My Darling Girl

A prologue set 37 years before the main story establishes the central dynamic. Eight-year-old Alison lies in bed as her mother, Mavis, crawls in beside her, smelling of turpentine and gin, and traces "I love you" on her back. The tenderness turns sinister: Mavis whispers that Alison is "too perfect for this world" and should have been drowned at birth to spare her from "the things that are to come" (2). She lifts Alison's pajama top and uses something sharp to carve a spiral into her skin. Alison opens her eyes, sees a shadow on the wall that does not match her mother's shape, screams, and reaches for a knife she has named Descender, a blade charged with a protective spell under a full moon.

In the present, Alison O'Conner is a printmaker and children's book author living in rural Vermont with her husband, Mark, an English teacher, and their two daughters: 16-year-old Izzy, a sharp-tongued goth who has recently come out as queer, and six-year-old Olivia, a ballet student preparing to play a mouse in The Nutcracker. Alison's career rests on a cheerful picture book called Moxie Saves Christmas, and she has made almost no progress on a contracted follow-up. It is December 1, Decorating Day, the annual tradition Mark cherishes most. Alison, who dreads Christmas because of her traumatic childhood, accidentally shatters a glass angel ornament inherited from Mark's parents.

That afternoon, Paul Deegan, Mavis's personal assistant of 15 years, calls with devastating news: Mavis has stage-four pancreatic cancer and only weeks to live. She is at a New York hospital and asking for Alison. Alison flies down, finds her mother skeletal and gaunt, and hears her request: Mavis wants to come stay at the farmhouse to die, hoping to mend their relationship in her final days.

Interwoven flashbacks reveal Alison's childhood. Mavis was once capable of warmth, organizing scavenger hunts and art lessons for Alison and her older brother, Ben. Everything changed after the death of her best friend, Bobbi Vanderhoof. Mavis began drinking heavily and became cruel; the cruelty deepened after the suicide of Alison's father, David Russo. Mavis berated her children, broke Ben's arm, and carved designs into both children's backs with a blade. Ben, now in California, refuses all contact with Mavis.

Mark argues this is their one chance for Alison to find peace and for the girls to know their only living grandparent. Alison agrees. Her best friend and neighbor, Penny, a therapist who lives next door with her wife, Louise, acknowledges the difficulty but does not discourage her.

Mavis arrives frail but elegant, quickly charming Olivia. She brings her most treasured possession: a piece of tourmalinated quartz, clear crystal streaked with black, roughly the size of a human heart. The stone belonged to Bobbi, who found it during a trip to the Yucatán Peninsula, where she dove into a reputedly haunted cenote, a deep natural pool in limestone. The stone became the subject of the painting that launched Mavis's career.

Disturbing incidents begin immediately. On her first night, Mavis wanders the house at 3 a.m., holding a TV remote to her ear like a phone and trying to call Bobbi. She tells Alison, "You're the one who isn't safe" (87). Olivia reports nightmares featuring Mavis in an altered form. A mass of black flies clusters in Izzy's room. Mavis imitates the screech of a dying blue jay, referencing a secret from Alison's childhood she has never shared: As a girl, Alison shot a blue jay and dropped it alive into a dried-up well in the woods. Mavis tells Alison her "true name" is Azha. When Paul returns for a visit, Alison overhears a heated argument. Paul rushes out, telling Alison, "That's not Mavis" (156). Mavis, who fell and injured herself trying to follow him, remarks that Paul has "gone off and lost his head" (158). That night, Alison learns Paul was killed in a car accident; he was decapitated when his SUV flipped down an embankment.

Alison searches "Azha" online and finds references to an ancient female demon depicted with a serpent's body and a bird's head, said to offer wealth and fame in exchange for a soul. She researches demons in secret and confronts the entity. It confirms it has possessed Mavis for decades, and when Mavis dies, it will need a new host. It tells Alison it wants her.

Izzy has been filming a documentary about Mavis's stay. In recorded interviews, Mavis reveals she was secretly in love with Bobbi throughout her life. Bobbi told Mavis to marry David, and the two women saw each other for a week each summer until Bobbi's death. Alison calls Carter Dixon, Bobbi's adult son, who confirms his mother was also abusive, talked to the stone, and carved the same symbols into his skin.

Alison drives to Woodstock, New York, to search Paul's belongings and finds Mavis's old red journal. Bookmarked entries chronicle Mavis's awareness of the possession: missing time, paintings she did not remember making, a voice that called itself Azha. The final entry reads: "David is dead. Suicide. But not really. Azha made him do it" (235). The journal references a "Spell for Binding" and a "pyxis," a vessel for storing the demon's essence. In Mavis's closet, Alison finds boxes labeled with her and Ben's names, each containing a child's hair, baby teeth, and a wax disc carved with the same symbol scarred on their backs. She realizes the scars are apotropaic markings, ancient protective sigils. Her mother carved them not to hurt her children but to shield them from the demon.

Alison confides in Penny, who rejects the theory as a trauma response. She then tells Izzy about Azha, explaining the demon needs a new host and may want Olivia. Izzy agrees to help. But Alison's behavior grows alarming. She sneaks into Olivia's room and draws sigils on her sleeping daughter's back with a permanent marker. Mark discovers demon research, frantic notes, and drawings Alison does not remember making. He also learns that the therapist Alison claimed to see for years never existed. Izzy, despite initially agreeing to help, secretly records Alison's confession about the demon and shows the footage to Mark. Mark arranges for Alison to be admitted to a psychiatric clinic on December 26. Alison agrees but privately resolves to stop Azha first.

On Christmas Eve, Alison steals the stone and drives to Woodstock. She retrieves Descender from beneath her childhood mattress and hikes to the old well, where she performs a binding ritual using salt, a candle, parchment inscribed with sigils drawn in her own blood, white string, and the knife. She drops the bound stone into the well and drives home. Mavis's condition deteriorates rapidly.

In the early hours of Christmas morning, Alison sits vigil at Mavis's bedside. Mavis's eyes snap open. Flies gather on the window. The entity mocks her: "Think you can get rid of me that easily?" (299). It taunts her, suggesting there may be no Azha at all, that Alison is simply losing her mind. Alison gives Mavis morphine without counting the drops, pulls out Descender, presses it to her mother's chest, and chants the binding spell. Mark walks in and sees her holding a knife over her unconscious, possibly dead, mother.

An epilogue set eight months later reveals the outcome. Alison has returned from six weeks at the clinic and is on medication. Izzy's documentary, Mavis, has won a prestigious award, and Izzy plans to attend UCLA film school. She shows Alison a "director's cut" with new footage: On Christmas Eve, Izzy and her girlfriend, Theo, followed Alison to Woodstock, and after Alison left the well, Izzy climbed down, retrieved the stone, and performed an unbinding spell. In the present, Izzy unwraps the stone from a cloth in her drawer. Speaking in a voice that is hers and not hers, she tells Alison that Mavis knew what Alison would try and told Izzy what to do, and that the demon chose Izzy when she was an infant. When Alison reaches for the stone, Izzy pulls it away and shifts to gentle concern, calling it "just a pretty rock Grandma gave me" and saying she is scared to see Alison "get these crazy ideas" (308). Mark appears in the doorway and asks if Alison has been taking her medicine, leaving the question of whether the possession is real or Alison is truly unwell chillingly unresolved.