Growing up, I thought it was normal that we had a closet in our house that was forbidden to be opened. My dumb kid brain thought everyone had a closet in their house that was triple locked, chained, and bared closed at all times. It wasn’t until I had finished bragging about how much cooler my family’s secret closet must’ve looked compared to all the other kids in second grade that I came to learn the truth. My family is weird.
For one instance, my parents named me Marmalade Dickinson. My sisters are named Hibiscus (twenty-six), Daisy (twenty-four), and Camomile (twenty-one). Yup, we’re all named after flowers. I’m the youngest at the age of twenty and for the past thirteen years of my life, I’ve been curious as to what lay behind that old oak door.
Never in a million years did I think my sisters and I would find an actual skeleton in the closet.
Normally we’d never even dream about breaking into the forbidden closet, so how did we come to be in this situation? Well key word here being normally. Normally, my sisters and I are sober, but one drunken night fueled by dumb decisions is what led to this whole dilemma.
It was the night of our parents thirtieth wedding anniversary. They wanted everyone to get together for a nice, big, family dinner together before leaving for the casino and gambling all their retirement money away. In attendance were my parents, obviously, Bit (Hibiscus), Daisy, her boyfriend Rick, Cam (Camomile), Cam’s boyfriend Noah, and myself. My boyfriend, Matthew, had other commitments so he wasn’t able to make it.
The dinner went fine as we all caught up, then we wished our parents farewell. We all decided to hang back and spend the night at our childhood home since we had all moved out by that point.
Everyone had already been tipsy as they shared a few bottles of twenty dollar wine at dinner, but they broke out the hard liquor when the parentals left. I wasn’t feeling all that great so I stuck to water instead. But we had ourselves a little party, we did.
It was Noah who suggested we play truth or dare in the first place. We were just chilling in the living room with some action movie playing in the background when he randomly brought it up.
“Ugh, I’m bored! We should play a game. What about truth or dare?”
“I’m down.” Cam replied as she snuggled into her man’s shoulder, lovingly.
I shrugged my shoulders, too invested in the current plot point of the movie, not really listening.
Bit agreed as she broke up Daisy and Rick’s make out session. The two, now back in the real world, also agreed.
“I’ll go first!” Daisy volunteered. “Rick, I dare you to kiss me.”
Rick chuckled and smirked before laying a big fat one on her puckered cheeks. I groaned and rolled my eyes. “That’s not even how you play. You have to actually ask the question truth or dare?”
“Thanks little sis, but I know how to play truth or dare. God, you’re such a buzzkill Mar,” she scoffed. “Ricky, truth or dare?”
“Uhhh, dare.”
“Okay, I dare you to kiss me.”
Rick and Daisy began to make out intensely. My lovely older sister flipped me the finger while they did tongue. I pretended to gag in my mouth.
Cam got off of her boyfriend’s chest. “Alright, that’s enough PDA from you two tonight.”
The two lovers stopped kissing and cuddled instead.
“Can I have a turn?” Bit asked Noah. He nodded his head.
“Alright… Cam! Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Did you steal my last cigarette?”
Cam twiddled her thumbs while she thought on her answer. “Yeah, sorry.”
Bit shot Cam a smug smile. “I fucking knew it was you!”
“Listen, I was out okay? You still had one left and it was right there, taunting me,” Camomile replied defensively. “I said I was sorry.”
“Yeah whatever,” Hibiscus replied, not buying it. “You owe me a new pack of smokes.”
“Fair.” Cam replied with a shrug.
“Ok my turn!” Noah said as he rubbed his hands together excitedly. He looked around the room, looking for his prey, when his brown eyes landed on me. “Mar, truth or dare?”
“Hmm.” I hummed as I pointed my finger on my chin. Spill a juicy truth or do a fun dare? I chose the latter.
“Dare, and make it a good one.” I say, feeling adventurous.
“Alright then,” Noah said cheekily as he accepted my challenge,” I dare you to open the closet. That’s right, the closet.”
The room went into a stunned silence. All of our significant others, except for Bit’s since she was single, knew of the closet. Of course they were always intrigued about the closet’s contents, but knew better than to pry.
My heart sank to my stomach. I didn’t think I’d be able to do this dare. My whole life I’ve been forbidden from opening the closet, not to mention how much effort would go into opening the thing. My sisters and I didn’t even want to begin to think of the consequences of opening that door growing up. It was simply never an option, and yet there I was, given an impossible dare.
Hibiscus, Daisy, and Camomile all stared at me intently. I felt a few beads of sweat start to slide down my face from the pressure as Noah stared at me, awaiting my answer.
“Fuck it.” Was all I said before getting off the couch and heading for the closet, which was located downstairs in our basement (I know, triple the creep factor, am I right?). A dare was a dare and I wasn’t going to pussy out.
