1. Am I A Monster?

My best friend, Emma Leigh Prescott, has a great boyfriend.  In fact, she and her boyfriend are the very definition of relationship goals.

My name is Lissa and I’m the best friend. I’m not a Duff. The Duff, or designated-ugly-fat-friend, is a staple of all popular girl friendships. Emma Leigh does have a Duff. Her cousin fills this role nicely.

I’m the invisible ‘girl next door’. You know what I mean, medium height, medium face and figure. I only have one great feature. I have green eyes. It’s something that Emma Leigh and I share. Green eyes are the rarest eye color. Only about 2% of the world’s population have them. Em and I ended up in the same first period class on the first day of middle school and knew we were destined to be best friends.

Em is great. Don’t let her pretentious name mislead you. Her mother is named Jennifer and, since she grew up with about a million other Jennifers, she saddled her daughter with a weirdly spelled name that makes her sound like a snotty, spoiled princess.

However, Em’s not snotty or spoiled. She’s super funny and being her friend is the greatest thing ever. It’s just hard sometimes because she’s almost perfect, except for her strangely long toes. She leads a charmed life.

A couple of weeks ago her family went to Costa Rica. Who does that? Our neighborhood is upwardly mobile but my best friend is the only person I know whose family left the States for vacation.

Also, I’m kinda in love with her boyfriend, Dylan. Dylan is tall and strong with dark hair and blue eyes that crinkle at the corners when he smiles. He wears his hair long, probably because his ears stick out like jug handles when it’s short. He has a big goofy grin and he calls me “kid” in a way that makes my chest hurt. My mom said if he had a lisp he could give Humphrey Bogart, whoever that is, a run for his money.

I’m pretty sure he’ll be at Em’s house tonight. I’m going over later to have dinner and hear all about the vacation.

I’ll probably spend the night. Whenever I stay over at Em’s, I have to be gone by ten thirty the next morning or Ms. Jennifer starts getting what Em calls her “ticked-off face”. Her eyes become very flat and expressionless and she pulls her lips in tight as if keeping them under careful control. It’s sort of scary.

I load up my sleeping bag and headphones and stuff them into my duffel with some shorts and a wrinkled tie-dyed t-shirt I got at art camp. Hey, at least I went somewhere.

When I arrived at Emma Leigh’s house I was pretty stoked to see Dylan’s car in the driveway. Being around him is an exercise in delicious misery. In his presence I’m perpetually tongue-tied and self-conscious. Watching him chuck Emma Leigh under the chin while working the high beams on his laser-blue eyes makes my throat feel scratchy and my stomach feel leaden.

“Okay, pretty girl. Tell about all the things you did in Costa Rica.” Dylan casually tucked one arm behind her, resting it on top of the long bench that nestled against the kitchen table. No chairs for the Prescotts. Heaven forbid that anything so mundane should disgrace their kitchen.

“I just printed the pictures today. This is our hotel in San Jose.” She passed the picture to her boyfriend who then handed it to me. We dutifully admired the boutique hotel and the lush Central American foliage. “Here’s a waterfall at Monteverde. Lissa, check out the hummingbirds we saw in the Cloud Forest Reserve. We ended up spending our last two days in Cartago. This picture is the ruined church.”

For an instant, something about Emma Leigh’s face looked strange, as if some goblin of anxiety, crouched just below the surface, had poked its grinning head into her line of sight. Recovering, she straightened her shoulders and flashed her toothpaste commercial smile.

“It sounds like you saw practically all of Costa Rica,” I said. “How long were you down there?”

Dylan answered for her. “Twelve incredibly long days.”

Emma Leigh’s green eyes sparkled with warmth and flirtatiousness. “Lissa, why don’t you take your stuff upstairs? I’ll talk to Dylan for a few minutes and be right up.”

“Okay.” I headed upstairs, a gallon of acid churning in my stomach. The thought of them hugging and kissing filled me with envy. When I passed the hall mirror, I expected to see a poisonous cloud of jealousy forming above my head.

