nicolas was flying with me, I could feel his hand, it was like my spirit was a body and now we could touch.

  I saw a big lit up tower that looked like the outline of a tower. It was bright and glowing like an old metal Christmas tree. It was beautiful.

  I said what’s that Nicolas? He said that’s the Eiffel Tower. Didn’t you know?

  I said no I don’t know anything.

  So Nicolas showed me things.

  He showed me the ocean. It’s bigger than it looks in pictures. He showed me forests long as the sky and temples full of bones. He showed me a windmill and a clock tower and an old man in a hut on a mountain. He showed me the sun rise up out of the ocean like a giant fiery bird.

  I said how can I see all this, it can’t be real. Nicolas said it was real.

  I said prove it.

  He said okay.

  Nicolas flew me to where the newspapers are printed. There were these great big machines and all kinds of paper whirring fast in them like a movie projector. Nicolas said to write down the headlines and see if they didn’t match up next morning. Okay I said I will.

  I snapped out of it. I was in my bedroom. I had a scrap of napkin in my hand where I wrote the headline.

  I must have been in it deep because I don’t remember grabbing a pen or a napkin and I don’t know where the napkin even came from.

  But there it was in my hand.

  It said Mysterious Heavenly Body Found. I wondered if it was about me and Nicolas flying.

  I slept and all my dreams were flying dreams with me and Nicolas, I don’t know if they were dreams or not. When I woke up the next morning I went downstairs to ask Dad for the newspaper. There it was, just like I had written it: Mysterious Heavenly Body Found. But it was about a planet not me.

  I got so happy I laughed.

  Momma said what’s got you feeling so good?

  I said Momma I made a friend.

  •

  The phone buzzed. I jolted awake from the notebook. I clicked the silence button and flipped it open.

  “Hello?” I whispered.

  I don’t know, for some reason I thought it might be Kevin Henrikson. That maybe by reading his notebook I’d conjured him up somehow, called to him through time and space just by loving his words so much.

  “Hey, Clarabella. It’s me, Roy.”

  “Holy shit,” I said. “Roy, you scared me.”

  I couldn’t tell if I was disappointed or relieved. What would it have meant to talk to Kevin? I knew he was brilliant and strange, maybe even a little off in some way. Would he like me? Would he want me to read this stuff?

  “I’m sorry,” said Roy. “Were you sleeping?”

  “Nope,” I said, trying to sound bright and chirpy. “Just reading.”

  “I’m reading, too. I’m like two hundred pages into that John Dee book. You didn’t tell me he was also a minister. That’s crazy.”

  “Glad you’re liking it.”

  “I am, a lot,” he said. “I didn’t mean to call you so late. It was just . . . I got this feeling, like you were in trouble or something.”

  “What kind of trouble would I be in?” I said.

  “I don’t know. I just had a feeling.”

  “Well, all is right and well here. How about you, Roy? You all good?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

  I laughed.

  “God, you’re a dork.”

  We talked until four A.M. It was the warmest I’d felt, the least alone, since She’d been gone. I fell asleep still holding the phone, the notebook buried under my flung-back covers, forgotten for the night.

  The next day Mom and Larry were both at work, and they had both taken their cars. Technically I was still under basic house arrest, with no mode of transportation but my old bike. The tires were half-flat and the whole thing was painted little-girl pink, but it still rode okay. I’d looked up Miss Mathis’s address earlier, and it wasn’t too far from my house. I figured I’d go ahead and bring the box to her. Maybe she could tell me what all the stuff inside it meant. Besides, a thousand bucks was a hell of a lot of money.

  The ride only took me about fifteen minutes. Her house was tucked into the back of a boring little neighborhood, the kind of place where kids roam free and the adults don’t do anything but go to work and cheat on each other.

  Miss Mathis’s place was a one-story brick building, drab and ugly. Big curtains blocked out all the windows and you couldn’t see anything on the inside. I walked past the overgrown hedges and was going to knock on the door, but there was a sign taped on the door, scrawled on yellow legal paper.

