Maid for Fire

Sensitive Topics: Demonic influence and psychological distress.

Camille heaved out of bed and logged time on the treadmill. It helped clear the cobwebs in her mind and calm her nerves. She lit a candle. Coffee and the keyboard came next, but only after she had plucked a shard of steel wool from underneath her fingernail. She’d been so worried the night before that she decided to get out of bed and give her stove top a good once-over. Camille Morgan was beginning to show the signs of a compulsive cleaning disorder.

“If I keep this up, the place will be ready for subletting again,” she thought to herself. She had another work trip scheduled, and if she could avoid the crabby cleaning lady, she was all for it.

Camille Morgan wondered if the crabby cleaning lady conducted secret seances in her absence. She hated making eye contact with the disabled woman, and why didn’t she do anything about the amount of pain she seemed to be in? Or why would she continue in a job that would never help her to heal? It didn’t add up. Crabby Cleaning Lady certainly wasn't being kept on because she boosted company morale, and Camille’s boss wasn’t remotely cut from sadistic cloth. Why did The Crisis Report retain her? She would talk to Jake today because he was sending her off on her next expedition to the realm of natural disasters within the next twelve hours.

“No! There’s a world of difference between ageism and flat-out disability! Something’s not right about this woman, and I don’t want her having access to my home!"

Camille was on the phone with her mother, who was trying to smooth her daughter’s ruffled feathers. Camille had called to tell her she was off to the Caribbean for two weeks to cover a volcanic eruption and the affected population in Montserrat.

“You haven’t seen her, Mom. She’s hunched over in obvious pain, slow as molasses and mean as a pack of wolves. She could burn a hole through concrete the way she curses with her eyes. I can’t believe the paper still lets her work for us!”

“Can you refuse the, um, service?” asked Janet, Camille’s mom. I’d gladly do it for free, and I’d give it my special touch. Do you know who would be staying this time? I could customize it a little.”

“She’s not much older than I am, from Asia. She’s stayed before, but I never had the chance to meet her. She left the sweetest note of thanks last time and a gift basket with the best goodies. I found a scented candle wrapped in the bathroom for me, too."

"I’m not sure if the company would let you do the cleaning, but I could mention to Jake that I have someone else who could replace Vileda Voodoo.”

“Well, it is your home, Camille. What else can you do but talk to Jake? He may not even be aware that there’s a problem. Sometimes it takes a while for bad news to make its way to the right person.”

Camille recalled the gifted delicacies and the note and began to cry with hopelessness. For someone accustomed to putting herself in the thick of nature’s upheavals, she was surprisingly fearful of making waves that could potentially unleash a housekeeper’s fury. Like the volcano, it was most likely just beneath the surface of her stony heart.

“Yeah, Camille sighed. Maybe you’re right. Jake’s not unreasonable. Honestly, Mom, it can't be just me. Others must see it too. Would Jake really want to protect her at the risk of losing me?"

Janet tried vainly to suppress the laughter bubbling up inside of her.

“Mom!” Camille yelled into the phone reprovingly.

Janet wanted to be more supportive, but secretly, she thought her daughter might be overreacting. Camille always had a flair for the dramatic, and her job demanded just that—a twist of the morbid that could play effectively on the emotions of the public.

“Dear, you know I love you to pieces, but do you remember your first day of school?”

Camille paused and reflected while Janet smiled and jotted down a few things she needed from the grocery store.

“You mean when I had that anxiety attack?”

Janet laughed again. The distress that had accompanied Camille’s first day of kindergarten had caused her teacher to let her be with her sister in the sixth grade. She’d sat in that big people chair next to her sister’s desk and never made a sound. Camille had decided that all plans for kindergarten would effectively be cancelled. She chased storms, earthquakes, floods and landslides for a living, but she was always a little too leery of people.

“You didn’t even come to the school to take me home,” Camille said dejectedly.

“No, I didn’t. It was your first day, Camille. It wasn't childhood trauma! It was okay to sit with Lisa as long as you stayed there. You had years of school ahead of you, and you learned to make friends, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes I supp...”

“Listen, dear, I have a hair appointment to get to, an exercise class I don’t want to miss, and I’m having a late lunch with your father. I’ll be sure to tell him about your cleaning lady, all right? Consider me your “on call” maid-in-waiting if the need arises.” With that, Janet said goodbye and hung up the phone.

“You mean my crabby cleaning lady,” Camille muttered with a pout.

She got busy packing. If she had that taken care of, she’d be less stressed when she talked to Jake and might actually get her concerns across clearly. She had nothing to lose, and by noon, she was making her way to the office to meet with him.

