Addiction took our mother slowly, rocked her through it and sung her to sleep sunk deep into the mattress on her bed. When her back teeth fell out she left them on the side of the bathtub. I was seven, and I kept them in a match box, the missing pieces of her kept safe, so she wouldn't be lost forever. So maybe one day we could put her back together. Our house fell down around us, and we tried our best to raise ourselves. The ceilings had water damage and the bottom stairs had dry rot and in the winters the radiators would bleed rust. But it was still our house, and Annie made it a home.

My sister Annie mothered me, with lopsided bandaids on bruised knees and lukewarm microwave meals. She told me ghost stories and didn’t mind when I crawled into her bed later on, too scared to sleep alone. She taught me to dance, barefoot on the living room carpet, music channel on full volume on the TV shaking our hips before they were fully grown. She always let me shower first so the water was hot, never complaining when she had to make do with cold. She brushed my hair everyday before school, even when I screamed and hit her when she caught the tangles. Annie was dark haired like her father, whoever he had been, but I was blonde. Annie was desperate to be blonde too, like Marilyn Monroe. Like mom. I think she thought it would make them closer, remind mom less of her dad. I’d give anything for her to have her hands in my hair one more time, even if it hurt. She moved to New York when I turned eighteen and never came back. I still dream about her sometimes.

Keeping up with our mother was impossible and we learnt from a young age we would always be left behind. It didn’t make it any easier. When she was drinking light, she shone, would wake us up at 3am with pancakes, dripping in cherry syrup. Sometimes when the weather was right and she’d had enough being drunk alone, she would call our school up and tell them we had both come down with summer sickness and we’d drive to the beach instead. I remember being nine years old in the backseat of the car coming home after one of our ocean days, sucking the salt from my fingers. Annie had just dyed her hair blonde, her best friend Jane helping her bend over our kitchen sink. From behind, I couldn’t tell who was mother and who was daughter, radio up and windows down blowing the sky inside.

When she was drinking heavy, she’d be out all night, hair piled up like a beauty queen, eyes glazed over and ringed with glitter and black. Sometimes she’d be gone a day or two. She would never tell us when, one day we’d just wake up to an empty house and the fridge packed full, post it note on the front with a smear of moms lipstick in the outline of a kiss, telling us she’d be back soon. Sometimes she’d bring guys home, filling the table with beer cans and ash trays, smoke up to the ceiling, mom lost in the haze. We’d sleep with pillows over our heads, trying to drown out the music they would blast until the am, and wake up to strangers at our kitchen table in the morning, asking us where we kept the coffee.

When mom drank too little she fell apart. She wouldn’t buy food, refrigerator a gaping hole in the wall. She’d chain smoke, leaving cigarette burns on the wallpaper up by the stairs like the walls were sick and decaying. She barely slept, walking around with blue half moons under her eyes, knuckles raw. She would scream at the slightest thing. I remember once when I spilled a glass of juice on the couch. She looked over at me with dead eyes and dragged me off onto the carpet and then took every single cushion off the couch and into the back yard and set them on fire. Annie went to watch a while from the window and then sat next to me on the floor, backs pressed against the skeleton of the seats, head resting in the crater of my collar bones.

When mom drank too much was the worst. She’d laugh too loud and too long at anything and everything, until her mouth started to shake and she started crying, at the breakfast table into her cereal. Annie shut down when mom was like this, went somewhere deep inside herself where nobody could hurt her. She’d stay up until the morning watching old black and white movies on TV, whispering the lines she knew by heart like prayers. When I was five I’d cry when I’d find mom passed out cold on her bed, sure she would never wake up. Annie would wipe my tears, tell me she was only sleeping just like the princesses in my story book. We’d sit on moms bed together and wait for her to wake up. When we were older, I was the one who would pick mom up off the bathroom floor again and again and Annie would put her to bed, smoothing her hair off her face and the vomit from her mouth, changing her clothes if she’d pissed herself. Watching them then, there was no doubt that Annie was the mother now.

