The Violet Hour by Whitney A. Miller

sneaking feeling twisting its way through my guts that we were about to find out just how not Swizzle Stick it really was.

    I gasped awake in the middle of the night, an iron fist of panic gripping my heart. The bedroom had an eerie glow. It was silent except for the soft moaning sounds Mercy made in her sleep, as if her conscience awoke in the night to cry for release.
    A shuffle sounded outside our door. Every muscle in my body froze in place, as if that might protect me from whatever dark shadow was blocking the light of the door crack.
    A palm beat against the door— swap, swap . Someone was out there. And it was as if they knew I was awake; the soft beat was barely audible. I wanted to fake sleep and pretend this wasn’t happening.
    Swap. Swap.
    Dora’s leg thrashed in her bed and her glasses shmooshed up against the pillow. She was always forgetting to take them off before going to sleep. Other than that, nobody stirred.
    What was the worst it could be? Madam Wang offering me more tea? Adam coming to apologize for dropping Mercy off at our room past midnight, her hair messed up and cheeks glowing?
    Swap. Swap.
    Whoever it was, they weren’t going away. I climbed out of bed and padded softly to the door. Swap.
    The thump vibrated through the wood. It hadn’t come from the height where my hand was, I realized. It was much lower. Why would someone bang against the bottom of the—
    Mei Mei. It had to be the Wangs’ ghost of a daughter.
    I turned the doorknob and heard the soft scrape of feet moving back. There was Mei Mei, looking up at me. Her eye sockets were uncovered and her black hair was a reverse halo over her head. Slipping into the hallway, I let the door click closed behind me.
    Mei Mei held her hands out in front of her, silently, like she was reaching for me. There was something unnatural about her movements. Her mouth ticked nervously to the side. The salty scent of childish exertion mixed with the pungent odor of fear.
    She began to mumble something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. It sounded like her mouth was full of marbles. I crouched down, coming face-to-face with this little girl who seemed more like a caged and beaten animal than a human being.
    “Mei Mei, what is it?” I asked softly.
    She raised her finger, thin as a matchstick, and pressed it to the center of my forehead. I flinched, my forehead burning under her touch.
    “Help,” she said. The word sounded foreign in her mouth, as if she couldn’t quite form the shape of it.
    She was sleepwalking, as if in a trance.
    Her finger stayed pressed against my forehead. I was afraid to even breathe, lest I send her scattering to the wind. Whatever she had come to tell me, it was important.
    “Help who?” I asked.
    She shook her head. I gently grabbed her hand and moved it away from my forehead, clasping it in my own in what I hoped was a gesture of comfort. “Mei Mei. Help what?” I whispered.
    Her voice hitched. “Everyone will die.”
    It took a monumental effort for her to form these words, as if she were fighting every syllable. Her face went completely still. The two black craters where her eyes should be drilled into me. “She is coming. Bringing death. You see it. The virus.”
    A chill deeper than an empty well radiated through me. Mei Mei knew what I had seen. The visions. The boils, the vomiting of blood, the flesh falling from bone. Was it possible everything I’d seen was some grim portent of an impending future?
    Mei Mei again struggled to form words, wrestling them out. It seemed she was trying to break out of the trance. What had the Wangs done to her?
    “You hear her. Isiris wants you to return. You must fight or all will perish.”
    Isiris … the unseen presence Madam Wang had addressed. My heart was a kickdrum in my chest. “Who is Isiris?” I whispered.
    “You are not safe. None of us are.”
    I reached out to touch her shoulder. “Mei Mei. I’ll help you. But you have to tell me who Isiris is.”
    She