The Inheritance

I remember the first time my mother told me our family was cursed.

I was seven years old and Mom was having a rough day. She had kept me home from school because it had spent all night filling her head with whispers of how evil was coming for me.

“Must protect the young one. Danger, all around. It knows, and it is.”

Mom’s frantic whispers filled the dimly-lit room as I stood by the couch and watched her run from window to window, inspecting the tape that held the blackout shades to the wall. Her fingers, skeletal and shaking, traced the edges of the black duct tape, patting and smoothing it down to ensure not a sliver of light could pass. She had already checked and re-checked all the other windows in our two-bedroom apartment four times so, this would be her final confirmation.

It was a routine I was already very familiar with. Mom had been sick long before I’d arrived on the scene – an unplanned and ill-advised complication in her already-tumultuous life. When I was first born and her symptoms were still relatively moderate, she was able to keep us together through the use of medication, intensive therapy programs and the support of her family members. But by the time I’d turned seven, her pills hadn’t been working or she had been “forgetting” to take them. The disease was worsening, gaining greater control over my mother’s mind. I could feel her being pulled away from me, a distance widening between us that none could cross.

That day was the third time in the past year that she’d had an episode and locked me in the house. As soon as the four deadbolts were thrown, she would painstakingly quadruple-check every seal on our doors and windows before taking me to “the safe place”, where we would stay until she convinced herself that the imagined danger had passed. This particular incident would be worse than the last two but far from her final attempt to keep me from harm.

Mom completed her examination of the room and turned to me, her eyes wild and her face drawn with worry. She held out a pale hand, beckoning me to her side. 

“Come, come. We must go to the safe place. That which is severed will not be sustained.” 

I took her hand with a heavy heart as I let her lead me to her bedroom. I hopped over the thick white line on the border of the door frame without even looking down – I was so accustomed to its presence that it barely registered as Mom pulled me into the small room.

Similarly, I didn’t pay any attention to the four-inch-wide mound of white granules at the base of every wall, tracing the perimeter of the room. All the furniture was pulled out to accommodate it. More salt bordered the window sills, on both sides of the blackout shades, and formed a ring around the bed. There were crucifixes hung in each corner of the room, with lights to illuminate every inch of the space. There was no closet door, only an open set of shelves filled with Mom’s clothes. The ensuite attached on the right of the bedroom, similarly decorated. 

I stepped over the salt circling the four-post wooden bed and climbed onto the soft linens. They smelled like Mom and home but it was little comfort. I ached for her to be healthy, not to be terrified of the things her mind showed her. Though she didn’t usually share them with me I knew they haunted her, made it hard for her to function. Grandma had been the same, Auntie Dee had told me.

Though she was my aunt by name only, I considered her family. My mom was an only child and had grown up next to Darlene, inseparable from the start. Auntie Dee had been the impartial observer to Grandma’s own manifestation of the disease that now plagued my mother.  

“There Mom, I’m safe now. Will you come sit down with me?”

She nodded absently, circling the room, checking her precautions in quadruple. She added more salt to a spot here and there, scooping it from a large plastic tub that resided on her dresser. When she was satisfied, she carefully stepped over the salt on the right side of her bed and joined me in the centre of the mattress. 

Mom sat on her knees in front of me, her pose mirroring my own. She took my hands in hers and I found myself thinking her bones felt fragile, even to my child’s strength. With a deep breath, she spoke.

“I am so sorry, my sweet angel. I’m so sorry that you were born into a cursed family.”

I looked at her in confusion, anxiety blossoming in my chest. She’s talking about the sickness! Though everyone in my life seemed to try and dodge my questions about it, I had started to suspect that I may one day end up like my mother and grandmother.

“Do you mean the sickness?” I asked her, proud of how steady my voice was. I knew my mom always tried to stay strong for me and I wanted to do the same.

She nodded, her eyes watery and constantly shifting, seeking out the corners of the room to verify we were alone.

“It’s not a sickness though, it’s a curse. A demon haunts our blood, Natalie.”

My heart pounded in my chest, reverberating in our clasped hands, as I tried to stay calm. Remember what Auntie Dee said – they’re not real, just scary things the sickness tells Mom. I studied her carefully as I asked, “Is that what you see, Mom?”

