Mariella and the Smiling Wall

Hey guys! Who is ready for my new novella coming from Castle Bridge Media April 15th? Pre-orders for Child of Dark Water can be found here. If possible, please consider pre-ordering. Those numbers reflect well on Amazon and mean a lot to indie authors like me.

For those who can’t wait til 4/15, Here is a free Short Story: Mariella and the Smiling Wall. I’ll be honest, this is a weird one. It is a departure from my normal work, which tends to skew more grounded horror Americana. Child of Dark water is an American Gothic Horror/ supernatural crime thriller, for example.

“Mariella and the Smiling Wall” is part of a larger collection of work I have about the Belindas and the Department of Magic. These pieces take a lot of inspiration from the Johannes Cabal Necromancer Series (one of my all time favorites) and the Welcome to Nightvale podcast and books. It is also a hearty nod to Weird Lit, one of my favorite subgenres. I hope you enjoy and consider pre-ordering my upcoming novella, Child of Dark Water. If you don’t enjoy, idk man. Pre-order my book anyway.

Mariella and the Smiling Wall

It was a great afternoon for a date. A golden autumn, with sun illuminating the cozy cafe.

Mariella and Marcus had seen each other many times in the city's magic seminars and at her coven’s karaoke nights. Mariella always found Marcus attractive, but could never work up the nerve to ask him out. Her roommate Sarah had set them up. Mari had even allowed herself to get a little excited.

Now the date was happening, and Mariella could not stop word-vomiting about her ex.

“We broke up six months ago, but he still still wants me to help do basic care! Can you believe that?

“Uh-huh” Marcus sipped his iced latte, eyeing the door.

“he has a new girlfriend too! And she's already moved into our old place! I mean, six months is pretty fast to move in with someone, don’t you think? Though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, the man can barely wipe his own ass, so being alone isn't an option…”

“Mmm-hmm” Marcus was now scooting back in his chair. He looked like a man chained to a sinking ship.

“That's so typical Chandler, to just have some unemployed girl move in. I mentioned she doesn’t work, right? She says she's a “lifestyle influencer,” but that’s just a byword for unemployed and vain, isn't it? She probably does Onlyfans. And it's like, Chandler and I broke up, whatever, but this random girl should be the one helping him, right? Like why am I the one who has to buy all the fresh bats and obsidian?”

Mariella hadn't expected an answer, but Marcus’s tight lipped silence was now uncomfortable. In a panting break from her tirade she became aware of how quiet the cafe had become. All the other tables were looking at her askance.

Panic wound its way up her throat. She had told herself she wouldn’t do this, had promised Sarah she wouldn't do this, yet here she was. She began to sweat as she wondered how to save the date. Maybe she could make a joke? Or abruptly offer Marcus oral sex?

Suddenly her phone began to ring. It was Chandler. Mariella knew because a few days ago she had changed his ringtone to a fart noise. Mariella thought it was really funny at the time, but now that her phone was farting at full volume in a crowded cafe it didn’t seem as hilarious. Marcus looked even more horrified and now slightly green. Awash in horror and shame, Mari muttered an apology and ducked out of the cafe to take the call.

“Yeah, what?” She hissed into the phone.

“Hey Mari, can you tell me the calming spell for Abyzuo again? Brittney lit a scented candle and it’s totally flipping out.”

Typical Chandler, calling her for a favor, didn’t even say please. Operating under his usual assumption that Mari had nothing better to do than help him.

“Why don’t you just write it down?” Mariella snapped “I’ve told you this spell a hundred times”

In the background, Mariella could hear a pitiful keening. Abyzuo was either really hungry, really upset, or both. She had no affection for the creature. It was a demon, after all. But she had a responsibility to it, and the mistreatment bothered her.

“UGH, I can’t hear you Mariella, hold on. Abyzuo! Shut up!”

There was a clunking sound which must have been Chandler throwing something. The keening stopped for a moment, then resumed with vigor. From the corner of her eye Mari saw the side door of the cafe open. Marcus, his latte now in a to-go cup, was making a break for his car.

“I’ll be over in ten minutes.” Mari sighed. She hung up and watched Marcus squeal away as if escaping the scene of a crime.

A cloud of humiliation surrounded Mariella, blocking out all the sunlight of a dying summer.

