Jess sat on the floor of the garage, sobbing and holding her cheek. Del was crouched down next to her, arms wrapped around her. Next to her was a smoking weed whacker.

“What happened?” I asked Del.

His face was white, and he wordlessly shook his head. I bent down on one knee and tried to see what had happened to Jess. She wouldn’t remove her hand from her face and continued to cry loud sobs that left her gasping for breath.

Melissa stepped into the garage. “Jess. Are you hurt?”

Jess’s sobs grew quieter, and she looked up, eyes red and swollen. Her face was a mask of fear, her eyes wide and mouth drawn. “The weed whacker turned on by itself and cut my face.”

We looked in unison at the quiet landscaping tool, a thin plume of smoke emanating from the motor. It wasn’t plugged in, and I could see the sharp thread sticking out from the reel.

“How bad is it?” Melissa said.

Jess slowly removed her palm from her cheek, and we took a collective, sharp inhale. There was a bright red slash across her face, running from her hairline to nearly her nose. It didn’t appear to be bleeding that badly, but the skin around it was puffy and swollen.

The photograph.

My insides felt like they were tightening, and my body started to tremble as I realized the photo foretold this: Jess with a mark on her face.

Now we all had one. Like diabolical matching friendship bracelets.

Mark went inside to get Jess an ice pack and a wet cloth while I remained rooted in place, feet nailed to the garage floor. Everything around me grew softer, like I was coming into focus, the background falling away. I couldn’t take my eyes from Jess as Del held her and she whimpered in pain.

This was what Liz meant by seeing us tonight. We were so stupid to believe she was going to show up in person, like normal. Landscaping tools couldn’t just turn on by themselves. She had marked each one of us, just as she had in the picture.

I didn’t know how we were going to stop her, let alone pull her back from the pit of hell. The darkness was overtaking our neighborhood, and we were powerless against it. We didn’t have much time left before we would all belong to Mavis.

CHAPTER
31

Then move, yourself. And tell anyone you care about to do the same.

Marianne Baker’s warning floated through my mind before I had even opened my eyes the morning after Jess’s injury. Her words were like the hissing of a snake, lightning before catastrophic thunder.

We had helped Jess bandage her face after Heather and Andrew went home, the rest of the evening canceled. She refused to go to urgent care, insisting after she stopped crying that she was fine and had just gotten spooked.