She nodded solemnly. “Yes, angel. I’m sorry, I know I’m scaring you but you need to know the truth. What our family has is not a disease. It’s something darker – a curse on our very bloodline. We are haunted by a demon of terrible strength. He feeds off our minds, draining our souls for sustenance and pleasure. He delights in driving us to madness, in stealing a piece of who we are with every passing day.”

I swallowed nervously, my mouth dry and my palms clammy. I tried to focus on the soothing warmth of Mom’s skin as I asked her, “Will I see him one day?”

The heartbreak in her eyes made tears well in mine, regardless of my intention to withhold them. When she spoke, her voice was shaky with emotion.

“Yes, my love. I’m so sorry. It’s why I couldn’t let you be adopted when you were a baby. Those other families, they would love you and take care of you just fine but they wouldn’t understand, not like me. I had to be here with you, to explain it. To try and prepare you. I wanted to wait longer, until you were older, but it’s getting hard to hold on. I didn’t want to rush this but I’m running out of time.”

At the mention of her running out of time, my anxiety swelled and fear began to take hold. My thoughts were a confused whirl. What did she mean about ‘those other families’? Was she going to give me away? I gripped her fingers tightly, as if I could keep us together through will alone.

“Wh-what do you mean, Mom?”

She gave me a sad look and I felt the tears spilling down my cheeks, no longer contained.

“Don’t worry about that right now. Just listen to me and remember this: the bloodline must end with you. You must never have children, Natalie. Never. Do you understand me?” She gave my hands a gentle squeeze for emphasis.

I sniffled, pulling one hand free to wipe at my cheeks. “B-but you had me, Mommy.” Confusion laced my tone as I struggled to make sense of her words. She nodded, pain flickering across her face as she looked away.

“Yes, I did. I love you so much and it has been such a gift to raise you but I didn’t plan to have you.”

I inhaled sharply and withdrew my other hand, her words like a knife in my chest. She didn’t want me? A profound sense of sadness and rejection filled me as I sat there crying, my cheeks hot and the taste of salt in my mouth. Mom lifted one hand as if to reach for me, a pleading expression on her features.

“Please try to understand, angel. I love you so much and the last thing I want is see you hurting – sick like I am. Grandma knew it is a demon, not a disease. She made me promise I would never have children before she… left.”

Though I was only a child, I knew what left meant. But there were far more pressing concerns to address.

“Then why did you have me?” The question hurt a little coming out. I wanted to hear the answer but I was afraid of what she would say. Mom dropped her head, her eyes closed. She twisted her hands in her lap as she spoke.

“It interfered. It attacked me relentlessly, viciously, for weeks, until I broke. I was too weak to stop it and it took over. It didn’t leave for a long time. When it finally did, I woke up two states away from my hometown and you were almost ready to come out. I wasn’t in a good place but I knew you needed me. So, I fought to keep you, to stay together. Aunt Darlene helped, as well as your uncles, Ryan and Jackson.”

I was silent save for soft sniffles, trying to process what she was saying but I was still too young to really understand. She paused for a moment, staring blankly at a spot on the comforter between us. When she spoke again, her voice was low and I found myself leaning forward to hear her.

“It left me alone for a while after you were born. I saw glimpses of it every now and then, lurking on the edges, but it let me raise you in relative peace. But about a year ago… it came back.”

Fear crept up my spine and I felt myself begin to breathe faster. I cast a fearful look around the room, imagining things creeping up on us. I scooted closer to Mom, suddenly thankful for all her “safety precautions”. She lifted her head suddenly, a far-away look in her eyes.

“Grandma was the first to figure it out. The curse must have come from her father… ‘bastard son of a sailor’, Mama always said. She got married and pregnant with me before the draft took her husband off to war. He never came back. Mama raised me by herself, working herself to the bone to provide for us. Eventually the demon came for her, like she knew it would. For ten long years, she held on, fighting to remain who she was. But over time she grew tired and weak, while the demon grew strong. I was twenty when she took her life, just like her daddy before her and both her older brothers. Suicide is our birthright, angel. I wish I had a better inheritance to offer you than this.”

She gave a bitter laugh as I sat there in silent shock. Mom said a bad word! As a child, the curse had stunned me, though it was far from the most disturbing part of what she had said.