Ten minutes later Mariella knocked on the door of Chandler's apartment, formerly their home. She could hear Abyzuo from where she stood in the hall. Brittney answered the door, wearing a string bikini made of sequins.

“Oh, hi” Brittney simpered. She always greeted Mariella the same way-- politely but with slight confusion, as if Mariella was a plumber calling at the wrong appointment time. Brittney was younger than Mariella, and objectively more attractive. This bothered Mariella a lot more than she would like to admit. During her frequent visits Mariella became painfully aware of her frumpy clothes, her expanding muffin top, her cheap glasses.

Every time Mari crossed the threshold of her old apartment it felt strange, like stepping into a parallel universe. Once familiar now alien, once comforting now distressing. Brittney had changed some stuff around in the apartment, but a lot of it had stayed the same. T

And of course, there was Abyzuo.

Mari hadn’t even wanted a stupid demon. When she and Chandler had talked about getting a pet Mari had wanted a Korean flaplump– cute cryptids about the size of a breadbox with smashed faces and charming personalities. A few of her friends had them and they made great apartment pets, needing only occasional walks and cat food.

But no, not for Chandler. He always had to get the best for himself. A man who refused to cook, clean, or hold down a steady job, Chandler somehow saw himself as the perfect candidate for demon ownership. He was very convincing and Mari had loved him, so she got roped into summoning a Major Arcana Demon.

Mari obviously did all the work. It was quite the ordeal– the summoning took her months of study and ritual. That wasn’t even counting the trouble Mariella had gone through binding Abyzuo into the wall of their living room.

Abyzuo was also a pretty cool decoration. The demon manifested as many things on the wall. On lazy days Abyzou appeared as oozing blood, or sigils and ancient languages bursting forth as if burned from within. When she was feeling more active, Abyzuo swirled with images of bloody historical battles, or brutally decapitated Catholic Saints, their bodies dancing like marionettes while their heads burned in an eternal hellfire. But usually Abyzuo appeared as a wide, toothy mouth with broken glass teeth and breath like ocean water and sulfur.

At first Abyzuo was fun. Chandler had been thrilled, their friends came over to watch the giant demonic mouth eat spiders and bats and whisper secrets of the unknowable. Chandler showed it off to all his rugby buddies and drinking friends. But it wasn’t long before buyers' remorse set in.

Like most demons, Abyzuo was most active at the witching hour of 3 am. The neighbors began to complain about the noise and the visions of screaming skulls in their living room. It soon became obvious that the only way to keep Abyzuo contained was constant, careful spell work and a diet of protective gems and bats.

This rigorous care of Abyzuo became Mariella’s job. As well as the dishes, the laundry, the bills, the rent, the cleaning, the shopping, and planning any trip she might want to go on.

She had tried to re-distribute the household chores during their relationship, including demoncare, but every time Chandler would claim that he wasn’t shirking his duties and would be happy to help “if she just asked.”

Mariella would explain that a grown man should be able to wash his own dishes and make his bed without prompting, and when she did ask he didn’t do it anyway. Chandler would then accuse her of being pedantic and storm out of the room. This cycle would repeat until Mariella broke down and just did the chore herself.

Mariella and Chandler's relationship went out with a whimper, not a bang. Mariella, frustrated and overwhelmed, had asked him if he cared about the relationship, or her. She had hoped that he would deny her accusation, that he would claim he did love her, despite the evidence to the contrary. Mariella had hoped Chandler would say that loved her as much as she, in the bottom of her heart, still loved him.

Instead, Chandler had shrugged. He told Mariella that she was free to leave if she liked. So she left.

And yet here she was, back in the apartment. She crouched in front of Abyzuo, placing a cautious hand on its side. Abyzuo’s huge mouth unfurled, and it grinned at Mariella with menace as she began her calming spells and incantations.

Brittney acted like Mari wasn’t there. She posed on the couch in her bikini, holding up a can of some slimming drink and taking selfie after selfie. To make matters worse Chandler, wearing a gaming headset and sweatpants, strolled into the living room.

“Oh, hi Mariella” he said in the same infuriating tone as his girlfriend, as if he hadn’t begged Mari to come over. He sat down on the couch next to Brittney and proceeded to scroll through his phone.

