Amrita

  I am so beastly tired of mankind and the world that nothing can interest me.

  They yelled at her for fifteen minutes solid. Well, her mom did, at least, once she’d stopped crying. She’d let loose with an impressive string of cussing, ask Amrita what she had to say for herself, and then not give her a chance to reply before going off again about how scared she’d been and how could she do this and she was never to leave this house again. Then she’d tear up, grab Amrita in a painful hug, and it’d all start over again. Dad just sat at his workbench silently, digging into the wooden surface with his whittling knife and not looking at her. That was worse than the yelling.

  When Mom paused for a breath and lit a cig, Amrita finally spoke up. “I’m sorry I scared you guys. I got stuck and couldn’t get home.”

  Mom flung her cigarette at the window. “What the hell do you think we gave you that cell phone for?”

  Dad picked the smoldering cig off the couch’s cushion top and stubbed it out on his desk.

  Amrita took out her phone. Water dribbled from the behind the battery cover when she turned it upside down. “I think I might have killed it this time.”

  “So you went swimming? In your clothes? For the whole night?”

  “No, Mom. Not exactly. It was an accident.”

  “A sixteen-hour accident? You fell in a puddle and got stuck for a whole goddamn day?!”

  “No, Mom, listen!”

  This time her mom flung her lighter at the window. Amrita was glad it was one of those plastic Bics or it’d have gone right through. “Raise your voice with me and see what happens!”

  Dad held out a hand. Mom grappled with her rage silently for a second and then sagged, dropping to her knees in front of where Amrita sat on the couch and wrapping her in another hug.

  “I’m so mad at you,” she whispered. “I thought I was going to die, I was so scared something had happened.”

  “I know, Mom. I’m so sorry.” Amrita hugged her back. Mom had a loud, flashy temper, but she burnt out quick and never did any real harm.

  “Maybe let’s let her tell it, hey?” Dad rumbled.

  Amrita sighed and put her head on her mom’s shoulder. “You’re not gonna believe me.”

  “Don’t lie and we might,” Mom said. She was trying to joke, but there was still a hard edge on the words.

  “I went out to Miskatonic Pond last night.”

  Her father beetled his heavy black brows. He said nothing but started scratching at the surface of his workbench again.

  “There’s been some weird stuff going on, and I wanted to see where Dad’s mom used to hang out.”

  “I’m so glad you never met that woman,” her mother muttered, sitting next to her on the couch. “She was a piece of work.”

  “Yeah, about that… um.” She chickened out and changed what she’d been about to say. “Dad, did she ever take you out to that little island in the middle?”

  He scratched even harder. He was working a serious groove into the wood. “Maybe, yeah. I don’t like to think about that stuff much.”

  “Did you ever see her do anything bad?”

  His knife clicked down onto the table and he clasped his hands together, not looking at her. “I told you I never saw anything.”

  “I don’t mean like anything magic or whatever. I mean… did she ever kill anything on that table out there?”

  “No.” His jaw jutted and his mustache trembled. His fingers were white and bloodless where they gripped each other. “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He stood suddenly and walked to the fridge in their little kitchenette, pulling out a beer. He didn’t open it. “Kiddo, you know I hate that cult bullshit. Why are you even asking?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Because there was somebody dead on it last night.”

  “What?” her mother whispered.

  “And as soon I saw it, something dragged me under the lake and held me there.”

  “Oh my god,” her mother said, covering her mouth. “Like some kind of trap?”

  “No,” she said, watching her father. “It was Grandma Amrita.”

  He thunked the beer down hard on the counter. “She’s dead.”

  “She’s not.”

  He whirled on her, mouth hard. “I don’t know who you saw, but it could have been anybody. You were too young to remember her.”

  “She knew all about me.”

  “Honey, it’s impossible,” her mother said, shaking her head. “There was a funeral and everything.”

  Her father was breathing hard, and she faced him squarely.

  “She told you she wouldn’t die, didn’t she? Back when you were a kid.”

  “She said all kinds of shit. None of it was real.”

  “She’s not dead, Dad. I saw her.”

  He slapped the counter with an open hand, then quickly pulled his anger under control before speaking. “Riri, this isn’t funny, and it won’t get you out of trouble. Quit screwing around and tell us where you were all night.”

  She stood up. “I was on the bottom of Miskatonic Pond getting a tour of a sunken city from my dead grandma.”

  “Honey,” her mother said, smoothing a hand across her back, “that’s crazy. Like, seriously nuts. You can’t expect us to believe that.”

