She stood in the shadowed foyer of Mason’s house, the grand stairs swept up like a commissioned waterfall, frozen in mahogany. Tie felt the walls of the Massa’s house push in at her shoulders and cheeks, the very air dense with greed and crowding. But that wasn’t the worst of it. A gollum dressed in dirty pajamas stood at the top of the stairs and peered at her with twinkling curiosity. The light was low, as if the house lay under a brownout, but she could make out the glimmer from the troll’s moist eyes and grinning teeth.
A wet shiver ran through her flesh. She thought of the door behind her, the outside. Instead, Tie took a step forward and demanded, “What you lookin’ at?”
The troll’s grin stretched, too wide for human facial muscles, too many teeth for a human jaw. It hunched down a step, bobbing its neck like a monitor lizard. “Smell you,” it whisper-hissed. “Smell your insides.”
Tie’s face wrinkled in toward her pert nose. “Smell you, too,” she said. “Didn’t quite get past potty trainin’, huh?”
It answered with a wet ripping noise followed a moment later by a stench like a blow. “Oh!” she waved her hand in front of her face and backed away a step. “For the love a’.”
“Of God?” it asked, head weaving around on its neck like a bud in the breeze. “God doesn’t love you, Tiesha.” Its head stopped, pinned her where she stood. “Just like your mother.”
She looked away, waved him off, but her eyes were hot. “What do you know, lil’ boy?”
It hopped down another three risers, now only sixteen steps away from touching her. Suddenly she grew cold, as if a wall of winter had pushed into her. “I know why she left you.”
Tie crossed her arms, hoping it wouldn’t see her shiver. She couldn’t let it know she was afraid, couldn’t let anyone know. A tear burned a track down the side of her face, but she kept her head turned away so it wouldn’t see. The troll was a capering blur in the corner of her eye. She wanted to throw some back in this twisted little honky’s face, tell him that he didn’t know shit about Tie’s mama, that he ought to worry about whether his own daddy loved him or not and leave her be. All she could manage was a choked squeak and cursed herself for it as another tear spilled and rolled. “Dammit,” she whispered.
“Left because she didn’t love you…or him.” Now its voice flowed deep and even, almost gentle, an authority figure with bad news. “It’s all right, girl. Your slut mama left mostly because of him. After she figured out what she wanted from life, your mama was reborn. He couldn’t give it to her. You were just the afterbirth of her revelation.”
A great screeching Shut up! boiled in Tie’s throat but died at the back of her mouth, a dry rag. She looked at her feet as the cold rolled over her shoulders like brine.
The troll slipped another few steps closer and now its breath blushed up against her cheek, even from across the room. Burning garbage and old diapers. She swayed on her feet a little and moaned. “But you understand her leaving him, don’t you, girl? You know what it means to leave your father.”
She shook her head from side to side, but the motion was weak, like moving in frigid water. Her father had never been anything but good, solid. He’d never touched her in anger or darkness of any kind. He’d always worked his fingers to the bone so she wouldn’t have to. And he’d never made her pay for it with a single cent of emotional currency. His love had been free.
And she had left. Just like her mother.
“Because you hated him,” it croaked in toneless finality.
Tie put her hands over her face and sobbed. “No, he was so good to me. Daddy…”
“Because she left, you hated him.”
A wave of frozen dread and ancient pain rose up around her like bile in a quivering throat. Hidden from herself for so long, this demon boy had shown her the truth. Her head tipped back and she wailed. Arms limp at her sides and shoulders hitching, she pealed a long empty note into the dark house. After a long time, the dream breath ran out and Tie was left swaying on her feet. She opened her eyes and the demon stood before her.
“Smell your insides,” it said. “Like rotten milk.”
“Why?” she asked, dredged, exhausted. “Why’d you make me look at it?”
It threw a mocking pout. “So sorry, our time is up.”