Em made it upstairs in record time. She wilted onto the foot of the bed with unconscious grace. I eyed her flushed cheeks and fly-away hair before turning back to my reflection. My expression was so sour I wondered if, as an infant, my mother had given me a persimmon pacifier.

“So was Costa Rica the greatest vacation ever?”

“If it were up to me, we would have stayed on one of those gorgeous beaches the whole time. Still, there were parts of it that were pretty awesome.” There it was again, that maddeningly vague tone that indicated Emma Leigh knew more than she was telling.

“Okay, quit beating around the bush. What are you hiding?” I knocked her over, pinning her shoulders down. “You should know better than to try keeping secrets. I’m psychic.”

“You’re definitely not psychic. You would have seen that geometry final last spring.”

“Good point. I’ve been your best friend for six years, though. ‘Fess up.”

“The truth is I met someone while I was on vacation. I don’t want you to think badly of me.” She ducked her head. “You know, because of Dylan.” I sat back on my heels, jaw hanging open. Em regarded me from moody green eyes. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

I scrambled to find a reasonable-sounding reply. “You don’t need my permission to like someone other than Dylan. If you want to run around with some other guy while you’re on vacation, who am I to object?”

“It sounds so awful when you say it that way.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s why it sounds bad. Because of the way I’m saying it.” I simply can’t help it. I have a genetic predisposition toward sarcasm.

Shifting to the side, I settled back against the frilly pillow shams. Em regarded the eggplant polish on her toenails as if it contained answers to the mysteries of the universe. “Don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me all about this guy.” I gave one of her long chestnut curls a teasing yank. She retaliated immediately by thwacking me with her pizza throw pillow.

“His name was Rafe Morales. He worked at the hotel in Cartago. I have a picture of him on my phone.” She flipped through her pictures, eyes darting about as if she expected Ms. Jennifer to appear any moment and begin lecturing her about “questionable choices.”

She passed the phone over and I had to admit that her vacation flirtation was handsome. He had eyes that looked soft as coal dust, biceps like volcanic rock and a smile that made you want to hand him a cookie.

“So, do you think the two of you will keep in touch?”

That weird shadow flitted across her face again like a cloud skating across the sun. “No, I don’t think so. My last night in Cartago we met at the old ruined church. His mother found us there and said some very mean things. I don’t think she likes Americans in general or me, specifically.” She flashed a smile that looked comforting and normal. “Let me tell you about all the cool stuff we did. I wish you could have gone with me.”

I drifted off to the sound of Em’s voice. In my mind, I could see the mist wreathing the mountains, the glossy green jungles and the sunlight sparkling on the water like carelessly thrown diamonds. Finally, the lush pictures faded entirely.

II. A Monster Is Coming

“Come on, lazybones, you have to get up now.” I ignored the stern demand and snuggled more deeply into the cool cotton sheets. They smelled like soap and sunshine. “Lissa, please get up! Mom says she’s ready to clean the kitchen.”

I peered up at her through a tangle of hair. “Am I stopping her?”

“Mom needs us to come eat breakfast. I don’t know why you’re being such a slug. We went to sleep at the same time and I didn’t have any problems getting up this morning.” She managed to inject that last sentence with a great deal of self-satisfaction.

I felt the mattress shift as she got up. A second later, my eyeballs screamed in protest at the buoyant waves of sunshine pouring through the room.

I managed a narrow eyed squint to where Emma Leigh stood. She was looking outside with the air of a person who doesn’t really believe her own eyes. Intrigued, I fought back the tangled covers and went to see for myself. Someone had piled grass all over the windowsill, at least six inches deep. Em looked quite a bit more alarmed than I thought the situation warranted. “What is that stuff, Lissa?”

I slid the screen up and opened the tilt window. “I’m no gardening expert but I think it’s crabgrass.”

She couldn’t have looked more shocked if I had told her it was hemlock. “Are you sure?”