Tuesday was Mariella’s day off, so she knew why she was free. But she wondered what was going on with these two that they had absolutely nothing to do in the middle of a weekday. Did Chandler lose his job at the bank? Wouldn’t be the first time. Over the course of their relationship Chandler went through a few jobs, always insisting that none of the terminations were his fault.

As Mariella worked Abyzuo’s keening went from a shrill whistle to a growl before finally stopping altogether. When Mari finished the demon was slumbering peacefully, whispering its blood dreams into the foundation of the building.

She stood up, dusted her hands off and looked at Brittney and Chandler, both of whom continued to scroll through their phones, completely oblivious. Chandler eventually looked up.

“Oh, are you done?”

It had taken Mari the better part of an hour to get Abyzuo under control. And yet, zero gratitude detected.

Chandler walked Mari to the door, where she handed him a bag of rose quartz.

“You should be feeding her these every couple of hours. And stop lighting those candles, demons hate rosemary, as I’ve told you--”

“Uh-huh” Chandler took the crystals without looking at them and shut the door in Mariella’s face.

She fumed the whole way home. Sarah rented Mariella a spare bedroom in the flat she owned. It was a nice flat, but Sarah was a shit roommate. She worked long hours and liked to spend the little time she was home cooking messy meals and having loud sex with her girlfriend. It was a step up from Chandler, but Mari missed having her own space.

As usual, Sarah was gone when Mari got home. She angrily washed the dishes, muttering under her breath. She re-ranted her diatribe from the coffee house to herself. She checked her text messages-- one from Chandler, reminding her that she still owed him 30 dollars from a utility bill that she had explained multiple times that she didn’t owe him for, and one from Marcus.

“Hi Mari, sorry I bailed on you in the coffee shop. You are a nice person, but to be honest I am not interested in dating. I wish you the best, See you around.”

At least Marcus was nice enough to say something as opposed to ghosting her. Yet Mari found herself reading and re-reading Marcus’s message through blurry tears. Her anger had dissolved into misery and she gave up on the day. She changed into her pajamas, drank a half a bottle of red wine and fell asleep watching tv.

The wine had been a mistake. It caused her to have dizzy migraine dreams, ultimately making her late for work the next day. Luckily it didn’t matter because by the time Mariella showed up, sweaty and panting, both of her bosses were in meetings.

The exact title and meaning of Mariella's job was unclear even to her. Initially she had been hired to be a junior advertising director under the advertising director. But he left the company a month after she was hired and the powers that be decided not to replace him. She wasn’t fired, but she had been damned to administrative purgatory. Now her job was mainly acting as a go-between for two middle managers. The middle managers had offices next to each other, but despised each other for a wide array of petty reasons. So they only communicated in emails sent through Mariella.

Mariella made herself some office coffee. It tasted like boiled ink, but it helped her headache. It didn’t bother her too much that her job had fizzled out; she had never wanted to be an advertising director anyway. But surely there had to be something better than forwarding emails from one party to another? At least something that paid a livable wage, so she could get out of Sarah’s apartment and get her own place…

Days dripped by. Mari saw Marcus in some coven meetings, but was too embarrassed to say anything to him. Besides they were involved in a pretty drastic piece of spellwork, which relied on Mari’s ability to open and close portals. She was the only person in the group that could. If they got it right, they could make an appointment with the Department of Magic to apply for a grant.

The three leaders of the Department of Magic, who are all named Belinda, were offering serious money to anyone who could double loop time portals. Apparently new demon outbreaks had left them spread thin and they needed a way to increase productivity. Mariella knew it was a long shot, almost all those grants go to big magic schools.

But what was the harm? It wasn’t like she had anything else going on in her life. Plus, it got her out of the apartment, and occupied her mind with something other than Chandler.

Some time went by with no calls from Chandler, Mari started to get nervous. Surely Abyzuo couldn't stay quiet that long-- had Brittney and Chandler gone somewhere and left her alone to wreak havoc? Or was Abyzuo plotting something, like the skinned rabbit rain stunt last spring?

Mariella dared not speak her worst fear-- what if Chandler had actually learned how to care for Abyzuo and truly did not need her anymore?

The answer came sooner than expected. It was 3 am and Mari was dead asleep, so it took her brain several seconds to acknowledge the alarming sound in her room. Farting ringtone. She fumbled with the phone, and was met with a maelstrom of screaming and demonic howls.