Before I could register the new information on my family and what it meant for me, Mom jerked suddenly, twisting to glare into the corner of the room behind her. I leaned around her shoulder, profanity forgotten, anxiously following her gaze. There was nothing there, of course, but she hissed like a cat and sprang off the bed, her body stiff and her fingers curled into claws at her sides.

“You stay away! You cannot have her! That which is severed will not be sustained. That which is severed will not be sustained! Thatwhichisseveredwillnotbesustained!”

Mom’s voice was loud and angry as she shouted at the offending corner, but it held an edge of infectious fear. I whimpered behind her, pressed up against her spine as she gestured furiously, waving her arms like she was trying to ward off a bear.

The bedroom door slammed open and I gave a startled scream. Three people entered the room – first a police officer and an EMT, followed closely by a middle-aged woman with long, reddish-brown hair and a face drawn with worry.

“Auntie Dee!” I yelled, hopping off the bed.

Mom grasped for me, shrieking that I needed to stay in “the safe place”, but I evaded her hands and crossed the room to Auntie Dee’s side. I threw myself against her, wrapping my arms around her waist and burying my face into her stomach. She embraced me without hesitation, cradling the back of my head and rubbing between my shoulders comfortingly.

“It’s okay, hon. I’m here. These people are going to help your Mom. She isn’t feeling well.”

I sobbed against Auntie Dee, my shoulders shaking as I let out all the fear and anxiety I had been feeling since I saw that look in Mom’s eyes this morning. Like dim background noise, I could hear Mom yelling and calling my name.

“No! You must let me protect her! She is not safe! It is coming for her! Please, you must let me go!” Mom screamed in protest, struggling against the officer as he tried to help the EMT administer a tranquilizer. 

“Just relax, Mara. They only want to help. Think about Natalie – don’t make it harder on her.”

Auntie Dee’s tone was pleading and I thought I could hear strangled tears in her voice. It only served to scare me more – my aunt was a strong woman and I had never known her to cry, despite all the hardships she’d endured in her own life.

Mom didn’t seem to register her words. She struggled mightily, her face turning red with the effort. Her eyes were wild and desperate when they found mine.