  COME ON IN ALREADY, it said.

  I pushed the door open and it creaked long and weird. The smell hit me so hard I almost gagged, cigarettes and wet dog and Febreze. The house was dark, just a lamp lit here and there. A stereo played sad, scratchy music, a lady singing in a foreign language.

  “Miss Mathis?” I said. “It’s Clare, from the junk shop.”

  I peeked my head into the living room. It was red-curtained, tossing splotches of red anytime the sunlight dared to stream through. Clutter was everywhere. Books in tall toppling stacks. Old creased magazines, Harper’s and Soldier of Fortune. A stack of ancient, fat, rusty-looking tomes with a magnifying glass next to them. Four burned-down purple candles. A multitude of coffee cups, cigarette butts poking out like little crooked tombstones. Framed pictures hung all over the wall, of kids who were probably old dead people now. In the middle of the whole mess was Miss Mathis, leaned back all the way in her easy chair. She had on her big black sunglasses, like the kind that blind people wear in movies, and a navy-blue Bank of America sweatshirt. Miss Mathis was snoring. I mean long, drawling, guttural, nightmare snores, dragon snores. On an end table sat a dirty-looking NASCAR mug. She dangled a still-burning cigarette between two fingers, a froufrou dog—some kind of shih tzu or whatever—asleep on her lap.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. Wasn’t it dangerous to wake old people suddenly? She might have a heart attack or something. I coughed real loud, but she didn’t wake up. I figured maybe I should just come back later.

  Miss Mathis drew in a fierce, short breath. Except she didn’t exhale. She didn’t cough, and she didn’t snort it out. It was like she sucked her air in and it got stuck there. I peered at her close.

  Miss Mathis wasn’t breathing.

  “Miss Mathis?” I said. “Hello?”

  I waved my hand in front of her face. Nothing. I started sweating.


  Oh god oh god. Do I give her mouth-to-mouth? Do I shake her? What if I break her neck?

  The shih tzu sat snoozing in her lap. What a crap watchdog.

  So I poked it.

  The dog sprang up and bit me on the finger. It drew blood. I yanked my finger away and yowled. Miss Mathis shot up in her chair, her flung cigarette sparking against the TV, the dog flying off her lap like a furry, small angel. It scampered, yipping, around my feet. Miss Mathis sucked in a huge gulp of air, like she was just coming up from drowning.

  “Jesus Christ!” she said.

  Miss Mathis grabbed the NASCAR mug off her end table and took a swig. She spat it across the floor. “This ain’t coffee.” She shrugged and drank the rest of the mug down.

  “Shut the fuck up, Prissy,” Miss Mathis said. She picked up the growling dog, and it immediately went still and silent in her arms. “This is Clare, the dear girl who did us a favor. She’s come here to collect her prize.”

  Miss Mathis looked at my bloody finger. “You need a Band-Aid for that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Might want to sterilize it when you get home, regardless. Prissy’s sick in the head, I swear.” Miss Mathis lit a cigarette. “Kindly, Clare, do you mind stomping that butt out over there? Don’t much want the house to burn down.”

  The cigarette smoldered on the carpet. I toed it out.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “No problem,” I said. “I’m sorry I interrupted your nap. The sign just said to come on in.”

  “I wasn’t napping, dear. I was out walking.”

  “Okay.”

  “Went to visit an old lover in Ireland I had once, when I wasn’t much older than you. She’s in hospice dying right now, bless her heart. Sad to see an old love laid up like that, but most of mine are long dead anyway. Wished I could hold her hand, but that’s not how walking works, is it now, dear?”

  “Walking?” I said. “You mean like astral projection?”

  I knew all about that stuff from books I got at Uncle Mike’s. Honestly, I’d always wanted to try it, cast the spirit of myself out into the cosmos, wandering deep across the worlds. I figured it wasn’t too much different than when She would take me daydreaming to the Hidden Place. That somehow seemed a part of my destiny, I thought, to whisk myself through the stars and see what was hidden behind them.