My sisters and their boyfriends eagerly followed me, hyping me up to see if I’d actually do it. In no time I was facing the ominous door. It felt like it towered over my five foot frame, but in reality it was only like a foot taller than me.
I took a step closer, wrapping my hands around the heavy piece of wood that was bared across the door.
“A little help here?” I asked, struggling to lift the wood.
“Nuh-uh. No way. Your ass is grass when mom and dad find out you opened the closet.” Bit said as she watched me struggle. Cam stared at me, amused.
“It won’t ever be opened if I could lift this damn piece of wood!” I retorted back, frustrated.
Rick finally stepped in to help. “Here.”
With our combined efforts, mainly Rick’s, we got the first obstacle off the door. I then unraveled the chains that were crisscrossed around the door. All that was left were the three locks, which can only be locked from the inside. Of course neither of us had the key. Our dad always had the thing in his possession.
“Quick, Bit, give me two of your bobbie pins!” I said, thinking quickly on my feet. My sister fumbled with her long, artificially dyed, blue hair that she’d put up into a bun before retrieving the hair pins. She handed them to me.
“What exactly are you going to do with that, Mar?” Cam asked me.
“Isn’t it obvious?” I replied back as I bent the pins straight.
“She’s going to lock-pick the locks, duh!” Daisy replied in a mocking tone.
Cam just scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, no shit Sherlock. What I meant was, what’s Mar going to do? She can’t pick a lock to save her life.”
I jammed the bobbie pins into the first lock before poking one around while keeping the other steady. A second later the first lock unlocked with a satisfying click.
“What was that?” I asked, coyly.
I smirked at the astonished look on Cam’s face. “Where the hell did you learn to pick a lock?!”
“A magician never reveals her secrets.” I said with a wink before moving on to the second lock. In reality, Bit taught me one night when we were bored. She taught herself how to pick a lock so she could sneak into the liquor cabinet our parents had.
Not even a minute later and all three locks had been disengaged. I had wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans before putting my hand on the handle and twisting it open. It was nerve wracking just imagining all the possibilities that could’ve laid behind that door.
The first thing I noticed was the smell. It was warm and stale, but had the slightest hint of decay.
I had to blink twice and rub my eyes to make sure I was seeing things right. “A-are you guys seeing this too?”
“If you mean a person’s skeleton, then yes.” Daisy said despondently.
I turned to look behind me. Everyone stared in shock at the skeleton. It still had bits of dry, leathery, skin still clinging to it, but mostly the flesh had decayed and flaked off. The person must’ve been a girl going by the pink floral dress it was wearing. That wasn’t the eeriest part though. The backside of the door had scratch marks all up and down it, which meant the person most likely died in there trying to claw their way out. There were also these little symbols painted in white all over the walls and even the door, painted over the scratch marks. The symbols looked like little runes meant to keep something in… or something out.
“Jesus Christ!” Bit yelled as she brought her hand to her mouth.
Noah didn’t say anything and just booked it up the stairs.
“Noah, wait!” Cam yelled after him. In a last second motion, I grabbed her wrist.
“W-whatever you do, make sure he doesn’t call the police.”
“Marmalade, I-“ she hesitated as she looked between the basement stairs and the skeleton in the closet.
“Just make sure, ok!” I yelled frantically. With that Camomile flew up the stairs after her boyfriend.
I quickly grabbed the closet door and slammed it shut, sliding my back down against it. I lowered my head into my knees.
“W-what are we going to do?” Bit asked.
“There’s got to be a reasonable explanation as to why that’s in there.” I conclude.
“There’s a dead body that’s been locked in that closet for who knows how long!” Rick yelled. “If your parents have been guarding that rotting corpse all these years, there’s only one logical conclusion as to how that person got trapped in there!”
“We’ve got to call the police!” Daisy shouted, agreeing with her boyfriend.
“On Mom and Dad?” I questioned hysterically. “No way! Daisy, you know they’d never hurt a fly!”
“Then how would you explain that? They’ve got a point, Mar.” Bit chimed in.
“Bit you’re the oldest!” Daisy exclaimed. “What do you think we should do? I- I’m at my wits end here.”
“Me? Why are you asking me that?!? So what if I’m the oldest! I’m not the one that put that down here!”
As the three started fighting amongst each other in the chaos of the situation, I stood up and came to a decision. I opened the door, getting one last good look at the skeleton. I slid my finger along some of the scratch marks, accidentally chipping the paint from one of the symbols off, before reengaging the locks. I then slid the chains back in place, and somehow found the strength to put the piece of wood back over the door.
“Mar, what are you doing?” Bit asked after taking notice of my actions.
“Nobody is calling the police. At least not until we get Mom and Dads side of the story.” I announce. “We can figure out where to go from there, but until then, the skeleton stays put.”
