Cackle

Madison asks if she can eat in Annie’s classroom as her friend, Beth, is absent, and she cannot stand the other students. Madison only has homemade kombucha, as she doesn’t believe in lunch. At the end of the period, Madison declares that Annie is the only cool teacher in the school, which makes Annie feel really good. She stops to buy a new cell phone on the way home, then goes to Simple Spirits for a bottle of bourbon. Later that week, Jill corners Annie, who agrees to a “double date” with Jill, her husband, Dan, and his friend, Pascal.

The next morning, Annie stops at the Good Mug on her way to Sophie’s, and Oskar warns her not to go. Some people go to Sophie’s, he says, and never return. He refuses to say anything more. Now, Annie’s body feels reluctant to move. She makes it to Sophie’s house, and Sophie complains that no one in town likes to celebrate Halloween because of her, and it’s coming up on Monday. Annie debates whether to tell her what Oskar said, and Sophie can tell she’s upset. Annie wonders if she’s allowed herself to ignore Sophie’s true nature.

Sophie insists that friends don’t keep secrets, and Annie tells her what Oskar said. Sophie sneers, surprised that he still blames her for his wife leaving him. She befriended Helen, a woman who was very young when she married Oskar and had Erik, and one day not long after, Helen left Oskar. When Oskar threatened to call the police, accusing Sophie of hiding Helen, Sophie threatened to harvest his teeth and make them into jewelry. Sophie reassures Annie that Helen resurfaced some years ago and is in regular contact with Erik.

When Annie watches Sophie dancing to Britney Spears, she wonders how anyone could fail to love her. Later, Sophie tells Annie to avoid the cellar, as that’s where she put the ghosts. Annie’s having too good a time to go home, so Sophie puts new lamps in her room along with a box of chocolates.

The next morning, Annie tells Sophie about the upcoming blind date, and Sophie tells her she needs perspective rather than a boyfriend. On Monday, Jill tells Annie that the date will be Friday night. Annie spends the week brainstorming excuses, but eventually accepts that she’ll have to go. When she gets home on Thursday, she finds a new dress hanging in her closet. There’s a note from Sophie telling Annie to have fun, and Annie actually starts to look forward to the date’s possibilities.

After school on Friday, Annie rushes home to get ready. She drives herself to the restaurant, which is kitschy. When Jill introduces Annie to Pascal, he’s a bit rude and she thinks he’s either shy or disappointed.

Throughout the night, Pascal doesn’t talk much, but Dan, Jill’s husband, asks a lot of inappropriate questions. He also makes several misogynistic comments that Jill finds endearing. Annie excuses herself to the bathroom and tries not to cry. She reads a series of messages graffitied on the stall walls, including one that seems addressed directly to her. She speaks aloud, asking if it’s Sophie, and the writing changes, telling her not to worry, that it’s only one night, and she’s okay. It says the night belongs to Annie, and she should take it back.

Back at the table, Annie considers taking the loss gracefully. Then Pascal gets rude and Dan gets nosy. He comments on her body, implying she’s too thin, and then he mimes vomiting, suggesting that she is bulimic. Jill playfully smacks him, but Dan suggests that Annie’s appearance is why Pascal is so quiet. Jill laughs, charmed. Annie allows herself to recognize how unbelievably rude Dan and Pascal are being. Dan doubles down, continuing to make comments about Annie’s body, and she begins to feel insecure.

Suddenly, Dan’s face changes. He reaches up to pull a small, thin bone from his mouth. He pulls two more bones out, each longer than the last, and his mouth starts bleeding. He’s eating sausages, and there should be no bones. Everyone is horrified. Annie starts laughing; she cannot control it. Jill yells at the server, but Dan isn’t seriously hurt. Annie leaves, singing a song about making someone hateful choke on bones so that she can “sing and dance alone” (192). She dances under the moon in her backyard before she notices that Lynn is watching her. Annie knows she should be embarrassed, but she isn’t. She waves to Lynn, who closes the curtains.

The next morning, Annie stops at the Good Mug on her way to Sophie’s. Oskar asks if she’s all right, and when she says she’s great, he shakes his head.

Later, when Sophie asks about the date, Annie is confused because she thinks it was Sophie she talked to in the bathroom stall. When Annie explains, Sophie insists it wasn’t her, and this makes Annie worry that she was hallucinating. She starts to feel embarrassed about her laughter, then remembers how powerful she felt. At first, Annie thinks she’s not herself right now; then she wonders if she’s actually the most “[her]self” she’s ever been. Sophie says Annie made the writing appear on the wall, not her.

