Of course, the cat is also a problem. Suzy clings to that mangy thing, brings it to bed with her. Poor Lolly has fallen into the crack between the mattress and the wall. Suzy looks for it the moment she wakes up, calling its name, hugging it like they’ve been apart for weeks instead of a few hours. The cat is not only an obvious harbinger of danger, but also a beast intent on keeping Annie away from Suzy. She sees it in its green eyes. It hates Annie, hates that Annie can provide for Suzy in a way it can’t, glares at Annie with its slitted pupils, daring her to do something.

It scratches at the door when Annie banishes it for the night, yowling so much that Annie has had to lock it back into the laundry room, which only makes it hate Annie even more. Hissing at her whenever she gets too close, baring its claws, ready for a fight, arching its back whenever Annie gets too near.

But the pathetic creature doesn’t know Annie’s history with cats, doesn’t know how much Annie loathes them. When she looks at this cat, she can still feel the sting of the scratches that stayed for weeks on her skin just because she wanted to help that stray, ungrateful beast. Those moans, they seem to have never stopped in some ways. Her thoughts are scrambled with them.

And then one night it becomes too much. The whispers. The crying. The radiator. Serena clearing her throat. And the cat, too, meowing and meowing to be let out of the laundry room, its nails leaving claw marks on the door that’ll be Annie’s responsibility to cover with Old English polish in the morning.

And then in the mirror she sees someone laughing at her, not a good kind of someone. A shadow of a person, an apparition from her nightmares. Not like the friends who would whisper to her at night after her siblings were asleep, the purple-and-blue creatures who would lap up her misgivings, her dark jagged secrets, like milk, and love her anyway. The shadow is laughing at the way her patience is ebbing away, its gold fillings showing.

Annie feels a phantom jab of pain in her abdomen. That little barb of agony that began everything.

She puts on her parka, her snow boots, her hat. She ties her scarf around her neck so she’s practically suffocating in the wool, and opens the laundry room door. The cat backs away, bares its teeth at her, its incisors glowing in the darkness, its tail wide and bushy, claws protracted.