“Yeah like that’ll bode well.” Daisy scoffed. “Hey Mom, Dad! We went into the forbidden closet you told us to never enter and found skeletal remains. Care to explain?”
Bit took a step towards me,” Maybe she’s right, we should wait until we have heard mom and dads side of the story.”
Suddenly, Cam came barreling down the stairs. “Noah isn’t going to call the police, but he left to go clear his head. We’re going to meet back up at our place.”
Bit then informed Cam of the plan.
“I’m telling you, this isn’t going to go the way you’re expecting, Marmalade.” Daisy said as she waved us all off. “But whatever, I’m going home.”
Rick and Bit both followed her upstairs since they all lived together and drove here in the same vehicle.
“I better get out of here too.” Cam said before making her way back up the stairs.
Then it was just me, all alone in the basement, with the skeleton in the closet.
I’ll figure something out. An opportunity is bound to present itself. I’d thought to myself as I made my way upstairs too. I stared at the bottom of the menacing basement stairs before turning the light off and closing the door.
Luckily I didn’t have to wait long for said opportunity, in fact, my parents were the ones that called the family meeting.
It was the morning after, about eleven am, when I was awoken by my phone buzzing. After rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I checked the caller ID and found it was my father. After picking up, all he told me to do was go to their house for an emergency family meeting. I reluctantly agreed, remembering the previous night’s events.
Within twenty minutes, fighting off dizziness and fatigue just thinking about the night before, I was dressed and out the door. I was the last one to arrive. My mother had prepared brunch. The meal sat on the dining room table as my parents, Hibiscus, Daisy, and Camomile sat in their respective seats.
“Glad you could join us.” My father said unsuspectingly.
I nodded my head as I sat down next to Cam. “Thanks for brunch Mom, it looks delicious.”
“You’re welcome dear.” Was all she said.
“H-how was the casino?” Cam asked, nervously.
Instead of responding, my father prompted us girls to start eating. All three of us reluctantly did. Eventually my parents started eating too.
I was so sick from the nervousness, waiting for the other shoe to drop, that I barely touched my plate. Daisy looked way too hungover and pissy to be dealing with this shit so early in the morning. I could tell she just wanted to get back to bed.
“You know,” my father started after the tension in the room crescendoed into a fortissimo,”our family hasn’t always been the brightest or the best, but we’d do anything for each other, right?”
A murmur of yeses filled the room as we all stared at our plates. They knew something was up. Parents always know somehow.
“Good. It’s good to know that.” He took a bite out of one of the biscuits my mother made. “Now listen girls, I’m about to tell you a story. I want each and every one of you to pay attention, alright?”
We all nod our heads. My mother clears her throat and adjusts herself uncomfortably.
“The ‘accident’ where my parents, brothers and sister died, your grandparents, aunt, and uncles, was not an accident.” My father confessed.
The room went eerily silent as we all processed his words. Growing up they told us his family passed away in a tragic car accident. My mother once admitted he felt guilty that he had been staying over at a friend’s house when it happened, and that he should’ve been with them. We grew up in my fathers family’s home, so we’ve seen our grandparents, aunt, and uncles photos. So growing up we knew who they were and what their fates were, but now he’s telling us that was all a lie?
“My mother had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. And like I said earlier, my father would’ve done anything for my mother, including selling his soul to a demon.”
He said it with such seriousness, but I had to try really hard to hold in my laugh. Selling your soul to a demon? People can’t possibly think that’s a real thing they can do, right?!?
“You can’t be serious.” I heard Bit whisper under her breath.
“Extremely.” My dad replied, glaring at my oldest sister.
“Again, my family wasn’t the brightest. My parents somehow gathered the right information and ingredients to summon a demon and when it showed itself, they made a deal. The demon agreed to cure my mother of her disease and my father shook on it immediately before even hearing the other part of the deal. He believed he sold his soul. Instantly my mother was cured of her cancer. Then the demon revealed what he wanted. It wanted a soul alright, but not my dads. It wanted the soul of one of their children. The demon wanted my parents to kill one of my siblings or I in exchange for my mothers life.”
I brought my hands to my gaping mouth. My breath hitched in my throat. What a horrible thing! I felt a tear fall from my eye. There’s no way any of what he was saying was real! This all had to be one sick joke on my parents part! But my dad… he was being so stoic and serious, the complete opposite of the wise-guy I know who was always cracking jokes.
My mother buried her face in her palms as she silently sobbed. What they were saying, it couldn’t be true, could it?
My father took a second to collect himself. “Upon learning what the demon wanted, my father and mother both refused. My mother begged the demon to give the cancer back to her, but once a demon has started a deal, they can’t go back on it. Because my parents refused to murder one of their children a curse was unleashed upon our bloodline. First my father died from a sudden stroke. Then my oldest brother, Tommy, got hit by a truck on his way home from school.”