“Natalie! Remember what I said! The bloodline ends with you! It’s not a disease!”

~~~

When Auntie Dee tucked me into bed that night, I worked up the courage to ask her about the sickness. Now that my mother had told me about the spectre that haunted our lives, I was anxious to know more.

“Auntie Dee, am I going to get sick like Mom?”

The look on her face made my chest ache. It was the same one Mom had given me when I’d asked her if I would see the demon. I already knew what she would say before she opened her mouth.

“Most likely.” Her voice was heavy with sadness. She reached over and squeezed my hand, unshed tears pooling in her eyes.

“We were going to wait until you were older. I know things haven’t been easy but we did the best we could to give you as normal a childhood as possible. We haven’t wanted to talk about it because we didn’t want to frighten you with things you couldn’t understand yet. But I think after today, it’s too late for that. I’m not going to lie to you, honey. What I’m going to say might scare you but I promise that your uncles and I will be with you the entire time. You aren’t alone, Natalie.”

She paused to collect herself and I lay quietly, too afraid to speak lest it break the spell. I was desperate to hear something that refuted what Mom had told me. Her version scared me and I wanted Auntie Dee’s calm reassurance that I was safe, if not from the sickness, then at least from demons.

“Your family, the people you’re directly related to – like your Mom, your Grandma, and all her relatives – they have a sickness. You might not get it, but there is a chance.”

“So… not all of them got sick?” I asked around the lump in my throat as fragile hope blossomed in my chest. It withered as Auntie Dee gently shook her head, a pained look in her eyes.

“No, honey, I’m sorry. They all had it. We won’t know for sure until you’re older, if you start showing symptoms. But it seems to be a very strong trait.”

I was silent for a moment, processing Auntie Dee’s words. My heart felt heavy and a vague sense of panic filled me. I don’t want to be like Mom! I immediately felt guilty at the thought.

“Is that why they killed themselves?”

Auntie Dee jerked back at my question, releasing my hand as her eyes popped wide with surprise. “Did your Mom tell you that?”

I nodded slowly, feeling as though I shouldn’t be admitting it. Though I only understood the basics of what the phrase meant, I sensed the forbidden aspect of the information. It felt dangerous – the kind of thing adults said quietly and never in my presence. I hoped I wasn’t getting Mom in trouble.

Auntie Dee sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingers.

“I really wish she hadn’t told you that, hon. But I promised to tell you the truth and I will. It’s true. They all took their own lives and the disease was mostly to blame. But you have to understand – people didn’t know as much about the sickness when your Grandma was little. When her daddy and brothers started showing symptoms, they thought it was the Devil. Your Grandma was only diagnosed when she moved to the city many years later. And medicine has gotten much better over time.” She paused, seeming to collect herself before continuing with a careful tone.

“The sickness… is hard on your mind. When people feel trapped and hopeless, they do desperate things. Sometimes those things can’t be undone.”

I had more questions on the topic but I could sense Auntie Dee didn’t really want to talk about it. Plus, I didn’t want to get Mom in any more trouble. So instead, I nodded and moved on to what I really wanted to know.

“Will I see the demon too?”

She sighed again, giving me a bewildered shake of her head. The smell of her shampoo wafted over to me, the lavender scent familiar and comforting.

“I honestly don’t know. Your Grandma said she saw a demon too. She talked about it all the time – how it was a curse on her father’s bloodline and that it had plagued him and his sons for years. She never remarried after your Grandpa died in the war and your Mom had to take care of her a lot growing up. I think all the talk probably scared your Mom so much that when she got sick, it was all her brain was expecting to see. The disease just made it real. But there’s no reason to think you’ll see the same thing.”

“But what does it do? It can’t hurt you if it isn’t real, right?” My child’s mind was struggling to understand the concept of this demon and how it had such power over my mother. Auntie Dee leaned forward and cupped my cheek, stroking her thumb over my skin gently.

“It can’t hurt anyone. But just because it’s not real to you and me, doesn’t mean it isn’t very real to your Mom. That’s what the sickness does, honey. It takes your fears and uses them to scare you. It says terrible things and tries to make you lose yourself in the darkness. But the demon can’t hurt you. It lives in your Mom’s mind.”

~~~

I thought about that night many times over the course of my life. Though I could not have known it at the time, that would be my first and most memorable insight into the illness that had defined my family for generations, as well as the inception of my life’s calling.

The “demon” that haunted my mother had continued to plague her with visions of terror and whispers of my imminent damnation for five more years, culminating in a bloody and deeply traumatizing night shortly after my twelfth birthday.

I had woken to searing agony in my stomach and found my mother sitting atop me with a wild look in her eyes. Too shocked to scream, I stared down at the handle of the knife and her white-knuckled grip on it with total confusion.

“M-mom? What did you do?”

She’d sobbed brokenly, her eyes filled with frightening determination as her tears splashed down onto my face. But her arm did not waver, keeping the knife buried in my belly with her right hand.

“I’m so sorry, Natalie. Believe me, if there were any other way… I can’t let him have you! I can’t damn you to this! I’m your mother and I live to protect you. I have to protect you. I was too weak before, to do what needed to be done. I had hoped I’d find another way but… we’re out of time. I must end the bloodline and sever its hold on you, before it’s too late. I’m so sorry, angel. Just relax – Mommy is going to take care of you.”

Her left hand shook as she stroked the hair off my face. I felt her grip on the knife tighten slightly, as though she were preparing to yank it back out.

The realization snapped me out of my frozen state. I grabbed her hand tightly to keep her from pulling the blade free, screaming for help. It was a primal, piercing sound that cut through the night with shattering clarity. Uncle Jackson had burst through the door moments later and found us entangled on the bed, covered in my blood. Panicked curses spilled from his lips as he stared at us with wide eyes, his face pale.

“Mara, oh my fucking god, what did you do?” Dee! Call an ambulance!”

He yelled over his shoulder as he went to grab Mom but she sat up suddenly, releasing the knife’s handle to draw a small object from the folds of her bathrobe. It fit neatly in the palm of her hand, its surface glinting with a metallic sheen that looked cold in the dim light of the hallway.