I shrugged. “I said I wasn’t. It has that spiky, straggly look, though. Is it just at this window?”

Clearly, this had not occurred to her. She went around the room opening all the curtains, discovering that crabgrass was piled on all her windowsills.

“Did you do this, Lissa?”

I eyed her as if she’d suddenly sprouted a third head. “Me? Have you gone off the deep end? Why would I sneak out in the middle of the night to put grass on your windowsills?”

“I don’t know but I don’t think it’s very funny.”

“Maybe Dylan did it as some kind of weird joke.”

Over breakfast she called him and he professed innocence. His protests only increased Emma Leigh’s anxiety.

Ms. Jennifer came in the kitchen, hair pulled back and bucket in hand. She eyed us with disapproval as we scarfed down our last few bites of toast. When Em told her about the grass, she didn’t seem all that concerned, either.

I explained that I had to head back home. I might as well have been speaking to myself in the middle of a vast featureless desert. Ms. Jennifer was preoccupied with her Saturday morning tasks and Em was equally focused on her plan to see if crabgrass was on any of the other windowsills. For the first time ever, I was glad to get away from the Prescott house.

Two days went by with strangely little communication between Em and me. On Tuesday, Em called and demanded that I come over in brusque tones. When I arrived, she met me at the door. She answered my questions with noncommittal grunts and led me to her bedroom.

Crossing the room with purposeful strides, she pulled aside the curtain where I could see the object sitting on her windowsill. It was a pedestal style sculpture in the shape of a cross, about a foot high. The metal was a dark gray-black, smooth in some places and rough in others. It had the distinctive feel of iron. At the center, a wand slim Jesus stretched in agony.

I looked at Em, confused. “I don’t get it. Why did you put a cross on your windowsill? Have a bunch of vampires moved into the neighborhood?”

“I didn’t put it there.” Her eyes snapped with temper.

“Oh, I get it. You think this is another prank, like the crabgrass thing. Do you have a cross at each windowsill?”

“See for yourself.”

Sure enough, there was a cross at each window. One was a pendant made from the same heavy dark iron but with much softer lines. The figure of Christ inside the pendant had a moonstone face and a gleaming dark red gem in the general location of His heart. Who would put an old and obviously valuable necklace on someone’s windowsill as a joke? Wouldn’t that person be concerned about losing such an item?

On Em’s third windowsill was another cross sculpture made of gleaming wood and painted in a colorful, unfamiliar style. I ran my hands over its glossy surface and discovered that heavy iron studs had been driven into its sides.

“Lissa, did you have anything to do with this?”

“That’s the second time you’ve accused me! You need to quit wasting time and start figuring out who’s actually doing this.” I lifted the cross. “This is the work of someone who seems dangerously obsessive.”

“You’re right.” Her decisiveness shone like a beacon. “Let’s go to Yogurt Mountain.” As friends, we had done some of our best problem solving over frozen yogurt.

Ensconced in the distinctive martian-green chairs, we sat in front of the plate glass window and ate our yogurt. I sighed. “I can’t think. I have brain freeze.”

Em stared out the window, her expression stiff with dread and apprehension. I followed her gaze but saw nothing other than the usual topography of a parking lot, cars, people coming and going. I waved my hand in front of Em’s face. “Hello, what are you looking at?”

“Someone’s following me!” She caught a breath that sounded slightly strangled. “Do you see that man leaning against the old blue truck? It’s him!”

I looked. “Emma Leigh, he’s a Catholic priest.”

“Ever since we got back from Costa Rica, I’ve seen him everywhere. The first time, he was walking on the sidewalk in front of my house. I also saw him when Mom and I went to the market. He was at our church on Sunday morning. Tell me, Lissa, what’s a Catholic priest doing at a Methodist church?”

