Play Nice

Clio¹ reads the book in secret, violating the promise she and her sisters made never to touch it. Alexandra's² version of events centers on young Cici (Clio)¹ as an unnervingly perceptive child who announced that 'the thing that lives in my closet' made a mess in the kitchen.

The memoir describes phantom laughter, cabinets opening themselves, a blanket fort breathing as if something inside were inhaling, and Cici¹ speaking to an invisible presence at night. Clio¹ wrestles with fragmented memories: she remembers the kitchen incident but not her alleged role in blaming an entity.

She remembers wanting the upstairs bedroom with her sisters but being guilted into the downstairs room near that closet. The line between her mother's² dramatic license and recovered memory blurs with every page.

While sleeping on the couch at Edgewood, Clio¹ is awakened by a shadowy figure screaming in the living room. She chases the intruder onto the deck, where rotting stairs give way, dropping a teenage boy into the yard. His uncle Austin⁶ comes running, apologizing profusely. Austin⁶ recognizes Clio¹ immediately: he grew up down the street, had a crush on her as a kid.

His brother Jackson helped Alexandra² move in years ago. The next evening, he returns with apology cookies from his mother and a six-pack. They drink on the deck, share a joint, and end up on the couch. He leaves his phone number on a torn sketchpad page. It is the best hookup Clio¹ has had in a long time, and it complicates everything.

Strange phenomena escalate. Clio¹ wakes on the floor with her bedding piled beside her. She finds her sketchpad open to a page where 'Hello' is scrawled in her own handwriting, a drawing she has no memory of making.

At night, beneath her white noise sleep track, a whispering voice surfaces: 'Hello hello. It's so good to see you again.' Her mother's² book continues: Alexandra² called a priest, Father John, who fled the house within minutes. A second priest, Father Bernard, confirmed a demonic presence and warned of danger to the girls, especially Cici.¹

Clio¹ also finds the fridge mysteriously open, dead flies accumulating on windowsills, and she feels watched constantly, a presence hovering just behind her shoulder that vanishes when she turns.

At the Memorial Day barbecue, Clio¹ sneaks into her father's³ study and finds the missing back half of the annotated book hidden in his desk drawer. She confronts him in front of the guests, screaming. He drags her inside, then marches to the firepit and feeds the pages to the flames. Clio¹ watches her mother's² handwritten notes, her only inheritance of maternal truth, curl into ash.

She accuses him of cheating on Alexandra² with Amy,⁹ their former dance teacher. He refuses to answer. Tommy¹⁰ drives her to Edgewood afterward, where she finds four deep scratches gouged into the freshly primed living room wall, forming a massive frowning face. The demon has answered fire with permanent, physical testimony carved into the house itself.

Over a disastrous lunch in Manhattan, Leda⁴ accuses Clio¹ of having antisocial personality disorder, citing conversations with Tommy,¹⁰ who has a psychology minor. Then her sisters drop a revelation Clio¹ has waited her whole life to hear: the burn on her forearm was not inflicted by their mother.²

They found seven-year-old Clio¹ at the kitchen table in the middle of the night, giggling, pressing a hot pink lighter to her skin. She told them it felt like nothing, 'just like it said it would.'

The 'it' was the demon, or, per Leda⁴ and Daphne,⁵ a delusion their mother² encouraged. They told their father³ a different story, one that helped him win full custody. Clio's¹ foundational narrative of maternal abuse was a lie her sisters fabricated to save them all from that house.

Clio's¹ life implodes. Her Brooklyn apartment building catches fire when a neighbor's rooftop party spins out of control. She salvages what she can: laptop, jewelry, the fire safe her father³ insisted on.

Returning to Edgewood, she buys a hot pink lighter identical to her childhood one, a bottle of vodka, and cigarettes. Austin⁶ arrives, worried after watching her increasingly erratic Instagram stories. She picks a fight, mocking his father's gold chain necklace, and he walks away wounded, telling her she is already 'alone and fucked-up.'