A gun. I’d seen enough movies and TV shows to understand what it was and fear what it meant. I remained motionless below her, terrified that my next move would be my last.

Uncle Jackson froze in place as his eyes locked on the gun, lifting his hands in a don’t-shoot gesture. When he spoke, the shock and fear in his voice was gone. Now it was pitched low and steady – the same tone I’d heard him use on a stray kitten we’d found in the shed last summer.

“Mara, what are you doing? Put the gun down, please. You don’t want to hurt anyone.”

She gave him a teary look and shook her head. “Sorry, Jack. I’m out of time.”

In slow motion, I watched her press the barrel against her own temple and lock eyes with me. Her gaze was filled with a mixture of agony, desperation and morbid resignation. Her last words spilled from her lips in a rush of frantic speech, punctuated by the intensity of her stare.

“That which is severed will not be sustained.” Click. BANG.

My scream rang out long after the gunshot faded away. The ambulance had arrived shortly thereafter and with the help of copious drugs and many hours of surgery, I would eventually recover, albeit with some long-term effects. Most notably the trauma of the whole ordeal.

After I was released from the hospital, I moved in with my godmother, Auntie Dee. With the help of intensive therapy and the love and support of my aunt and uncles, I had a pretty normal childhood from that point on. Stable, predictable – everything my mother had wanted so badly to give me.

When it came time to apply to colleges, I already knew that I wanted to be a psychologist. My own experiences with mental illness had made me eager to understand them better and help people like my family.

My studies kept me busy and research ate up most of my spare time, so I never met anyone I was romantically serious with. It was fine by me – the concept of motherhood had long since left me cold and my work was a much more rewarding pursuit. I poured myself into my career without reserve, pushing myself to finish school faster and churning out papers.

The whole time, the spectre of the disease haunted me. Schizophrenia in women usually manifests in the late-twenties and I was keenly aware that every passing day brought me closer to that dangerous age where I would discover if I was destined to follow in the steps of my bloodline. But I knew the stats – there was only a 10% chance I would get it. And if I did have it, well… there wasn’t much I could do about it anyway. I just tried to live my life as best I could while I waited to see if my mind would betray me.

It’s hard to say when exactly it started – it was so subtle at first. When had the voices I was hearing stopped originating from the floor above mine and instead become a figment of my own imagination? Had the smell of gas I’d sworn was coming from the service closet in the lobby ever been real?

It’s only in retrospect that I can see the early hints of the disease encroaching on my life. At the time, I was in denial, lulled by the innocuous nature of the hallucinations my mind wove for me. It was just after my 29th birthday when it finally happened.

I had been working late, covering a colleague whose wife had gone into labour three weeks early. His replacement wasn’t available to start until next Thursday so I was picking up the slack in the meantime. The parking lot was dark and empty and the late fall wind cut right through my thin jacket as I stood next to my car, fumbling in my pocket for the keys.

Suddenly, I became aware of the sound of crunching gravel and leaves, as though someone were walking behind me. I paused with my hand still in my pocket, glancing around the vacant lot. The sound stopped, only the soft whistling of the wind audible over my low breathing. I stayed there for a few moments, looking in all directions and finding myself alone. Reassured, I turned back to my car and jerked in surprise.

A tall, black shape stood on the other side of my Honda, at the passenger door. At least seven feet tall and inhumanly thin, the demon’s narrow features and jutting bones made it a jagged silhouette of inky blackness, stark even against the twilight darkness beyond. Its distended mouth gaped, filled with rows of curved fangs like the teeth of a shark. Huge yellow eyes with pinprick pupils stared out from a face lifted from our species’ most primal nightmares. They glowed with malicious glee, oozing sadistic anticipation as their owner observed me over the roof of my sedan.

I felt my body freeze in place, terror unlike any I had ever felt overcoming me. It’s a fucking monster!

With a sudden jolt, I screamed and threw myself back from my car, one hand raised defensively. My other scrabbled in my pocket for my phone, the smooth case slipping through my shaking fingers like it was coated in butter. I felt sick with dread as I watched the demon silently stare me down.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the creature was gone. And with it, my last tattered shreds of denial. I stood panting in the empty lot as I faced an undeniable, inescapable truth – I had schizophrenia. And just like my mother and every other member of my bloodline had before me, I was seeing a demon.

