Satan's Affair

“‘I think he’s dead,’ Mortis comments dryly from behind me. I smile at his tone and glance over my shoulder, noting he’s adorned in his costume. I smile wider. He’s always in costume. All of my henchmen are. Always playing their part because this is what we do. This is how we eradicate evil from the world, one town at a time.”

Mortis’s comment pulls Sibby out of her fantasy, in which she is still mutilating and punishing a demon, reminding her that the person she killed is dead beneath her. For Sibby, Mortis’s sardonic tone and ever-present costume further integrate him into the fantasy, reaffirming that he is a part of her team in the effort to eradicate evil.

“That’s okay. I don’t need to be beautiful when I’m doing exactly what I was created to do. Not a single soul passes through the threshold of this house without me casting judgment—determining if evil resides in their soul. As they make their way through the maze of my dollhouse, I watch from inside the walls. They’re all judged. Every single one of them.”

Two key components in this passage are Sibby’s selflessness and her perception of her duty. She does not “need to be beautiful” because she is serving a specific role, but she also has a distinct obsession with her appearance and her possessions. Her make-up and knife are symbolic objects, representing her desire to erase her identity and protect herself. This focus then gets deflected outward toward the “demons” she kills, identifying them as the threat to her sense of self and the reason for her occupation.

“I don’t know all the sins that dirty a soul. The obvious rape or murdering someone for nothing else than one’s own gain or pleasure will taint a soul. But I don’t believe all of the demons have committed such heinous crimes. Some are smarter, keeping their darkness deep within. Some might peruse the dark web, jacking off to child porn or reading cookbooks on how to grill human meat…Or maybe they don’t do any of those things, but just simply desire to. After all, every crime begins with an innocent thought—a simple desire that’s nothing more than a kink or a what if. Until those desires evolve and become actions.”

Sibby’s thoughts here expose the dangerous slipperiness of The Ethics of Vigilantism. Sibby is willing to kill people even if they have not yet acted on their impulses, as she believes she has a supernatural ability to recognize the evil in their souls independent of any action.

“In every nook and cranny in the tunnels, spiders spin their webs. I wouldn’t dare swipe them down. I love spiders. I love what they stand for. Predators—no matter who or what you are. They’re viewed as dangerous and something to be feared. I’d want to be a spider. I’d love for my house to symbolize them one year so I can dress up as a spider queen and sink my teeth into a sinner’s throat. My anger abates as I fantasize, and the juncture between my thighs grows slick.”

Sibby’s identification with spiders matches both her actual life and the life she imagines herself leading. On one hand, she literally lives in the walls of the house preying on “demons” who enter her home, much like a spider with an added sense of justice. However, she wishes to be “viewed as dangerous and something to be feared,” which she cannot achieve while hiding in the walls. Instead, to be perceived at all, she would need to expose herself, which would inherently risk her safety. While Sibby is relishing her hidden self, she is also wishing that she did not have to hide.

“I didn’t want to see those girls, not much younger than me, end up as mothers. Just like Mommy did with me and my siblings. I was Mommy’s first born. She had let it slip before that she was only eleven years old. At the time, I didn’t understand the gravity of that information. The second it left her mouth, her eyes widened, and her face paled to a sickly gray color. She snapped at me to never repeat that to anyone outside of the Church—not that I’m even allowed to leave the Church. She pinched my hand until I promised her, pure terror shining in her eyes.”

This passage highlights both the severity of Leonard’s abuses and the confusion and moral ambiguity of Sibby’s position. As a child, Sibby lacks the context to understand the severity of Leonard’s many heinous abuses. Even after she develops a clearer understanding, she has no opportunity to tell anyone what is happening in the Saintly Baptist Church.

“Gary’s image flickers. I’m no longer staring at a greasy lowlife, but Daddy. Standing before me, looking straight into my eyes as if he can see me through the wall. A sinister smile growing on his portly face until all I can see, feel and hear is evil. I gasp, jerking away as familiar terror claws through my bones. Every time Daddy walked into the same room as me, the oxygen was sucked out and replaced with fear. I was the only one that ever stood up to Daddy, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared of him. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t fear for my life on a constant basis.”

Sibby’s hallucination that Gary is Leonard explains part of her delusion, in which every demon she kills is just a stand-in for her father. Her terror is uncharacteristic in the context of her self-perception, since she sees herself as a fearless demon-slayer, adding a layer of complexity to her duty. Implicitly, this passage reframes Sibby’s actions as a collective self-defense, acting out of a fear to protect herself and other women from the men who would abuse them.