Drunk and desolate, Clio¹ posts a blurry, tear-streaked selfie. Then she presses the lighter's flame to her old scar. The burn blisters yellow. She feels nothing, then smells her own flesh smoking and gasps back to awareness.

Clio¹ discovers her father³ has been Googling psychiatric holds and 'genetic psychosis.' She calls Roy,⁷ the demonologist, and asks him to meet her at Edgewood. Then she is frog-marched to family therapy, where the session devolves into chaos. Leda⁴ calls Clio¹ a manipulator.

Daphne,⁵ the lifelong peacemaker, finally erupts, confessing she hates how everything works out for Clio,¹ hates that Dad³ is quietly homophobic, hates that she has always known he cheated. In response, James³ throws a chair against the wall and screams that Alexandra² was a terrible mother who 'got exactly what she deserved,' that sometimes he looks at Clio¹ and hates how much she reminds him of her. Clio¹ walks out. No one stops her.

Clio¹ returns to Edgewood to meet Roy.⁷ His car sits in the driveway, but the house is empty. She calls his phone repeatedly, following the ringtone down to the lower level, where it lies on the carpet outside her childhood bedroom. Every door downstairs is shut except hers. In her closet, the ladder to the attic has been set up, positioned beneath the panel.

The panel is weighted from above, resisting her attempts to push it open. Dread coils in her stomach. Roy⁷ told her over the phone that Jed and Ruth, his former teammates, are all dead, that working in this field takes a toll. Now the expert has vanished, and Clio¹ is alone in the house with whatever took him.

Leda⁴ and Daphne⁵ arrive, having seen Clio's¹ unhinged Instagram Live. They find her bloody-nosed from a ladder fall. The house immediately performs: cabinets slam open and shut, doors swing on their own. Leda,⁴ desperate to rationalize, accuses Roy⁷ of rigging the house.

The sisters devolve into a physical fight, hair pulling and kicking, decades of resentment erupting. Daphne⁵ screams that she hates being the family mediator. Leda,⁴ weeping and unhinged, finally confesses: she read the book too, and she saw the demon as a child.

It would come into their shared bedroom at night, a shadow with white eyes and a serpentine tongue, watching her sleep. She ignored it to make it go away, but she missed the attention. She lied about the burn because she 'wanted out of this house.'

They hear Roy's⁷ muffled voice from the attic. Daphne⁵ climbs the ladder, shifts the panel, and Roy's⁷ body crashes down, his eyes gouged out but still alive, a broken sound escaping his throat. Leda⁴ and Daphne⁵ drag him outside while Clio,¹ compelled, climbs into the crawl space alone.

The attic is a museum of her childhood: their fruit-shaped cups, Mom's² jewelry box, photographs, and copies of the book inscribed to each sister. The demon peels itself from the rafters, a hulking thing with milky eyes, red slit pupils, a forked crimson tongue.

It shows Clio¹ her own forgotten memories, stored here like artifacts. She unclasps her snake charm necklace and offers it as tribute, then cries real, sincere tears for the first time. The demon drinks her grief and retreats into shadow.

Clio¹ descends from the attic to find Daphne⁵ and Leda⁴ waiting on the landing. They push her outside, past Roy's⁷ broken body on the lawn, and hold each other as police and ambulance arrive. Neighbors gather in the street.

In the commotion, Clio¹ walks to Austin,⁶ standing in the cul-de-sac in his sweatpants. She apologizes for everything she said. He says he believes her about the demon. Hours later, the three sisters sit in a McDonald's, faces bruised and swollen. Leda⁴ spoons into Clio's¹ McFlurry.

Daphne⁵ dips chicken nuggets in honey. They do not resolve everything, but they are together. Clio¹ looks at her burn scar and thinks: this is proof. They should not need scars to be believed, but that is the world their mother² tried to prepare them for.