It was October and I was thirteen, Annie sixteen. It was a Wednesday night and mom had been gone for two days. She’d called us that morning from a pay phone, voice slurring down the line, telling us she was having the best time with all her new friends, hoped we were doing fine. When she asked me if I was having a good birthday I hung up on her. My birthday had been the day before. Annie had given me a pile of presents, strawberry lipglosses and glittery nail polishes. I didn’t ask where she’d got the money for them. I didn’t care. We’d taken the bus to the beach with Jane, eaten the birthday cake she had made for me, sand getting into the frosting. It tasted like sweetness and the sea, and I savoured every bite and scrape of sugar against my teeth. We watched the sun go down, Annie snapping grainy photos on her shitty Nokia as I blew out my candles, wishing over and over that mom wouldn't come home, that she’d just stay gone this time.

But that Wednesday night, me and Annie weren't speaking. Anger hung heavy between us, seeping through the floorboards. It began when she tripped at the bottom of the stairs. We’d both laughed, Annie throwing her head back, gap between her front teeth catching the light. When I’d bent to pick her up, I’d caught her breath, warm against the freckles on my cheeks. I let go of her arms and she fell again, hitting the floor and grinning, shaking her hair from her face. Her breath was heavy with whiskey. I couldn't start picking her up too, couldn't watch her fall again and again. Just like mom, I knew she’d never get back up.

I’d stared down at her, blonde hair fallen into her eyes and all I could see was our mother, and then I was running, feet slamming the hallway like heartbeats turned loose. I’d run for the kitchen and tipped every bottle we had down the sink, shoving Annie back as she fought to stop me, catching liquor on her fingers as it fell. She grabbed my shoulders and made me drop the very last bottle. It smashed between us on the floor, glass shards shining like we’d dragged the stars out of the sky and broken them, pieces we could never put back. Outside through the open windows, the sky turned pale gold, clouds a mess of pink and cream smeared across the horizon. I cried then, watching Annie on her knees picking up the pieces. That was Annie, always trying to fix things even when it was too late.

The smell of food dragged me from my room, stomach turning traitor inside my ribcage. Annie was cooking pasta, real food not made in a microwave. She’d set the table, Tammy Wynette singing softly from the CD player, Annie gently swaying her hips as she stirred the tomato sauce, rich and warm. As we ate in silence, with every bite I forgave her. Mom never cooked dinner, or remembered my favourite was spaghetti ever since I was a kid, or stayed sober long enough to sit up at a table. Annie wasn’t mom.

We were washing the dishes when we first heard it. A moth was crawling down the inside of the pane and I cracked the window to let it out into the dark. From the backyard came a faint sound. I tilted my head to listen as it was coming from far off. Crying. I figured it was Mika the two year old next door having a tantrum loud enough for us to catch, or maybe even Lucky Strike the cat that junkies down the street, begging for food like he sometimes did. I always wanted to feed him when he came around, winding over my ankles, but Annie always stopped me, saying once you started giving they never stopped taking. Looking back, I don’t think she was talking about the cat.

Annie flipped the christmas lights strung up around the porch and we sat on the plastic beach chairs watching the skies. When we were little, we’d sit outside and Annie would tell me the names of all the constellations and the stories of how they came to be hung up in the night sky. I had to grow up before I realised she made them all up as she went along. It was a game we still liked to play now, making up ridiculous stories for the shapes we could pick out.

“Ah, yes, that one there is the Coors Light. It got there when God dropped it out of his convertible window and never picked it up,” she said, nodding sagely and hiding her smile.

“Of course,” I said, waving my hands and pointing up past the power lines. “Right next to The Ashtray, left there by angels on a smoke break.”

“Yeah, they say if you wish on it, all your dreams will come true,” said Annie grinning.

She stopped laughing, voice quieter, face tilted up to all those dead stars.

“Let’s wish Emmy. Let’s wish” So we did.

The sound of crying interrupted us. It was closer this time, and definitely human. We turned to each other, confused. Annie shrugged and I squinted out into the black. It sounded like a baby, lost and tired and alone.

“It must be Mika?” I said, slowly getting to my feet. “Maybe he walked around the back? Shit, do you want to call Connie and tell her we’ll bring him over.” Annie didn't reply, and I sighed, rolling my eyes. “Guess I’ll do everything then.”

I stepped off the porch, grass soft against my heels. The air smelled like it might rain, fresh and clean and growing. A promise unfulfilled.