“I reach toward her, but the wall hinders me. ‘Mommy?’ I whisper. Jennifer’s blonde hair bleeds to Mommy’s dark brown hair, and all I can see is a woman sobbing her heart out, praying for death. And then her blonde hair is back, and I can’t tell if the lone tear that trails down my cheek is for Jennifer or Mommy.”

Like her confusion of Gary and Leonard, Sibby’s hallucination that Jennifer is her mother highlights The Impact of Trauma on Psychology and Sexuality. In Freudian psychoanalytic terms, Sibby is experiencing transference—unconsciously displacing her past trauma onto present-day people and events. Just as she kills men because they “are” her father, she protects women because they “are” her mother. In each case, Sibby is reliving the moment of her mother’s death and the subsequent decision to kill Leonard. In repeating this act, though, Sibby is trying to undo the past to protect her mother, which she failed to do in real life.

“The last thing I need is to bring Gary out and someone stumble upon him. Then I’d have to commit the ultimate sin and kill an innocent person. I would go to Hell for it, and I’d accept that punishment if it meant I could continue my life’s work.”

Sibby balances two elements of her duty in this passage: the need to kill “demons” and the fear of committing a sin by killing an innocent person. She ultimately decides that killing an innocent person to protect her mission of killing demons is justifiable, but she also accepts that it will lead to her own damnation. In Sibby’s mind, this decision is selfless and altruistic, since she is sacrificing her own salvation to provide salvation to others. At the same time, she effectively creates a loophole for herself to kill anyone under the guise of a broader cause, raising questions about The Ethics of Vigilantism.

“He sniffles. ‘I raped her,’ he confesses on a pitiful cry. ‘She was my girlfriend! I didn’t think it was that big of a deal!’ My eyes widen as a thick film of red-hot rage contorts my vision. ‘Not a big deal?’ I whisper, shocked by his words. He stutters, not managing to get a coherent sentence out when he knows he just fucked up. I’m sure he can see it in my face. The absolute stupidity of what he just uttered.”

This passage is important because it highlights a real-life issue regarding sexual assault. Many people believe that sexual assault cannot happen in a relationship or marriage because of the tacit assumption of consent in those arrangements. In fact, until the 1970s, a husband could not be convicted of a crime for raping his wife in the US. In reality, existing relationships do not imply blanket sexual consent. Sibby’s retributive violence against Gary is intended to demonstrate how wrong he is to call his actions “not a big deal.”

“My eyes widen. It blows my mind that these things actually happen. I can’t understand how people could kidnap and rape boys and girls. Little innocent babies to teenagers. And then sell them and torture them in the worst imaginable ways. Sparks of anger ignite, my mind wandering to all the horrific things they probably do to those poor souls. Poor, innocent souls. Only a truly evil person could do something like that to a child. A baby. Only demons could do that.”

The discussion of human trafficking highlights Sibby’s limited moral scope in the text, in which she only really conceptualizes individual crimes with a clear victim and perpetrator. The human trafficking ring mentioned has multiple perpetrators and victims, which expands Sibby’s view of what “demons” do. A demon like Gary abuses one person, whereas a demon like Mark enables others to perpetually abuse hundreds or thousands of victims.

“Sometimes I wonder if she ever looked at me with love in her eyes when I was born. Before Daddy sucked her lifeforce away. What did she look like before him? Was she vibrant and full of life and love? Did she do everything with passion and ferocity? I want to know who she was before she let someone destroy her so deeply.”

Sibby attempts to deal with multiple layers of her and her mother’s abuse in this passage, considering both her relationship with her mother, her mother’s relationship to her father, and the responsibility of each party in the outcome: Sibby’s trauma. Ultimately, Sibby blames her mother for allowing Leonard to “destroy her so deeply,” making it seem as though Sibby’s mother is at fault for her own abuse. Part of this accusation is rooted in the question of whether or not Sibby’s mother “looked at [Sibby] with love in her eyes,” implying that Sibby, in part, does not believe her mother loved her, because she allowed Sibby to be abused by Leonard.

“‘That’s why you’re the only one that can stand up to Leonard. You have fire in you that I simply do not possess.’ She pauses and takes a deep breath, as if she’s gathering strength for what she’s going to say next. ‘Which is why you’re the only one who can stop him.’ My eyes widen as I stare at her with incredulity. She can’t be saying what I think she’s saying. She gathers herself and leans down into her nightstand. She pulls out a beautiful knife. The handle is a beautiful pink, the wood hand carved and ornate. It’s so…pretty.”

This moment is a key development for Sibby, in which her mother literally gives her the tools she needs to defend herself against Leonard’s abuse. Sibby’s mother identifies the mental tool that Sibby already possesses: determination. Combined, Sibby can use her strength and the knife to avenge her mother, which causes the development of Sibby’s conviction that she is a transcendental arbiter of justice outside the cult, as well. The knife is both a potent symbol of Sibby’s resilience and a reminder of the initial cause for her vigilantism.