“Surely she’s not trying to make employee of the month?” Camille settled herself in the chair opposite Jake’s desk and looked at him intently, mostly because he was looking at her in much the same way. She had his full attention.

“Camille, I hear you. Your concerns are not new to me. It’s just that no one has complained, so there wasn’t anything I could do. The quality of her work is fair. We don’t have to keep her, but we can’t just get rid of her, either. There haven’t been any thefts. Nothing’s been broken or damaged, and because she works alone, no one sees how slow she is. I can’t really fire someone because of an unpleasant disposition.”

“But it’s my home, Jake. I don’t have a good feeling about her. She makes me extremely uncomfortable, and I hate to think of her touching my things. There’s something not right about letting that kind of bad vibe into my home. She’s riddled with pain but wears that stupid cleaning smock like it’s a badge of honour. Do you know she once made sure her name tag was visible when I dared to look at it? She just stared at me as if I’d insulted her. I felt like she was challenging me.”

Camille recalled how much she'd regretted glancing at the woman's name tag, at making eye contact with her at all. The woman had returned it with a soulless, wordless glare that caused Camille to blush deeply and look up to heaven. She'd felt convicted of some unspeakable crime and condemned in the space she called her home.

“Well, I suppose we could always have her go in for some counselling. That’s about all that’s in my power to do at this point.”

“Will she ever find out who ratted her out?”

"Camille, I’m not about to make you go through any more with these concerns of yours. I believe you and I’ll take the wrap. That’s why they pay me so well.”

Camille breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief and thanked her boss tearfully.

“Do you want me to bring you back any souvenirs from Montserrat?” she asked cheesily.

“Maybe a good luck charm?” Jake smiled weakly.

“How ‘bout I take you out to lunch when I get back? Camille offered. We can talk shop, and I can write the whole thing off.”

“I won’t be able to share anything about Marion with you, Camille, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I know. I probably don’t want the details anyway."

" Say, my mom's got a key and knows where everything is. She could really make it nice for Mei-Lin, and she’d do it in record time.”

“Not unless she wants to be on the payroll. We’ll swap Marion out with someone else. We had her scheduled for this trip, but I’ll tell her that she’s been asked to report for counselling services instead.” Jake tried to sound reassuring, but he had his doubts about how Marion would respond to that.

Camille thanked Jake once again, wishing she already had a good luck charm to give him. Within the next couple of hours, though, she was lighthearted once again and seated in a plane taking her to Antigua, where she would ferry to Montserrat. Marion, the crabby cleaning lady, was a thing of the past, and this flight was one of freedom.

Marion was summoned, and she was livid but kept it under wraps. She told Jake she would show up, but not after Jake realized how uncooperative she was going to be.

“Let your healing journey begin,” Jake breathed out as he ended the unpleasant conversation with this woman who did, indeed, leave him feeling as though he were on trial. Camille wasn’t exaggerating, and he would do whatever he could to bring a peaceful resolution to all concerned, including himself. He could nudge Marion in the direction of a specialist’s care, as well as a psychiatrist. She could get paid leave for surgery that might improve her outlook, if not her job situation. An early retirement wasn’t beyond his power. The Crisis Report didn’t need more on its plate than was necessary to maintain the well-being of its reporters, and Marion was now on its radar for a quick dismissal.

Marion, on the other hand, had plans of her own. In her paranoia, she had made copies of the keys to all the homes of the people she cleaned for. She considered it a collection of sorts. It was a way for her to own these people and to have control over those who mistreated her when she was in so much pain and were so, so rude to her!

They left her tips in envelopes with her name in fancy handwriting because she wasn’t a reporter. They left her cards of thanks for the holidays because she didn’t earn as much money as they did, and bonuses, because they were better than she was. They left towels strewn on the bathroom floor for her to pick up, as if it was their pleasure that she was their personal servant. Their dishes left in the sink—their coffee mugs—just for her, like forgotten pet kisses with smeared lipstick. She didn’t know if she could handle sheets on one more bed left unmade for her to change.

Without knowing it, Marion had slipped another wrung lower into the hurt and hatred she nursed in her heart. This was one wrung deeper into wickedness, and without any key of her own to protect herself, she had let in the supernatural disasters that evil now hungered to express through her. Jake had called the very day she was scheduled to clean for Camille, so Marion would just have to pay her a visit. If her job is on the line, she would make sure Camille’s would be too. Why should she live without chronic, debilitating pain? Let’s see how well she performed her high-paying, highfalutin job with pain instead of without it, and, from now on!

