My Best Friend's Exorcism(70)

“Why’re y’here?” Margaret moaned, and the sheets thrashed.

“Because you’ve been out of school for weeks.” Abby walked over to the bed and reached under the tasseled shade of a bedside lamp. “And even though you’re mad at me, you’re still my friend.”

She clicked on the light and immediately wished she hadn’t.

“Oh,” Abby said. When she couldn’t think of anything else to say, she said it again. “Oh.”

Margaret was a yellowed bone buried in dirty sheets. A withered thing, lying weak and helpless, eyes E.T.-sized, face gaunt. Her hair was as colorless as her eyes, and it was thin and started high on her forehead; Abby could see too much scalp. Thick foam was caked in the corners of Margaret’s mouth. She blinked in the light, and greasy tears slid from her eyes.

“Wallace didn’t . . . give you anything,” Margaret rasped. “Quit being . . . so fucking nice . . . all the time . . .”

When Margaret spoke, Abby saw a gray fuzz coating her tongue. She looked away, trying to focus on something—anything—else.

“I got poisoned . . . ,” Margaret rasped. Then she dragged a skeleton’s claw from beneath the blanket, the bones barely covered with skin, fingernails growing into calcified talons as her cuticles retreated. “Someone . . . poisoned me . . .”

In Abby’s mind, the pieces slot-machined into place. She set down the carnations and took one of Margaret’s ice-cold hands.

“Was it the German milkshake?” she asked.

Margaret gagged and Abby saw every tendon in her cheeks flex.

“Don’t talk . . . ,” Margaret gasped as her throat spasmed.

“. . . about food . . .”

“But you have to eat,” Abby said. “You look like an Ethiopian.”

Margaret’s watery eyes focused on the plastic capsule of Frusen Gl?djé. Her tongue snaked out and slid over chapped lips. Her shoulders hunched, her skull lifted, and for a second it looked like she was going to sit up, but then she flopped her enormous, fragile head back down onto her pillows. Fecal air puffed out from beneath the pile of blankets.

“They want it to . . . pass through my system,” Margaret said. “But I’m . . . hungry . . .”

“And here I am with Frusen Gl?djé,” Abby said, smiling. “It was meant to be. Just a spoonful.”

Margaret was too weak to nod, so Abby went to the vanity and dragged the frilly white piano bench to the side of the bed and sat down. She cracked the top of the plastic pint and then peeled back the white film, setting it faceup on the bedside table. Instantly, the cold, snowy smell of ice cream filled the sweaty room.

Margaret’s lips slid up to reveal her teeth. They looked huge compared to the rest of her sunken face, and Abby realized she was trying to smile.

“Good?” Abby asked.

“Lemme jus’ . . . smell it first,” Margaret said.

Abby held the ice cream underneath Margaret’s skull nose and watched as she closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep. Margaret’s nostrils flexed slowly as she got stoned on the scent of frozen, whipped sugar. None for Abby, though. Even though her mouth was watering, she didn’t think she could keep anything down in this room.

“You want to try a spoonful?” she asked.

Margaret, nodded, eyes flickering behind closed lids. Abby put the softening ice cream in her lap and dug down with the spoon, scraping off half. It was better to start with tiny bites. She extended the spoon to Margaret, who didn’t open her eyes. Maybe she’d fallen asleep, Abby thought, but then she saw her gullet heave; her forehead slide translucently over the bony ridges of her brow.

“Hurts?” Abby asked.

Margaret nodded, bloodless lips pinched tight, and Abby knew that look: she was going to puke. She stuck the spoon back in the ice cream and set the container on the bedside table while she looked for a wastebasket. There was one by the vanity, so she ran over, got it, and came back.

“Margaret?” she asked. “Can you roll over on your side a little? You can’t throw up on your back.”

The sound of the words “throw up” made Margaret wince again. Abby pulled down the covers and saw that Margaret’s chest was a bony plate beneath her Rockville Regatta T-shirt. Her shoulders were sticks lashed to other sticks. A puff of stale air wafted out, but Abby didn’t care. Margaret was in pain, squirming softly and slowly. The blankets looked too heavy for her, so Abby pulled them lower and then stopped.

Margaret’s stomach was swollen into a hard mound. Abby couldn’t believe how big it was, and for a second she thought Margaret was pregnant. But you didn’t get nine months pregnant after missing school for a couple of weeks. Margaret made a gasping noise and her bony claws scrabbled at her swollen belly, scratching and caressing the bulge.

“Are you okay?” Abby asked again.

Margaret opened her mouth to scream but out came a loud gurgle—a wet, sucking, gagging sound that made Abby’s stomach flex in sympathy. Margaret twisted, her spine bending backward into a C, head toward heels. Then she twisted the other way, doubled over, curling herself into a protective ball around her distended belly. The sheets slid off the bed and onto the floor.

“Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh!” she chanted.

Abby was scared that Margaret might bite off her tongue or go to the bathroom in her bed. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? The question ran on a loop inside her brain, but she didn’t have any answers.