I didn’t have a good answer. “Maybe it’s a coincidence.” Her answering chuckle sounded dark and richly unpleasant. “Em, is something going on that I don’t know about? It’s hard to believe that someone is randomly pulling pranks and following you. You didn’t vandalize any antiquities while you were on vacation, did you?”

I was just kidding but Em’s face filled with sick knowledge. “The only thing I vandalized was an old woman’s sense of propriety. I should tell you that Rafe’s mother put a curse on me.”

I leaned closer, certain I had not heard correctly. “I’m sorry. Did you say she put a curse on you?”

“Yes. Rafe told me that she’s originally from Escazu, the City of Witches. She called me La Segua. She said I was a faithless, loose woman and if I wanted to waylay young men then that should be my curse.”

“What does La Segua mean?”

“Rafe said it was some kind of Costa Rican demon.”

As she dropped this bombshell, she nervously slid her pendant along its chain. Emma Leigh wears half of a yin-yang necklace. Of course, Dylan has the other half. Whenever she’s taking a test in school, she has a three step ritual that makes me crazy. She pulls the charm up with her index finger and slides it along the chain, making an awful jing-jing-jing sound. Next, she pulls it across her bottom lip where she sucks on the chain, th-th-th. Finally, she lets it drop down where it makes a tinny clinking sound, ka-CHINK. Then she repeats the entire process. It drives me ape!

Distracted by this ritual that always sets my teeth on edge, I almost missed her next words. They were uttered so softly there were almost no audible consonants. “I think Rafe’s mother sent that guy, that priest, to kill me.”

“Why would you think that?” Wild-eyed, I looked again at the priest. Was he a killer? His hair was a little too long and had the natural oiliness sometimes found in very dark hair. His face was leathery and set in stern lines. His dark eyes seemed grim and unforgiving. “This is crazy. This is the twenty first century, not the first century. People don’t get killed for flirting with strangers.”

“Sure, here it’s the twenty first century. Down there, it’s a whole different world. This scary old woman decided that I was a faithless flirt trying to entrap her son. To you and me, that’s no big deal. To her, it was substantially more serious. She cursed me and now I think she intends to have the executioner over there carry out her sentence.”

With this dire pronouncement still hanging in the air, the priest climbed back into his battered truck and pulled away.

Frozen yogurt didn’t help us solve our problem that day. We considered everything from talking to Emma Leigh’s parents to following the priest and confronting him. We finally decided to part ways and sleep on the possibilities.

By the next morning, I had managed to convince myself we were being foolish. This comforting notion stayed with me right up until the moment Mrs. Prescott called and told me Em was missing.

3. Facing The Monster

I immediately decided to start looking for Em in all the places she talked about seeing the priest. I chose to start at Yogurt Mountain because I had to start somewhere.

On the way, I biked past the market and saw his ancient blue truck in the parking lot. I barely had time to fade behind a Hummer before he came out of the automatic doors carrying a paper sack.

As he pulled away, I took off after him, heart pumping in time with the rhythm of my pedaling legs. I said a silent prayer of thanks that the road was going downhill. If he decided to take the expressway or even head up a steep hill, I would lose him for sure.

Sweating and silently entreating the powers that be, I pedaled for everything I was worth. He continued to drive at a pace my grandmother would have deemed sedate. After going a short two miles, he pulled into a Motel 6.

He entered his room so quickly that it was impossible for me to see inside. I was torn. My practical nature demanded that I call for help. Yet, I couldn’t ignore the voice of instinct warning me if I delayed, he might have time to kill Em and dispose of her body. That nagging voice prompted me to try the direct approach.

When I knocked on the motel room door, the priest answered immediately, the surprise on his face almost comical. He opened the door wide and the fading rays of afternoon light silhouetted my best friend, sitting in the corner, tied to a chair and gagged.

My shoe slid against the pile of crabgrass just inside the threshold. “Let her go.”

His bottomless black eyes were sorrowful as he looked at me. “Young miss, you don’t understand. I’m afraid you don’t understand, at all.”