She knew exactly what to do. She would turn off the breaker that controlled the heat so that when Camille got cold—poor dear—the breaker would have to be reset from the basement. She would saw off the third and fourth steps of the staircase and prop them up so they would collapse, even under Camille’s light frame, and the tumble would take her down. Yes, she would take an ungraceful swan dive and land at the bottom, where the concrete floor would be sure to crack more bones. “If she survives it at all, she’ll have a lifetime to recover,” Marion mused.

Marion now had a trail of the powers of darkness going before her, and that followed her from behind. She was not the leader, only the carrier, but where she went, their sulfuric presence enveloped her. Never had she been so dangerous. She turned the key in Camille’s door and let herself in. She may not have felt much guilt, but she had never been so miserable.

“Peter,” Janet argued. She’s not even home.”

“That well may be, but I want to have a look around for myself,” said Camille’s dad as they drove up to their daughter’s house. Marion didn’t hear the car doors slam shut because she was busy getting herself down the stairs. Her pain had seemed to increase tenfold within the last hour, and she worried about this counselling appointment. She couldn’t let them see how much more pain she was in, and she suspected it probably showed more than ever at this moment. She would need a double dose of pain medication to get through it, but it would have to wait. It would cloud her mind and affect her speech more so than if she were at home at the end of another day of back-breaking labour. No one could see her there or hear the way she blasphemed her clients to no one but herself. If she had to talk to some counsellor about things that were no one’s business but her own, she wasn’t about to let them see her sweat trying to get the words out. Marion used her pain to manipulate, as long as she was in control of it. Otherwise, she was out of control. And in her mind, no longer in charge. She couldn't lose the upper hand she thought she had, and she couldn't lose the job that put her in the driver's seat. She could only keep throwing her pain in everyone's faces.

“The door’s unlocked!” Peter exclaimed.

Marion's ears perked up, and fear gripped her heart, almost numbing her pain altogether so that she was able to creep back up the stairs and close the door to the basement. There she waited behind it and held her breath.

Peter wanted Janet to stay close to him rather than separate to cover more ground. Janet talked on about Camille’s sense of style and how she had inherited it from her. She figured Camille had left the door unlocked on purpose. Peter decided to follow his wife around the house. “She’s got that woman coming to clean for her today. That’s why she left the door unlocked, Peter.”

“Well, if that woman is as horrible as Camille says she is, I guess it doesn’t matter if she leaves the door unlocked or not,” Peter said defensively. “I guess she inherited that from me.”

Marion dropped her head on her chest and almost cried when she heard them talking. At the same time, madness stirred in her heart. If she weren’t in so much pain, she’d break down the door and throw herself at them both, scratching, screaming and kicking. She would have to sneak out before anyone discovered her. The stairs were creaky near the bottom, and she'd done enough of Camille’s laundry to realize the basement was no place to hide.

Peter and Janet’s voices were faint. Marion could guess they were in Camille’s bedroom. They seemed to be lingering in Camille's bathroom and the extra room she used as an office. Marion heard the treadmill running, and Janet’s voice grew a little louder from the adjoining room.

Marion opened the basement door and peeked around it. The way was clear for a daring escape. If she was going to do anything, she had to do it now. She gingerly stepped up onto the landing and started for the front door. She passed through the hallway and into the living room, where the day's full light spilled in and exposed her presence in the house. She hoped her heart didn’t give out in the next few seconds. She certainly couldn’t go any faster with the increased pain, but she pushed herself with the help of a different kind of pain—that of being possessed. She could arm herself, at least, and reached for the paring knife in the butcher’s block. Then she saw it. She had left her purse on the floor when she had let herself in.

How could they have missed it? She reached for the doorknob and turned it. The door opened and closed quietly behind her as she slipped out. She breathed a sigh of relief, but she had to get out of sight altogether. As she approached the Morgans’ car, she remembered the paring knife in her hand and scraped the length of the side, bent down and punctured the back tire with vehemence. “That’s for you, Poppa Peter.”

Rather than walking the road where she would have to catch a bus, she decided she would cross the street and go in the opposite direction, wherever it would lead her. And just like that, Marion the maid was gone for good.

Janet and Peter found their way back into the living room, discussing improvements to Camille’s house, like planting a garden and flower boxes for the windows. Their conversation was easy and relaxed until Peter looked toward the door and asked Janet where her purse had gone. He then looked the other way and noticed the basement door no longer shut. They were both filled with uneasiness, and dread pervaded the room.