  “I rode on a shoggoth,” she said flatly. “It was as big as a building, and I used it to smash all those old burger-boy statues in the woods.”

  “Stop it,” her father whispered, covering his eyes with a trembling hand. “Shut up.”

  “You saw some shit when you were young, didn’t you, Dad? You know what I’m talking about.”

  “No.”

  Now her mother was looking at him. “Anit, why are you being so weird about this? We’ve talked about all that.”

  “Maybe not all of it,” Amrita said softly.

  Her father picked up his mostly-full beer bottle and smashed it on the counter. Brown glass and beer foam went everywhere. Amrita hissed and jerked back, her face stinging. Reaching up, she dislodged a glass shard the size of a fingernail from her forehead, and blood dribbled into her left eyebrow and down the side of her face. Mom popped up and charged into the kitchette.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she screeched, pushing him back from the dripping counter. “Look at this mess!” Snatching up a kitchen towel, she draped it over the flooded laminate, trapping the broken glass in place. Then she caught sight of Amrita’s bleeding face and her face darkened. “Goddammit, Anit, look what you did!”

  Her father had already seen, and he sagged against the fridge, his knees buckling. “She can’t,” he pled. “It’s not real. It’s not.” He started to cry.

  Her mother stood there dumbfounded as he folded himself onto the floor and sobbed. Amrita pressed a finger against her cut and stared mutely. She had never seen her dad cry. Not once in her entire life.

  “Are you okay?” her mother asked her.

  Amrita nodded. “It’s little. It’ll stop bleeding in a sec.”

  “Then one of you had better explain what in the name of God and all his angels is happening,” she said hotly. “This is batshit and I don’t understand any of it.”

  Dad had his face buried in his hands and didn’t move, so Amrita took the lead. She levered herself off the couch and went to the counter, folding the soaked kitchen towel in on itself, one hand still pressed against her forehead. “Dad said his mom was into some crazy magic stuff, but it’s actually for real, and I think he’d convinced himself it wasn’t until just now.”

  “Give me a break, will you?” her mother said.

  “I spent the entire night and most of this morning underwater talking to somebody who says she’s Grandma and that she’s gonna live another thousand years.” She turned halfway around. “Look behind my ears.”

  Her mother approached and hissed when she saw whatever her new gills looked like. Amrita still hadn’t seen them herself. Mom ran a finger gingerly over the sensitive ridges as if probing a wound. “What the hell is this? Are you okay?”

  “They’re gills, Mom. She made me grow gills and I breathed underwater.”

  “Listen, Riri, just ‘cause you’ve got some rash…” Her finger pushed, and Amrita felt her left gill flap open. She flinched, and so did her mother. “Oh my god!”

  “I told you,” she said, pulling away. “It’s crazy, I know, but—” She shrugged helplessly. “It’s for real.”

  “We’re leaving,” her father husked, still sitting in front of the fridge. “We never should have come back.”

  “Won’t help, Dad,” she said. “She knows I’m here now. She wants me to go with her. If I leave, she’ll just follow.”

  “Not if we go to Brazil. Or, I don’t know, Madagascar.”

  “Like we could afford that.”

  “I’m not letting you get mixed up in this, Amrita!” His hands were shaking, and he stood up, reaching for her. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I didn’t mean to hurt you. God, I’m so sorry.”

  She let him hug her. He needed it, and maybe she did too. “I know.”

  “We can’t stay.”

  She looked up at him. “I won’t leave, Dad. My friend Olly’s stuck in the middle of this too, and we’ve got to figure it out. Whoever that was out on the lake isn’t the only person that’s died. Shit’s going down, like soon, and Gran wants me in on it. I’ve got to figure out how to hit the brakes on this whole thing.”

  “No. You’re just a kid.”

  “I’m the frickin’ priestess, Dad.”

  “I don’t care who says you’re what,” her mother broke in. “You’re not getting involved.”

  Amrita suddenly saw the next hour, the next day, the next forever stretching in front of her, this unresolvable impasse going around and around between her and her parents. They’d never bend, and they’d never understand why she couldn’t either. They were her parents. It was their job.

  She took her mother’s hand on one side and her dad’s on the other. “Listen… I love you guys. You’re awesome parents. There’s nobody better, and I promise I’ll be safe. Okay?”

  With that, she dropped their hands and darted out the door before they could react. Their shouts followed her out into the night, and she ran for all she was worth. She’d come back once it was done, and this way they’d be safe.

  Dammit. I shouldn’t have let Olly take the bike.