I pushed past him and turned my back to Em so that I could face her kidnapper. The light deepened to twilight and before I could even begin to register the gasping, snorting sounds coming from behind me, I felt a blow to the back of my head. Then everything melted into syrupy black.

I woke up on the floor. My head felt like it was exploding and I didn’t know how much time had passed. I lifted myself very carefully so as not to shatter my throbbing head.

The priest’s tortured face swam into focus. He was lying on the floor, wheezing thinly and bleeding from dozens of shallow slashes all across his body.

“Hurry, there is not much time. La Segua is in the other room, the bathroom, looking for a way out. The crabgrass I have laid will keep her contained. Soon, she will return and force you to remove even this meager protection. Then she will be free to wander for eternity. Each night she will drive some men insane and kill others. Get the two iron crosses from my bag. Hold the amulet between your lips. Bite down on it. Quickly. It will protect you from being influenced by her. Then you must drive the iron spike of the long cross through her heart.”

“What is La Segua?”

“She is a demon, a killer.”

I just had time to reach into the leather satchel propped against the chair and pull out the heavy cross amulet. I hung it around my neck. Kissing it, I paused before putting it between my teeth. “Where is my friend? Did the demon kill her?”

“You don’t understand. I came to your country to help, to make sure the demon is contained and incapable of hurting anyone. Now it’s up to you.” His face filled with terror as he looked behind me. Biting down on the amulet, I turned and stared into the face of a monster.

It had a thick swath of long luxurious black hair. The face was white, skeletal. It was similar to the mask from the movie Scream, only real. There was something both feminine and horse-like about the long face that stared at me with rapacious interest.

It moved past me to open the door. In the bright moonlight, its eyes were huge and alien. Madness danced within the dark sockets. The mouth was smiling, unconcerned, pleased with itself.

It lifted the priest with one pale bony hand and threw him viciously, making a wide break in the crabgrass piled in front of the sill.

Its witch-like, skeletal face was grinning, certain of victory.

I saw the yin-yang pendant around its throat and sick knowledge swirled through me like a cloud of insecticide. The thing in front of me was no longer someone I knew and loved. Instead, it was a vile thing that would bring death and insanity to countless innocent men. It had to be stopped.

She took one mincing step across the threshold just as I drove the iron spike through her back, where her heart used to be.

There was no blood. The demon writhed on the point of the iron cross for a matter of seconds, then crumbled into ash.

I ran over to the priest only to find him dead, no pulse, no breath, eyes staring into whatever eternity waited. I don’t know if he died of a broken neck or a massive heart attack or some other injuries. I did know there was no way to explain to the authorities what happened.

My fingerprints were on the amulet and the stake so I tried to wipe them as best I could. It didn’t really matter. I had never been fingerprinted. The ash had a greasy unpleasant feel. I brushed it from my hands, revolted.

Pausing at the doorway, I saw Em’s yin-yang pendant lying in a thin shaft of moonlight. Sighing, I took it with me. About halfway home, I flung it into the road, counting on the lumbering traffic to erase this last tangible proof of my friend.

A few weeks later, the scorching summer days mellowed, giving way to the more soothing days of autumn. Numerous people expressed surprise at how well I was coping with my best friend’s disappearance. I guess they were still hoping she would be found alive.

The world of adults is incomprehensible, filled with subtle complexities. Adults are openly pleasant and polite to their worst enemies while often secretive and casually cruel to those they love the most.

Teenagers, on the other hand, are constantly reshaping themselves as they stretch to navigate the bridge between childhood and adulthood. By necessity, their world view is rather more straightforward. Every teenager has experienced having a friend of many years morph into someone they no longer recognize. This is an unshakable reality of teenage life. Maybe every teenager doesn’t have to fight a demon, but many have experienced their best friend becoming a terrible stranger. You’re sad for a while when you think of the way good things sometimes come to a bitter and abrupt end. Then, you store your sadness among the dusty relics of memory and you go on. You just go on.