I knew what the clinical course of treatment was – tests, monitoring, meds, and lots of therapy. The days passed in a blur of appointments and a rainbow of pills as I struggled to adjust to my new reality and the mental inheritance I had been bestowed.

The whole time, I had been convinced that my disease was just that – a psychological ailment that could be managed with treatment. I stubbornly rationalized the demon away, telling myself that I had done the same thing as Mom and created a monster to haunt me from my own subconscious fears. I convinced myself that the misplaced items were just regular forgetfulness or stress. That the whispers in my head were just harmless hallucinations, soon to disappear when I found the right meds.

But my symptoms progressed and eventually there were other incidents. Events I couldn’t explain away. Long-lost childhood items appeared on my desk, miles from the last place I’d seen them. Incessant scratching sounds at my bedroom window kept me awake at night, cursing my hallucinations and begging my brain to let me sleep. But in the morning, I’d found claw marks on the siding next the second-floor window, made by something far larger than any animal in the area.

Meanwhile, the whispers consolidated themselves into a single voice that possessed impossible knowledge. Without meaning to, I found myself beginning to think of the voice as it, like my mother had. Though I hadn’t seen the demon since that night in the parking lot, I instinctively knew that this was its voice. I couldn’t help but picture its inhuman yellow gaze, saturated with malicious glee, as it whispered evil things directly into my mind.

It told me of Avery Price’s death two days before it happened, every detail of the logging accident recounted in my hallucination’s chilling voice. As usual, I’d dismissed it completely, until Thursday morning.

Dumbfounded, I’d stood in my kitchen and scrolled though the news article that confirmed the voice’s sinister predictions with mounting horror. It was more than a coincidence. The voice knew what the old man was wearing when he’d lost his footing on the ladder. It knew where his arm had been severed by the malfunctioning chainsaw and the exact spot where he had died. Things I didn’t know so, how could it?

Then came the blackouts. Periods of time lost like dust in the wind, fallen through my fingers before I realized I had them in hand. Like all my symptoms they started off brief, so short that I brushed them off as exhaustion, when I noticed them at all. While they aren’t a symptom of schizophrenia, the stress caused by the diagnosis and upheaval in my life made it easy to justify their presence, especially at first.

Slowly, the blackouts became longer in duration. I would wake to find my feet muddy and sore, dried blood from many small cuts on the soles. But the mud was the wrong color – reddish brown instead of the coffee color of the surrounding woods. More clay-like than true mud, it left a fine reddish dust on my sheets and carpet, unlike any soil in our town. I tried to tell myself someone must have it in their yard, or perhaps in the park that my property backed on to, but I never went looking for it. I think maybe part of me was afraid I wouldn’t find it.

Then new objects started appearing in the house. Things I had never purchased or owned, stacks of money I knew I hadn’t earned, a mug I had broken the week before. I clung to my weak justifications for these events, choosing to ignore them entirely when that failed. Impossibilities piled up, tormenting my psyche with their implications.

Despite the mounting discrepancies, I stayed firmly in my haven of denial and hope. I knew that if I looked at the impossibilities too closely, if I admitted that the symptoms of my disease were not “textbook”, then I risked accepting a reality where I would never get better. Where no amount of meds, therapy, or experimental treatment regimes would help. A reality where my disease was a curse and I was damned to a short life full of torture and suffering. After seeing what my mother went though, I was desperate to hold on to the hope that I could live normally.

But this morning, I found something that chilled me to my core. Something that can’t be ignored or denied. Another inexplicable event, another impossible thing. Because I know I didn’t do that, I couldn’t have done that.

I didn’t do that… did I?

I stared at the small, square screen and the blue plus sign, gripping the pregnancy test with trembling hands. My heart pounded in my chest and my vision swam as I frantically tried to think back to my last period. Was it before or after my last blackout?  

As if summoned by the thought, a dark, looming presence materialized at my back. The air around me felt cold, like I was standing next to an open freezer. A phantom breeze stirred my hair and the back of my neck prickled as it leaned down to whisper in my ear. Its voice was like grating stone as it spoke; its sadistic laugh rumbled through my chest like the approach of a charging army.

“That which is strengthened will be sustained.”