“When I first started here, I made it a point to steal some tickets and get on every single ride. It was the first and only time I ever rode on roller coasters. It was freeing and exciting, being so high up in the air. Suspended hundreds of feet in the sky, in that small moment in time, was the only time in my life where I felt like Daddy couldn’t get me. I reveled in that feeling the entire night. Especially because I knew it was the last time I’d allow myself that pleasure again.”

Rollercoasters are often used to symbolize freedom or release, and, for Sibby, they fulfill this same role in a stronger capacity, as riding the rollercoasters symbolizes her escape from the cult. However, the key detail to note in this passage is the final line, in which Sibby says she will never “allow herself that pleasure again.” Effectively, this statement implies that Sibby intends to continue living as though Leonard is still a real and present danger to her life, but it also hints at the morality by which Sibby lives. Much like her reaction to the accusation that she used sex toys, Sibby seems to act in a rigid system of fulfilling her duty to “earn” pleasure, which she only takes from her henchmen.

“Momentarily, I feel awful. The father’s soul isn’t rotten and evil, though. He’s a strict father, but he loves his kid. That I can tell by the worry etched into the corners of his eyes as he walks away. His soul smells of a bonfire. Smoky, but not rotten. He just doesn’t know how to love the right way. But he’ll learn one day, when he pushes his son too far away and learns to regret his actions.”

As with Sarah, Sibby finds another person who is “bad” but not “evil.” The father is not treating his son well, but Sibby can tell that he is not like Leonard, meaning he is not abusive. Sibby’s ability to look at the whole situation to determine whether someone is a demon or not hints that her ability to supernaturally detect evil is real. Sibby still implies a punishment for the father if he continues to mistreat his son, but that punishment is outside Sibby’s jurisdiction, implying a broader, cosmic sense of justice.

“This isn’t just any man. This is a dangerous man. I inhale, and nearly choke on the scent of him. He doesn’t smell rotten, but he smells of fire and brimstone and something…sweet. Like…like burnt roses. He’s definitely not pure. But I can’t say he’s evil, either. At least not the same type of evil I smelled on the old man earlier.”

When Sibby meets Zade, her interpretation of his scent matches the moral ambiguity of Haunting Adeline, in which Zade’s character is more fully developed. Though he has the scent of fire and rot, he also smells like burnt roses, which evokes the same concept of “wilting” that Sibby applies to women like her mother or Jennifer. Rather than being inherently “evil,” Sibby senses that, like herself, Zade has plunged into immorality in order to save or protect others, which is the same kind of characterization H.D. Carlton gives Zade in her other works.

“No matter. Daddy has broken my nose a few dozen times. ‘You act like a demon, I’ll make you look like one, too, Sibel.’ I take a deep breath, position my hands and snap the bone back into place. I squeeze my eyes shut tightly, willing the tears to go back down. It doesn’t matter that I’ve felt that pain before, it still really fucking hurts.”

Sibby’s memory of her father after getting punched in the face by Zade lends clarity to her use of the term “demon,” which is revealed to be the insult Leonard used against Sibby. Much like most of Sibby’s worldview, even this term reflects how Sibby is trying to be the opposite of her father but cannot fully escape his influence. Like him, she identifies those whom she hates as “demons.” Critically, she notes that no amount of pain in her past can stop new pains from hurting her, showing how her progression as a character is hindered by her inability to break out of her cycle of abuse.

“Learning pressure points is the only thing I can thank Daddy for. He had a weird fascination with being able to debilitate or even kill someone with a single jab of his finger. All that power to ruin or end someone’s life in one small movement. I begged him to teach me, and despite the fact that I loathed Daddy, I spent hours with him for over a year until I learned every single point in a human’s body. I’m unstoppable. And when the scarred man and I are done killing off the demons, I will turn to him and serve him the same fate. I’ve already cast my judgement. And once I’ve made my decision, no one can stop me from carrying out my duty.”

This passage shows again how Sibby is not as different from her father as she wants to become. She uses the same techniques that Leonard used to control the cult, and she uses eerily similar reasoning. Like Leonard, who passed judgment on cult members according to his whims, Sibby has constructed her own system of judgment, applying the same kinds of punishment as Leonard did. Crucially, though, Sibby does not target weak people, rather targeting men who remind her of her father, like Zade.

“Normally, being told to calm down would heighten my anger, but the fact that he deliberately used my nickname—that he considers me a friend—is what ultimately calms my nerves. My henchmen are all I have. I don’t think I’ve ever had a real friend before. Especially not one that doesn’t cower from my calling in life.”