“Em.” Annie’s voice was strained. I turned to her, smiling. It died on my face when I saw the look on her own. “Em get inside now.” She was staring out into the dark, past me, opening the door with one hand behind her, fingers fumbling on the catch. I froze, bare foot in the dirt. I’d found what she was looking at.

In the bushes by the back fence was a person, crouched with their knees tucked up neat under the chin, arms wrapped around legs. Their mouth hung wide, softly opening and closing as he cried. Like a child, lost in the dark. Not like a child, but a someone pretending. Mimicking the sound, open and closed out in the blackness. Suddenly they straightened, snapping upright face still hidden by the black. They were tall and thin, too thin to be a normal person.

Panic made me move, animal instincts leftover from the days we lived up in the trees carrying me forward. I was faster than Annie, dragging her inside and slamming the door behind us, hearing it bounce on its hinges as I locked it. We watched as the person slowly walked towards the house, steps deliberate and long.

Annie reached for my hand, holding me tight and turned me to face her, holding my shoulders.

“Don’t turn around Emmy. Don’t turn around.” Instinctively I started to look over my shoulder out into the darkness. Annie grabbed my face, hard, and shook her head. I knew then she was serious.

“I’m…” her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, gripping my hand tight enough to hurt, nails digging in, grounding herself. I looked down at our fingers interlocked, both of us grown from the same bones.

“I’m gonna call the cops and everything is going to be…” her voice faltered, stuttering. Tears spilled over her lashes, dripping like the promise of rain. Annie never cried.

“Your phone’s on the porch,” she whispered, and bile crawled its way up my throat. Her phone was upstairs, charging.

A soft, tap-tap-tapping filled the silence. Annie turned to the window, eye whites showing her eyes were so wide.

It was the sound of someone’s forehead against the glass, slowly, over and over. They started to speed up, faster and harder, skin meeting glass until they was slamming into the window hard enough to shake the panes. The tapping stopped and I was about to ask Annie if I could look now when she screamed, followed by the sound of cracking glass and the loudest slam yet. Whoever was in our yard had just smashed their face hard enough into the window to break it.

We ran upstairs, two at a time, skipping the ones caved in with dry rot on instinct. I turned behind me once and Annie yanked my face back before I could see. The sound of broken glass echoed behind us as we made it to the bathroom, locking the door. A thin, wailing cry, like a baby calling for its mother filled the hallway, trapped between the walls and locked doors.

Annie threw her back against the door, feet jammed up against the bathtub, clutching the knife she had grabbed from the kitchen. I did the same, shoulder to shoulder. Slow footsteps started on the stairs, deliberate and casual. The crying had become mocking, almost laughter, shrill bursts of sound and then giggles, high pitched and abruptly stopping before starting again. The first door on the upstairs floor was my bedroom and we heard the distinct sound of it slamming open. They were looking for us.

“What the fuck is going on,” I asked Annie, not even bothering to brush away the tears that I couldn't stop falling. I watched my sister pick herself up off the floor, and brace her hands on the door as we heard the sound of a second door slamming open. Mom’s room. The next room on the hallway was the bathroom. Annie pulled me to my feet and handed me the knife. I shook my head and pushed it back to her, terrified of what would happen if I had to use it. Annie shoved me and pressed the knife into my hands, thumb pressing hard enough on the blade to bleed. I watched my sisters blood drip down her wrist, a winding red road, still pushing into my hands despite the pain. I took the knife.

Something slammed against the wall that mom’s room shared with the bathroom. A high pitched wail followed. I held my breath, could feel my heart beat in the base of my throat, a wild and frantic thing.

“I’m gonna get the phone from my room.” I shook my head violently about to argue. Annie clamped a hand over my mouth. I could taste the blood on her hand, salty and sweet. Like birthday cake by the ocean. “Yes. I’m gonna get the phone and I’m gonna call the cops and we’re going to be okay.” I shook my head again. “It’s the only way. When I go I need you to lock the door and you don’t open it for anything or anyone. Not for me not for… anyone. Promise me.” I shook my head and Annie pressed her hand into my mouth, crushing my teeth against my lips so it made my eyes water. “Yes. Promise me Em.”

