Page 104 of The Monster and the Masochist

Slipping my hand into my suit pocket, I pulled out a Q-Tip I’d brought with me, and the familiar feeling of the small cotton swab immediately soothed me.

The Q-Tips might have stopped working for Father Samwell, but for general nerves and anxiety, it was still a useful tool to help ground myself.

Plus, it reminded me of my dad… who I wished more than anything could be here with me today.

Even if it was fake.

I rolled the Q-Tip through my fingers as my throat tightened against a sudden rush of confusing emotion, just as my mother billowed into the room.

She was in a more elevated version of her usual silk, modern-day Pagan-esque robes, with her long auburn hair pinned to her pixie-like head in a wispy updo.

She looked somehow both regal and whimsical, which is something only Iris Fairview could pull off.

She gave me a dreamy smile as she approached, though I didn’t miss the way her gaze snagged on the cotton swab I had clutched between my fingers.

Flushing slightly at being caught fumbling with my strange coping tool, I moved swiftly to shove it back in my pocket, but my mother’s warm fingers curled around my hand, halting the movement.

“Nothing wrong with activating a talisman in preparation for ritual. Especially one as important as this.”

“Uh… It’s just a Q-Tip,” I muttered like an idiot, but my mother just gave me a kind and patient smile, gently resting her palm on the side of my cheek.

“I know exactly what it is. I gave your father the idea to give it to you.”

I swallowed, my eyes burning at this new piece of information, and I nodded.

“Thank you. It’s helped me a lot.”

Suddenly, a rare display of sadness crossed my mother’s face, and her eyebrows creased slightly.

“You have always been harder for me to read than your brother,” she murmured, sliding her hand down from my face and placing it over my heart.

“You hide yourself from me. But I know you’ve been fighting a heavy darkness since you were very small.”

“I literally fight people for a living, Mom,” I grunted, not liking the direction this conversation was going.

That sad look on her face intensified, and I felt guilty for making my soft, perpetually unbothered mother look like that.

“You fight the living because you have not yet learned how to fight the demons in your heart,” she said solemnly, and the flush in my cheeks intensified. I cleared my throat and stepped away from her.

She let her hand fall, and I was grateful.

“This…” She reached for the Q-Tip in my hand and gently pried it out of my fingers. She held it up between us with the same reverence a priest might hold up the eucharist in church. “While powerful, it was never meant to be a permanent talisman. Its magic was manifested to help protect a small child from bad dreams. As we grow, our demons grow with us, and we sometimes need something with a little more… bite.”

Handing the Q-Tip back to me, she reached into the many folds of her skirt and pulled out a jewelry box.

Oh my god.

A ring!

I didn’t even think of a ring!

Cassandra probably already picked out rings… Or was I supposed to do that?

Fuck!

Iris popped open the first box, showing me what lay inside.

This ring was feminine.