Sibby’s loneliness comes out in this passage, in which she seems to understand that her henchmen are not her friends. In the end, Rosie reveals that the henchmen are not real, and this passage implies that Sibby already understands that the henchmen are imaginary friends she created to help her loneliness. The idea that Zade could become Sibby’s real friend is almost overwhelming, and it ultimately dissuades her from killing him.

“I step towards him, readying my knife to plunge into whatever body part I reach first, but Zade stops me. His hand swings out, and he casts me a warning look over his shoulder. But I can see it in his eyes, too. The rage glittering in his yin- yang pools. The desire to torture this man until he’s pleading for death.”

When Zade stops Sibby, she looks in his eyes to see if he shares her determination to kill the demons, and she finds that Zade’s passion matches her own. Much like with Glenda later on, Sibby sees herself in Zade, though she does not understand how his methods differ from her own. Where Sibby operates on a simple scheme of finding and killing demons, Zade, like Mark, operates on a grander scale, in which hurting only one bad person is insufficient.

“I sit on the hood of his Mustang, staring at the lifeless buildings and rides scattered across the open field. It’s fascinating to see how haunting and desolate the fair looks when the occupants leave, and the lights extinguish. The same buildings and rides that are lit up with an array of colors now look as if they’ve been sitting on the muddy earth for centuries, devoid of life.”

The fair is a metaphor for Sibby’s worldview, which is often distorted and confusing, as the fair is during operating hours. However, when she sees the empty fair after hours, a time that she would usually spend inside the house, she sees how desolate the empty fairgrounds are. This realization is paired with the moment Sibby realizes she cannot keep Zade as a friend and remain at Satan’s Affair, forcing her to look at how empty her own life is.

“Sadness and anger consume me all at once. My anger is shooting off in so many directions, I’m not exactly sure who to aim it at. Zade? Or the demons we killed? Which of them alerted the police? Plenty of anger is directed towards the police officers. They’re trying to ruin my mission! The entire reason I was put on this planet, and police officers think they have a right to intervene.”

Sibby finds her emotions challenging, and she tries to figure out where to place her anger and sadness. None of the options she chooses, though, are herself, even though she later takes responsibility for her own life. Critically, she points most of her anger at the police, who fail to apprehend the types of demons Sibby kills and instead focus their efforts on capturing her and Zade, who are the real heroes of the text. This accusation—that the criminal justice system targets the wrong people—is as the heart of the book’s exploration of The Ethics of Vigilantism.

“She’s a conniving bitch that’s trying to convince me of false things. Over the past three months, she’s been trying to convince me I’m crazy. Talk of severe psychosis and delusions have fallen from her and the nurses mouths a few times. Dr. Rosie diagnosed me with a bunch of bullshit I wasn’t willing to listen to. I’m not fucking crazy, I’m enlightened! I’ve been doing a goddamn service to this world by getting rid of the evil. Who else was going to do it? That’s a question Dr. Rosie could never give me a straight answer to. She always spouts the same thing. That’s not for you to decide. You’re not the judge and executioner.”

As she does throughout the novel, Sibby is upset at the idea that she is crazy, but this passage is the only time she claims to be “enlightened,” implying that her supernatural abilities indicate a higher plane of thought. Sibby’s claim to enlightenment is quickly dispelled by her frustration at Dr. Rosie’s “lies,” which force Sibby to look at herself and her life with new clarity. Rather than look at her entire life, Sibby focuses on her vigilantism—the one aspect of her life in which she feels moral certainty. Dr. Rosie then becomes simply another detractor who is too weak to defend herself.

“Glenda stays quiet for a moment. ‘The outsiders—people that think they’re normal—they don’t understand people like us. We see the world for what it is. This Earth is layered, just like an onion, and we’re only living in one of those layers. Us—we see the other layers. The energies that exist in this world and all the ugly and evil that comes alongside it. These layers are thin and strong entities can walk through the cracks, into other layers and wreak havoc. They say it’s all in our head. But I think they’re just suppressed. The things we see—they’re not in our heads. They’re in our faces. In our lives. And sometimes, in our bodies. They just can’t see them.’”

Glenda, though different from Sibby in her spiritualism, relates to Sibby’s worldview by affirming the idea that “normal” people cannot see the evil in the world that Glenda and Sibby see. Rather than framing this extrasensory perception as mental illness, Glenda sees it as a side effect of a sick world, mirroring Sibby’s perception of “rotting” in evil people. Unlike Sibby, though, Glenda seems to sympathize with “normal” people, forgiving them for lacking the sight that she and Sibby possess.