A pained expression filled my fathers face as he recollected the tragic events. When he closed his eyes, it seemed like he was back, relieving the moment. Yet he pressed on,”Our mother broke down and told us the truth, but It wasn’t until we saw a dark shadow take Tommy’s body away that we believed her. Not long after we figured out the pattern, but to be sure, we had to use my other brother, Fenris, as the test subject. When he came down with a terrible flu a few days later my sister and I knew. The Demon was killing us from oldest to youngest, but couldn’t move on to the next victim until it had the body of the previous.”
My mind went a bit hazy as I processed everything my dad was telling us. I felt unbelievably queasy and got up when I felt vomit make its way up my throat. I hacked what little brunch I had eaten into the kitchen sink.
My mother came to check on me and walked me back to my seat with a wet compress on my forehead. She handed me a water bottle before going back to her seat. My father shot me a sympathetic look before continuing with his story.
“While Fenris continued to decline, my sister, Rosy, and I found the spell book my father used to summon the demon. We found protective runes in it and decided to create a warded chamber that would protect the body of the last victim. If the demon didn’t have the body, the curse couldn’t progress. On the night Rosy and I finally finished getting the wards ready, we slipped into Fenris’s room and drug him downstairs to the basement. I can still remember the feeling of his cold sweaty palms in mine as I tugged his delirious body down the stairs. Unfortunately for us, he had grown too weak and the strenuous activity of dragging his limp body down the stairs was too much for his heart. He died of a heart attack at the bottom of the stairs.”
My father wiped a tear that had escaped from his eye. Another one fell, but he didn’t bother to wipe it away. He was squeezing my mothers hand for comfort now. “Rosy and I grieved for our brother and sobbed in each other’s arms. The demon was quick to move onto the next victim. Rosy, being younger than Fen but older than me, started suffering from an asthmatic attack, spurred on by our sobbing. Thinking quickly, I grabbed her free arm and made a run for the basement. Rosy was too busy scratching at her throat to notice I’d shoved her into the closet we turned into a protective tomb. When she started scraping at the closet door, begging for air, I almost broke and let her die in my arms. I was young then, too young to care about my fate. The only thing I knew was that my family was dying. That thought is what kept me going. I realized that she was going to die no matter what, but there was still a chance to save myself, save what was left of my family. Back then it was just a simple lock on the closet that I turned with ease. But now, as you’ve seen it, I keep that closet heavily locked and hard to get to.”
Daisy broke out into a sob with Cam joining her. Hibiscus tried to comfort the both of them. I tried to keep from puking again.
“Obviously I’m still here, so that means our plan worked. That just left my mother and I to guard the closet with our lives. That is until she killed herself. She couldn’t bear the loss of her husband and three oldest children and was guilt ridden that she made it out alive. Since she was cured of her cancer, she found another way out. A bottle of bourbon and my dads revolver. Now it’s just me and it’s been my job to keep that closet locked and protected for the past forty-three years.”
“How do you know all this?” Daisy asked, wiping a tear from her face.
“Because the demon showed me a vision. Once it learned I had outsmarted it, it taunted me with the truth.”
Out of the million racing through my brain, I asked my first question. “How did you know we went into the closet in the first place?”
My father took another bite of his biscuit and chased it down with some water before pulling out his keyring. He twirled it around his finger. “I check to make sure my sister is still in there three times a day.”
That answer chilled me to the bone. I could tell it shocked my sisters too.
“Listen, your mother and I are not mad.” He took the last big bite of his biscuit as my mother nodded in agreement. “In fact, I understand that you all cough might be confused as to what you’ve found, hence why I’ve told you this story today.”
He took another sip of his water. “So please, just tell me where you girls moved the body. cough. cough.”
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. I left the forbidden closet just as I had found it last night. None of us, that I know of, moved the body. Hell we wouldn’t have wanted to touch the skeleton if we wanted to! “Dad, what are you talking about? We didn’t move the body.”
I quickly stood from my chair and marched towards my father. I ripped the keyring out of his hands and marched for the basement door. Bit and Daisy got up to follow me as my father continued in his little coughing fit.
Bit helped me move the piece of wood off over the fortified door and Daisy removed the chains as we set the wood down. I used the key to unlock the locks and pulled the door open.
A loud thud came from above us. “Quick call nine-one-one!” My mother screamed.
I took a step back, fighting the urge to pass out. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The closet was empty and the skeleton was gone.
At first I thought it was my vision going hazy from shock, but I knew it was something in the corporeal world when Bit let out a small shriek. A dark ominous shadow appeared out of nowhere, and I’m fairly certain that it belonged to the demon that cursed our bloodline.