Something smashed in the room next door. Annie brushed the hair off my face, gently tucking it behind my ear. Promise she mouthed and unlocked the door as slowly as possible, bolt scraping gently. I watched the curve of her shoulder disappear into the black hall outside, like the moon in eclipse. And then she was gone. I couldn't move or breathe for a second and then I slammed the bolt shut just as something bounced off the outside of the door. A high pitched scream followed, handle rattling up and down hard enough to pop one of the screws. I watched it roll towards me on the tiles. And then silence.

I sat with my back to the door, holding the knife and wishing I was holding Annie’s hand instead. Still silence. Nothing but me and my lungs slowly filling the room with my breath.

“Em?” Came a voice through the door. I started, hands gripping the knife. “Honey what’s going on?”

“Mom?” my voice cracked. “Momma is that you?” I wrapped my arms around myself, shaking, trying to keep myself still.

“Sweetie it’s okay just open the door. It’s okay just let me in.” The handle rattled again, gentler. “Just let me in, it’s all okay.” She banged on the door and I took my handle of the bolt.

“Honey I’m sorry. I’m sorry I missed your birthday. I’m sorry I’m such a terrible mother. Please,” her voice broke and she started to cry, “just let me in baby I’m so sorry.”

I screwed my eyes shut. She sounded so sad and so lost. I just wanted her to hold me like when I was a kid and I’d come in off the swings with a scraped knee. Maybe this time she meant it. Maybe it would all be okay. My hand found its way to the bolt again.

My sisters voice came through the door, warm and gentle. “Yeah Emilie let us in, it’s all okay.”

My hand froze on the bolt and I tightened my grip on the knife. Annie never called me by my full name. A hand banged on the door, handle rattling. “Emilie let us IN” Annie’s voice became low and guttural, followed by the same shrill giggles from before. Mom spoke now, pleading and crying, voice getting louder and louder. “Let us in let us in let us in,” over and over again, punctuated by her fists on the door. I thought about demons and monsters, all the bedtime stories we pray don’t crawl out from under the bed.

“That’s not my sister and you’re not my mother!” I screamed through the door, hands over my head. I climbed into the bathtub and curled in a ball, cradling myself, knife clutched to my chest. I didn’t know what it was outside that door but I knew it wasn’t Annie. It wasn't the voice that yelled at when I changed TV channel, the one that sang me happy birthday, the one that told me I was smart even when I got bad grades, the one that read me stories about princesses that never wake up. It wasn’t human.

Bangs and yells came from downstairs followed by the footsteps of people running. A low guttural howl ripped through the house, filling the room until I felt like I was drowning in the sound and then the door was kicked in. I screamed, covering my eyes, waiting to die. Arms found me and lifted me from the tub carrying me from the room. I looked at the outside of the door as I was carried downstairs. It was covered in long scraping claw marks, dragged down to the floor. Pillows ripped apart covered the hallway in soft down, like it had snowed inside. I watched them drift slowly as men in uniforms checked each of the rooms that looked like they had been torn apart by something feral.

Outside in our drive way were police cars and an ambulance. In the middle of it all was Annie. Bathed in blue and red light as it washed over her, lit up in the dark like a neon angel, face aglow. I threw myself from the cops shoulder and ran to her, holding us both together, broken pieces and all, standing under all those constellations we made up. Gentle screaming came from the ambulance which rocked occasionally. Annie gently turned my head away, smiling so sadly it made my chest ache as I understood.

Turns out there was no demon. No wild animal or bad men trying to break in. Just mom, out of her mind on booze and drugs and everything in between, coming to the end of a week long binge. Something had finally broken inside her head, and this time we couldn't put her back together no matter how hard we tried. Sometimes you fall one last time and you never get back up.

Annie had seen her in the garden, blood dribbling from her mouth, track marks bulging on her forearms like unmapped roads, rail thin and desperate for one more hit, one more fix. She’d searched the kitchen for all the drink I’d thrown away and when she hadn’t found it, had come to hunt for the stash she hid in the bathroom. She hadn’t wanted me, just the drugs on the other side of the door, so high she could mimic Annie’s voice almost perfectly.

Turns out the real monsters are the ones that eat you alive slowly, the kind that come in a bottle or a needle or at the end of a long list of reasons why you can’t get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes the monsters are the ones that raise you or love you the most. But it’s up to you if you let them in.