And we were her children. Melanie had her fair hair and skin. I had her eyes, pale blue, and virtually colorless when we got angry.

Mellie only shook her head. “Not crazy, Nina. She’s possessed.”

An ice-cold lump of terror fell into my stomach and lodged there.

It wasn’t possible. Not in New Temperance. Not half a mile from the school and less than two miles from a worship center. Not in my own home.

The news reported the occasional isolated domestic possession, along with footage of black cassock–clad exorcists sent in to deal with the problem, but there hadn’t been a documented possession in New Temperance since Clare Parker, and few people believed she really was possessed. Clare’s execution was a display of power. A threat to all future sinners. And it had worked.

But my mother was…something else.

She smiled at me slowly, and her eyes flashed. I knew in that instant that Melanie was right.

My mom was a demon.

My mother watched me from across the kitchen doorway, and my heart felt like it was going to explode. It was beating too fast, and everything in my living room looked really crisp and clear, as if my eyes were working better than my other senses. As if they could make up for not seeing what had been there all along.

My sister’s feet whispered on the worn carpet behind me as we both retreated slowly. Suddenly my hands felt empty. I felt like I should be holding a weapon now that I knew my mother was a demon, but that didn’t make much sense. She’d been a demon for who knew how long, and I’d never needed a weapon before.

But then, she’d had nothing to fear before we knew her secret.

“Mellie, go next door and use the phone.” I was whispering, but my voice felt like a hammer bludgeoning fragile silence in the wake of our demonic discovery. “Call the Church.”

“Yes, call them.” My mother’s smile was slow and cold, and it was all for Melanie. “They’ll probably set me on fire around the same time they scrape the embryo from your womb. Or maybe they’ll just cut the whole thing out of you. Won’t have to worry about unauthorized breeding if you haven’t got the parts for it, huh?”

“Melanie, go,” I said, but I could feel her behind me, so close I could smell her shampoo, and I could practically taste her fear. “They won’t do that.” They wouldn’t kill the baby. But they would use it against her, trading its life for her service and obedience.

They would make an example of her. Of both of us. They’d say we should have known. They wouldn’t believe that my mother had been possessed right under my nose and I’d had no idea. I could hardly believe that myself.

I’d seen the withdrawal from life, the neglect and disinterest, and the obvious illness, yet demonic possession had never occurred to me. Why? Why did I see drug use instead? Because the changes happened slowly?