My Best Friend's Exorcism(40)

She drove into Mt. Pleasant and through the Old Village, never going over twenty-five, her head buzzing with what she would say to Gretchen’s mom. By the time they pulled up in front of the Langs’ house, she was as ready as she’d ever be, but then she came up short. The driveway was empty.

“Where’s your mom?” Abby asked.

“Supposed to be here,” Gretchen mumbled.

Abby parked on the street. She grabbed Gretchen’s bookbag and led her inside.

Gretchen’s house was freezing. The cold cut through Abby’s clothes and made her skin ripple with gooseflesh. The refrigerated air stank of Glade, and Lysol disinfectant, and potpourri, and Stick-Ups. Abby saw three Magic Mushroom air fresheners on the hall table, and underneath the chemical scent was something sour and earthy.

She helped Gretchen upstairs. As they neared the second floor, the stench of rotten meat overpowered the air fresheners. When she opened the door to Gretchen’s room, Abby stopped in shock. The air fresheners didn’t work in here. The stench oozed down the walls, raw and uncut, seeping up from the floor, coating Abby’s tongue with grease, soaking into her clothes, burrowing into her hair. She breathed through her mouth and it turned her saliva rancid, dripping thick down the back of her throat. But it wasn’t the smell that stopped her.

“Did your mom stop coming in here?” Abby asked.

Every other week, Gretchen’s mom waited for her to go to school and then cleaned Gretchen’s room, hunting for notes, digging through trash, searching the underwear drawer, hauling away big black garbage bags full of everything she’d decided Gretchen didn’t need, leaving the space as sterile and impersonal as a furniture display in a department store. But now, Gretchen’s room was a wreck.

Clothes drooled from open drawers, neither of the twin beds were made, the trash can was on its side, and a Diet Coke can lay in the middle of the wall-to-wall white carpet. The walls were scored with black marks. Through the open bathroom door Abby could see the counter thick with balls of used Kleenex, spilled hair product, scrunchies, Band-Aids, Maxipads.

Gretchen squirmed out of Abby’s arms and collapsed on one of the unmade beds. She wrapped the comforter around herself and pulled it tight until only her face was showing. She yawned again.

The cold was seeping into Abby’s bones. Her arms were shaking.

“Do you have a sweater?” she asked.

Gretchen nodded at her closet.

“There’s some in there that he hasn’t ruined,” she said, thick-tongued.

Abby rumbled open the closet doors and pulled out a red Fair Isle sweater that was cleanish. She pulled the sleeves over her hands like gloves, then sat on the end of the bed, staring at three jagged furrows gouged into the drywall; they extended from just beneath the ceiling all the way down to the headboard. Abby couldn’t believe something like that had been allowed to mar Mrs. Lang’s perfect house.

Gretchen’s eyes were closed, her breathing deep and regular. One filthy hand snaked out from beneath the blanket and clutched Abby’s wrist in an ice-cold grip.

“Don’t leave me,” she mumbled.

After a few minutes, Gretchen’s hand opened and fell away. Abby stood up, causing Gretchen’s eyes to flicker open and then immediately droop closed again. Abby knew what she had to do. It was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life, but because it was so hard, it felt right.

She found Mr. Lang’s office number on the contact cube next to the kitchen phone.

“Thurman, O’Dell, Huggins, and Krell,” a woman said.

“I need to speak to Mr. Lang,” Abby said. “It’s . . . this is his daughter’s friend. It’s really important.”

She’d crossed the barrier and now Gretchen’s parents knew. She couldn’t come back.

“Abby?” Mr. Lang barked. “What happened?”

“I couldn’t find Mrs. Lang,” Abby said. “So I called you. Gretchen’s home and—”

“I’ll be right there,” he said. “Don’t move.”

He hung up. Abby stood holding the phone and listening to the refrigerator hum. Then she went back upstairs to wait. Minutes dragged into hours. She found an issue of Seventeen and tried to do the “Is Your Best Friend Competing with You?” quiz, but her head was crawling with too many thoughts. She couldn’t focus.

Gretchen snored lightly, the way she always did. Abby watched her sleep. When they’d first spent the night together, in fourth grade, Abby had noticed that Gretchen always smiled in her sleep. She’d told her about it the next morning.

“That’s because I always have good dreams,” Gretchen had said.

Gretchen wasn’t smiling now. She looked dead. A wet patch spread across her collar where sweat trickled down her neck. Abby wanted to unwrap the blanket a little, but Gretchen was holding it too tight.

She waited. The phone rang at nine thirty and again at ten fifteen, but Abby didn’t know if she should answer, so she let the machine pick up. The only sound in the house was cold air hushing through the vents and, downstairs, the crisp tock-tock-tock of the Langs’ grandfather clock in the front hall. Gretchen slept, and Abby watched, and after a long while she heard the gravel crunch and car doors slam. Good Dog Max let out a single bark. The Langs were home.

Abby was coming down the stairs as they were walking up to the house. Mrs. Lang was turned away, reprimanding a delighted Max for getting into the garbage again. Mr. Lang was already talking as he opened the glass door.