The house groaned like an answer.
“If it’s alive, it’s grumpy as fuck,” Sabrina said, and the women chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
They stopped and looked toward the voice. Marion stood at the door, which she’d opened out into the hallway. “I’m bored to tears, y’all,” she said. “Please tell me what’s funny.”
Charity rubbed her eyes. “It wasn’t even that funny. We’re playing truth or dare,” she lied.
Marion’s eyes brightened, but it was the only part of her that didn’t look worn. Her usually bright skin was dull and thick with eruptions. Her white gown brushed the floor.
“Marion, truth or dare?” Linda said.
“I want to ask,” Marion said, looming over them. “Charity, a truth: does Tristan know you’re a faker?”
Charity tilted her head. “Yes. I was supposed to freak out and leave, or be eliminated.”
Marion frowned. “I don’t believe you. Why would he keep you around?”
“Two words.” Charity held up two fingers. As she spoke each word, she folded them down. “Producers’. Decision.”
“Fine.” Marion crossed her arms. “Sabrina, truth: why pretend you’re willing to move to Iowa for a man you don’t even love?”
Sabrina let out an involuntary, ugh. She would have gone anywhere for Tristan. Beyond Iowa. She would have moved to the Appalachians if he’d asked. “I love him more than you do.”
“That’s not true,” Marion extended her hand, pointing a crooked finger. Her long nails had grown, their tips pointed, nearly curving in on themselves. Sabrina’s eyes widened. She hadn’t noticed them in the night. “I love him the most.” Tears formed in Marion’s eyes, but they didn’t fall. Instead, they collected like a thick syrup across her lens.
Sabrina reached up to grab Marion’s hand, but Marion pulled away. Sabrina answered, her voice frantic as she watched the otherworldly tears collect. Marion scooted back, away from the women. Her eyes were clouded by the thick liquid. Panic remained on Sabrina’s face.
“Truth, for Linda: why try to steal another man when you already had your chance at love?”
Linda inhaled sharply.
The syrup was so thick in Marion’s eyes that she looked like she had no eyes beneath it. Standing, Sabrina grabbed Marion by the shoulders. Marion thrashed, trying to get away, but Sabrina held and examined her.
“Marion, can you see?”
“I can see fine,” Marion yelled, though they were all within a whisper’s distance. “I see how phony you all are. I see perfectly clear.”
Linda jumped up and rushed to the bathroom, returning with a wet washrag.
“Here.” Linda tried to hand the rag to Sabrina, but Sabrina shook her head as she forced Marion to a kneeling position on the floor.
“You’ll have to do it. Try to wipe this gunk from her eye. If I let go, she’ll run.”
Linda’s hands shook as she stooped and leaned toward Marion. Marion tried to jerk back, but Sabrina had her. Linda wrapped one hand behind Marion’s head and wiped the washrag against the thick goop. As she pulled the rag away, a string of syrup stretched from Marion’s face to the rag, then broke, a strand dropping down Marion’s face. It stuck to the skin from eye to cheek.
Sabrina gagged as Linda opened the rag in her hand. It looked and smelled like the maple syrup her mother used to serve on pancakes for birthday breakfasts.
“What is it?” Charity said.
“I don’t know,” Linda said.
“Try wiping it all off,” Sabrina said, and Linda went to work again. By the time she finished wiping the bulk of it away, her rag was covered in the sticky substance, and there was no clean surface of the rag for Linda to hold.
“Marion, can you see?” Sabrina said.
“I could see the whole time.” She stopped thrashing, her shoulders relaxing into Sabrina’s chest. “I’m tired.”
“Maybe it’s best if you go back to sleep?” Sabrina said. “Can you close your eyes?”
As Marion blinked, the last goo squeezed out of the corner of her eye like super glue from a tube. She opened her eyes sleepily, slowly, stickily.
“I’d like to sleep now.” She yawned.
Sabrina helped Marion stand, led her back into her bedroom, eased her into bed, and pulled the blankets to her chin. When she returned to the hall, Linda and Charity were paler than usual, their bodies small and weak against the house’s reaching barriers.
“What the everlasting fuck?” Charity said. “Did she like, swallow a bunch of sap?”
“I think we need to take watch shifts for Marion and Tristan both.”
“Nonsense.” Charity handed Sabrina the rag. Sabrina screwed up her mouth in disgust as she took the sticky thing. “I’ll get enough pillows and blankets for us. Like a slumber party.”
“It’s technically morning,” Linda said. “Even if the sun isn’t up.”
Sabrina didn’t respond, her attention captured by the gooey rag. She’d never seen anything like it in all her years of weird bodily fluids and medical books. There was a lot of that going on, and the joke she’d told in bed with Linda—it’s the trees—felt less like humor as the evidence stacked in favor of the theory. As she puzzled over the substance, her friends dragged blankets, sheets, and six pillows from nearby rooms. They made a pallet on the ground as Sabrina tucked the rag into a bathroom cabinet and scrubbed the shit out of her hands.
“Well?” Charity said when Sabrina came back. “Any idea what kind of infection that is?”