They walk into town for pancakes, and Sophie drops a large spider called Ralph into Annie’s hand; Annie can see his big smile. When she asks if this is real, Sophie says that she can show her wonderful things about the world, but there are some things Annie must discover for herself. Annie marvels at all the things she used to think were impossible.

For the next several weeks, Jill and the rest of the faculty avoid Annie. Uncertain of herself after the Chris Bersten incident and the double date, she commits to her routine. During the week, school is life; on the weekends, she’s with Sophie.

Annie is aware that she has trouble sustaining her happiness when she’s alone. Sometimes, Sophie lets her take Ralph home for the week. Annie loves Ralph, and Ralph hates Sam. Whenever she looks at pictures of him, Ralph goes crazy. She’s beginning to dread Christmas, so she and Sophie agree that Annie will celebrate the solstice with Sophie, and Sophie will celebrate New Year’s with Annie. When Annie says New Year’s is “pathetic” as a single person, Sophie reprimands her again.

On the solstice, Sophie goes all out with food, drink, and new dresses for them both. Even Ralph has an outfit. Annie asks how the bathroom graffiti worked, how she made the bones appear. Sophie says that sometimes strange things happen. When Annie presses her for a more concrete answer, Sophie tells her that she has to “surrender,” but Annie doesn’t understand.

Before midnight, they go outside for a bonfire. Annie can feel someone braiding flowers into her hair, and she realizes it’s Sophie’s shadow. The next morning, Sophie suggests Annie stay for the week. On New Year’s, Sophie insists that they celebrate because it’s meaningful to Annie, and she reminds Annie that they are “free” and don’t “have to” do anything. She implores Annie to let Sam go, to stop the self-pity and recognize how much she’s gained since the breakup. Annie promises to try, and Ralph goes home with her.

Madison tells Annie that she never makes resolutions: When she wants to do something, she just does it. Annie realizes that she’s already close to breaking her promise to Sophie, so she stops on the way home to purchase ingredients for a beautiful meal. She makes it for herself and feels a new sense of contentment she’s never experienced. She closes her eyes, and it swims through her body.

When she opens her eyes, chicken bones rain down from the ceiling. She and Ralph are both shocked, and neither has any idea how she did that. Annie realizes that she is “magic.” She collects all the chicken bones and makes broth. Though she doesn’t know what she can do, she feels capable. She understands that she’s worth the effort to cook a lovely meal. She proceeds to teach herself to make lots of new things and realizes that not having to consider what someone else wants feels like a gift. She picks herself flowers in her dreams.

She compliments Madison, seeing how it lifts the girl up. She asks Sophie to cut her hair, and Sophie suggests something short. When her dead ends are gone, Annie feels liberated from her past, as though it was hanging on in her hair.

Oskar can tell something is different about Annie the next time she goes to the Good Mug, something more than her hair. When Annie walks into school, she sees—with horror—all the Valentine’s decorations, and they fall off the walls as she walks by. Reaching her desk, she gives herself permission to think about Sam. For one Valentine’s Day, he made her fortune cookies with personalized fortunes inside. She’d saved them in the same folder as her passport and birth certificate, as though they were proof of her identity. She can’t believe she used to feel that they were so important.

The next time she sees Oskar, he asks about her plans for Valentine’s Day, and Annie says she’ll be making herself dinner. He asks if Sophie lets her be alone, and she realizes that he still harbors his grudge. Annie says how incredibly lucky she feels to have been befriended by Sophie, and Oskar says Sophie’s no one’s friend. Annie must believe in Sophie because she knows how similar to Sophie she is: Her coffee cup floats into her hand, to Oskar’s horror. When he calls Sophie a “plague,” Annie says simply that he should move.

She leaves with confidence, but it dissipates as she drives to school. She realizes that what she’s really concerned about is Oskar’s view of her. Annie begins to doubt herself. She thinks of how she didn’t choose to be single, she got dumped and now she’s trying to make the best of it, but she would still rather be in a relationship. She feels an overwhelming sense of dread.

Annie awakens on Valentine’s Day with renewed resolve. She gets coffee from the Starbucks and goes to the store. At home, she makes herself a lovely dinner, but a “malevolent” voice in her head taunts her about being “pathetic.” She thinks about Sam and his new girlfriend, and it kills her appetite. Instead, she sits down with an entire chocolate cake.

She hears her phone buzz, and it’s Nadia. They start chatting, but when Nadia mentions a new love interest, Annie shuts down. It turns out that this man sounds a lot like the one the psychic said Nadia would meet and fall in love with. Annie worries that the psychic’s predictions for her could come true as well, and she suddenly notices a spider “swarm” crawling down her window, and she cries out to them to stop. They disperse, and she collapses onto the floor.