Mariella was still half in her pajamas when she pulled up to the apartment. From the street she could see flashing lights and smell sulfur. Some neighbors were leaning out of their windows. A few were in the streets, taking pictures and gaping at the spectacle.

The front door to the apartment was slamming open and closed violently, as if caught in a wind. When Mariella managed to get inside she found herself in the middle of a full-blown hell manifestation. Bats swarmed the room shrieking and dive bombing Chandler, who was cowering under a table.

The real noise came from Brittney, whose expensive mane of blonde hair was snagged in Abyzuo’s mouth. The demon laughed, pulling Brittney further in while belching sulfur and spiders. Brittney screamed and writhed. Abyzuo seemed to be in the process of slowly scalping the woman. At Brittney’s flailing feet something beeped and flashed….

It was a smoldering pink phone.

Mariella ducked behind the sofa as she tried to put together what must have happened. Abyzuo must have laid a trap. Perhaps she created a glamor, something beautiful and irresistible to Brittney, something she would have to get close to.

Now Brittney was writhing on the floor, covered in demonic spiders and getting her scalp ripped off.

Abyzuo fed off of fear and chaos, and was getting it in spades. She had all the energy to put on her biggest show yet.

Mariella got to work, but the bats flying around the room kept knocking her glasses off . She also didn’t have all her supplies – in her haste to leave the apartment she only got half of what she needed. As Mari backed up to do a concentric circle, she tripped over something soft. She fell hard, her glasses bouncing off her face and sliding away across the floor. The bats, now fuzzy blurs, continued to attack. One took a bite from her forehead. She felt blood dribble, wondering wildly if she had a rabies spell in her first aid kit.

The soft thing she had tripped over was her ex boyfriend, who clutched her at her legs and wailed.

“HELP ME MARIELLA!”

“YOU CHILDISH PRICK” Mari screamed, kicking back at his grasping hands, trying to search for her glasses. “YOU STUPID ASSHOLE, YOU SELF INVOLVED PIECE OF--”

Abruptly, all of the noise stopped.

The room froze. Brittney, her body limp on the ground, scalp clinging by a thread, the bats, Chandler, all locked in place. There was unnatural silence that broke whenl a voice, clear and commanding, cut through.

“My my, what a mess we have here.”

Mariella scrambled to her feet, glasses in hand, as the leaders of the Department of Magic strolled into the frozen apartment. Mariella had heard about the Belindas her whole life-- and now here they were in the flesh.

The three women, who were not really women, all named Belinda. They wore matching iridescent beehive hairdos and pastel mechanic jumpsuits. The leader, distinguished by her sash, was examining the frozen tableau. She was followed by the demon wrangler Belinda, Demo, who was famous for her strength and iron teeth, and finally Betty– the empath with glistening fish eyes.

“This is a real mess, a real mess. This is a Major Arcana demon! How did this even get in here?”

Demo appeared to be wondering aloud more than asking a question. She was holding Abyzuo with an amazing one-handed noose spell, and Abyzuo squealed like a stuck pig. Brittney was finally released from Abyzuo’s grasp, but was frozen with a flap of skin peeled back to reveal a blood-smeared skull.

It took Mari a long time to realize that all three Belindas were staring at her. She was the only non-frozen person in the room and they appeared to expect an explanation.

“I– I’m sorry.” She sputtered

“You’re sorry?” Said Sash Belinda, eyebrows raised.

“I know it was a bad idea. It wasn’t even my idea, it was my asshole ex-boyfriend’s idea, and now I am stuck cleaning up the mess! And--”

In her panic, Mari began to word vomit about Chandler again, pointing to his frozen form on the floor. The Sash Belinda and the Demon Wrangler Belinda stared at her blankly, until Betty raised her hand.

“Stop.” She said gently, moving aside frozen bats to get a good look at Mariella. Her eyes, flat and silver in the light, moved hypnotically.

“Listen, all this--” Betty gestured to the frozen Chandler and Brittney, “doesn’t really concern us. All we want to know is how you captured this demon. We have been looking for Abyzuo for a while.”

“What? You’ve been looking for Abyzuo?” Mari’s mouth went dry.

