Love & Exorcisms | 18+ | COMPLETE |

- Chapter 44 -

Rain began to tap at the sides of the carriage, so Damian made me wait inside as he got out first and held open an umbrella for me. It felt strange returning to the Doll House after so little time, riding in a carriage with some wealthy-looking gentleman holding an umbrella for me. But I didn't have much time to muse over the strangeness of it all. I heard a familiar voice squeal my name and suddenly I was enveloped, crushed to the bosom of a girl who smelled like soap and honeysuckle.

"Liza!" I embraced her back, listening as she babbled nervously about how scared everyone was for me, how they thought I was dead but Mary told them I had been arrested. She seemed to notice Damian then for the first time, and with her arms still protectively around me she took a few rapid steps back.

"You aren't supposed to come here anymore!" she snapped at him. "Mary forbid it!"

"It's alright, Liza," I said quickly, slipping from her grip and back under the protective shadow of the umbrella. "Damian is helping me. He doesn't mean any harm. He..." I quickly tried to think of something more believable than he's exorcising my demons for me. "He got me out of prison. I was going to be locked up and...and he's given me a place to stay."

Liza frowned, her eyes flickering quickly between the two of us. I could see curious faces peering down from the Doll House windows. "But...you have a place...to stay," she said, motioning vaguelly to the house behind her. "Isn't this home?"

Home...it sent a pang through me. I looked up at the house, with all its little plants swaying in their hanging pots on the upper balcony, its gray-white paint, pointed roof and triangular gables. It had been my haven: the only place in the world I had been myself with absolute abandon. Except...

There had still been parts of myself I'd hidden here. Any weakness...any sadness...any doubt. I had crushed it down and replaced it with a whip in my hands. I adored that freedom - but it had never been complete.

"Samara!" Liza spoke sharply now, dragging my attention back. "Are you alright?" Her eyes fixated aggresively on Damian. "Do you need help?"

"No," I shook my head assuredly. "No, I'm fine, Liza, I promise." I smiled, and squeezed her arm gently. "I've just come to collect my things."

"So you're not coming back?" she said, her face falling. "You're leaving?"

Other girls were beginning to emerge from the house now, curious as to what was going on. I saw Genevieve poke her head out and waved. She gasped, smiling and waving in return.

"Samara is receiving the help she needs with me," Damian said. "She is well cared for, I promise you."

"Ain't that what all the men say?" Liza spat. "Until you're scrubbing his floors and nursing his babes. Or getting hit in the face for having a voice, or dead in a ditch." Her eyes blazed. "Why've you got her dressed up like that, doctor? Like some servant, like damned nun? Sammy would've never dressed herself in that getup."

I plucked at the dress self-consciously. Of course it wasn't what I would have chosen for myself - but I had nothing else and was about to say as much when-

"What is all this fuss, ladies?"

Mary Jeffries appeared on the porch, a single half-eaten crawfish in her red-painted fingernails, her hair more enormous than ever. Her garishly pink dress had a matching pink veil pinned into her hair, and her coat was pearly white fox fur. Her eyes fell on me and Damian as if spotting a roach.

"And just what do the two of you think you're doing here?" she said, delicately nibbling her crawfish. "I don't recall giving permission for either of you to come on my property again."