Page 58 of Cookbooks and Demons

She wanted to be flippant about it, but it still hurt to admit that non-secret out loud. The sensation of needles piercing her throat made it hard to swallow the mouthful she stuffed in after her declaration. She expected Rafferty to laugh at what she said, or dismiss it, say she was exaggerating, but he didn’t. He sat there looking at her hard, and that was actually worse because she hadn’t been prepared for it.

He believed her.

“You must feel so betrayed,” she said out loud, naming the thing she feared most in that moment. “But it’s true. I caused someone to die. So there you go. I’m not the pillar of virtue you think I am.”

“Tell me,” he said, his voice rumbling low. A thrum of wrongness crested off of him, rolling through the food eatery. Everyone there seemed to feel it and reacted to it like a wind had blown through, even though the airwas still.

“I think it is going to snow,” the young cook who had brought them their dumplings said, looking unsettled as he leaned forward to glance up at the dark starless sky. “We are going to pull everything in and shut the doors.” He gestured to the pair of doors on the building they occupied that could be pulled in and turning the open air of the eatery into a closed contained building, especially on a winter night like this.

“It’s okay. We’re about done,” Helena said, having completely lost what was left of her appetite. “Can we have a to-go tray?”

The cook nodded and returned with a pressed wax-lined takeout bowl that she dumped hers and his leftovers into.

“Thank you, again,” she said to the cooks who all waved at her with smiles as they closed inthe shop.

Rafferty followed, his eyes never leaving her, boring into her, as she refused to look at him.

Chapter 30

Told Him

the Truth

“Her name was Shawna,” Helena said from the seat of her couch. Pooka, skittish since her houseguest arrived, finally made an appearance, sitting on her lap and letting Helena pet her, all while keeping warning eyes on Rafferty across the room. “We were in high school together. And it’s exactly what you think. She wasn’t one of the popular kids and I was. So we bullied her.”

Rafferty stood leaning against her front door, his eyes burning stars. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he had one foot pressed into the door while the other braced to keep him upright. Despite his otherwise human appearance, his tail was visible, and it would twitch every few seconds, agitatedly, the way her cat’s was right that minute.

Focusing on his tail helped her get through what she needed to say.

“It’s been a long time since I told this story, so you’ll have to forgive me—”

“How did you kill her?” he asked,sharply.

She looked up to meet his eyes, but he didn’t even blink as he stared her down. “It’s not going to be as simple as I took a gun and blew her head off. It’s not as direct as that, but it is the same thing as if I had. I’ve already been over this with many, many therapists and—”

“You caused her death.”

“I posted the thing that pushed her over the edge and made her take her life, yes. I knowingly did something that I knew was causing someone else so much pain that they would end their life over it. I literally told her she was worthless and she should kill herself and she did. They found her phone lying next to her with my text on thescreen.”

The needles in her throat sank deeper, but she let them. She wanted to feel their pain.

“You publicly shamed her?” Rafferty asked, a lilt of his French accent slipping into his speech.

“Yes, I did.” She wouldn’t diminish or look away from her sin. “The worst of it was, I wasn’t charged. The police refused to charge me. All the adults around us would tell me to my face that it wasn’t my fault, that it was nobody’s fault but her own for her death. That it wasn’t just me, that it wasn’t my responsibility solely. Any and all of the things. My parents sent me to therapy. Lots of therapy. I wasn’t able to touch a cellphone until I finally went to college a year later than I should have. And each day it is one step at a time, and I only sometimes think of Shawna, but I carry her with me everywhere. My own personal ghost. Though I guess she’s not even that,” Helena said as a realization came to her, looking at her demon with his starbursting eyes. “You would have seen her or something, right? If I was being truly haunted by her and she was attached to mesomehow?”

He shook his head. “There is no one around you like that,”he said.

“Dammit,” Helena said, lowering her head. “I actually find that disappointing. I used to talk to her all the time until the therapist said that wasn’t really healthy and suggested I try to let her go.”

She chuckled dryly. “You said a while ago that I am always looking to ‘do the right thing, to find the right answer,’ and you are totally right. I am absolutely trying to do that because I don’t think I know how to live with myself any other way. Which also means I understand what you mean when you say you deserve it, everything that has happened to you and that you are unworthy. I actually honest to God understand what you are freaking talking about, what that feels like. And I don’t even know what you’ve done that was so bad as to warrant being dragged into hell. But I get why you feel that way. I do. This is a horrible feeling to have to live with.”

Tears were flooding her eyes and there was nothing she could do to stop them. They weren’t for her; they weren’t self-pity. They just were. Her body could do nothing else and she just let it happen, as she had so many times before in her life. She closed her eyes and let them take her under again.

“Helena,” Rafferty said.

She could barely hear him, but she tried to respond. “Yes?”

“Can Ihold you?”

---