“Yes, we keep close tabs on all demons” Sniffed the Sash Belinda, stepping forward and glaring at Mari contemptuously. “And you have been harboring her, which is a capital offense! Not to mention summoning a Major Arcana demon to the human plane–”

“And keeping it as a damn pet!” chortled Demo, “I’d be a lot more mad if I wasn’t impressed. Abyzuo wiped out a whole town in the 1940s… Two times, in fact.”

Mari flushed, her stomach dropped. It never occurred to her that she might get in trouble. Sash. annoyed at being interrupted, addressed Mari again:

“How did you get this thing here, or should I ask, how did you KEEP this thing here?”

“ l-I used a couple different spells” Mari stuttered, suddenly bashful, “ some ancient Scandinavian stuff…mixed in a few different types of blood stones and...am I in trouble here?”

“You? Oh no. I mean normally yes,” started Sash Belinda, “Normally we would arrest you for unsanctioned demon summoning, but--

“--you have actually done us a huge favor.” Interrupted Betty, “This demon was giving us all sorts of problems, top of the ‘wanted list.’ We were terrified it was out plotting something worse since we couldn’t find it. Turns out Abyzuo it wasn’t causing anymore trouble because you trapped her.”

Betty was smiling warmly at Mari. She handed Mari a box of tissues.

At first Mari thought it was for her bat-bite, which was still bleeding. But to Mari’s horror, she realized it was because she was crying.

Someone finally saw how much work she had done, keeping Abyzuo here. She had helped people, even if it wasn’t on purpose. Her relief overcame her. She hadn’t realized how much the stress had gotten to her, and it was all over now. What's more, people were being nice to her about it. Not just any people, the Belinda’s!

“Alright, alright. There is no need for that.” Sash said, looking uncomfortable. “From where I am sitting, this looks like one hand washing the other. We will be taking the demon, obviously.”

The Demon Wrangler Belinda had already completed a powerful ritual that wretched Abyzuo from the wall and stuffed her into an enchanted cat carrier. Abyzuo grumbled loudly as Demo carried her out of the building. Sash Belinda gave Mari a final stern look and then followed, leaving the empath, Betty.

“Now dry your eyes. No one is in trouble, but no more summoning demons, okay? Especially not for some boyfriend. Especially not for...that boyfriend”

Belinda gestured to Chandler, still under the table. Mari chuckled. It was pretty funny to see Chandler frozen and tormented by bats. Mari wondered if this is how other people saw him.

“So, what are you going to do with Abyzuo?” Mari asked.

“We are just gonna study it and then probably drain its blood for rituals.”

Betty looked amused at Mari’s concern for the demon, but Mari was actually relieved. Abyzuo was going somewhere she couldn’t hurt anyone. She was not Mari’s problem anymore. The last Belinda was handing Mari something, which she realized was a business card.

“You are Mariella, right? Listen, the Department of Magic won’t forget this favor you did for us. In fact, we could really use someone with your summoning skills on the team. Why don’t you give us a call tomorrow and we can talk numbers?”

Mari took the card. The tears, now hot and grateful, again streamed down her face. The Belinda smiled at Mari one final time.

When time unfroze seconds later, she was gone. The entire hell manifestation was gone. The neighbors had gone back inside, the living room was clean, and Brittney was sleeping on the couch, scalp in place and cell phone in hand.

The Belinda’s had, however, left a few bats tormenting Chandler.

That was the last time Mariella was ever in that apartment.

She didn’t know what Chandler and Brittney remembered, or how they felt about Abyzuo being gone. Mari didn’t have time to check up on them anymore and now that Abyzuo was gone she had no excuse to. She had even blocked Chandler’s number.

The Belinda’s had made good on their offer. Mariella was now working on the research team for the Demonology Department. Mariella had emailed her old job a notice, but because her bosses did not read her emails, they didn’t realize she was gone for 4 weeks. Mariella blocked them when they tried to call her, too.

The new job came with a significant paybump, so Mariella finally got her own apartment. She was across the park from her old place and still got to see Sarah. Once a week they met on the corner and walked through the park to a beer garden on Elm street.

It was during one of these walks that Mari realized what day it was. It was a year, one year to the day since her breakup with Chandler, Abyzuo, all of it. The air was wet with the smell of flowers and Mariella’s friends waited for her at the crosswalk. She jogged to catch up, feeling now as if it had all happened to a different person. Maybe it had.