A Jar of Fingers is the Cozy Witch Horror Book We All Need Right Now

When she stood up the room canted oddly to the left, and her first thought was that her excavation had somehow caused the entire floor to collapse. Instinctively, her hands shot out for the edge of the table to brace herself, but she remained upright; the floor was level once more. The sensation left her with a sickening vertigo, and she managed a muttered, “What the hell ...?” before the room banked to the right this time, and she grabbed madly for the table again. 

Beneath her feet, separated by mere inches of wood and horse-hair insulation, she heard the demon chuckle, as though he were pleased to discover that he could still manipulate the humans even if he couldn’t escape from his basement prison. 

“Knock it off, you jackass!” Deegie gripped the back of the chair and the edge of the wainscoting, readying herself for another ride on the demon-go-round. She wasn’t sure how the foul creature was managing to play with her mind from the confines of the basement, but she wasn’t about to let it think that it was winning. The floor bucked and heaved. Deegie heard the creaking of the old wood as it strained against the square-cut nails. Although she was nearly knocked off her feet again, she knew it wasn’t real, and wondered how long she could put up with the demon’s ruse. She had wanted a house like this her entire life; giving up wasn’t an option. 

The illusions continued, and became even more mindbendingly realistic. The battery-operated clock on the wall melted and dripped in long yellow runnels, and the teakettle on the stove flapped its spout cover and clucked like a chicken. The room did another crazy, funhouse spin and the walls themselves began to run and distort as though they were made of hot taffy. 

“Nice try!” Deegie yelled. “Is that the best you can do, you second rate-demon? Pssh! I wear heels bigger than your balls!” She had no idea if there was any risk involved when it came to provoking a captive demon, but she was beyond caring. “You’re going to have to do better than that if you’re trying to scare me out of my house!” She braced her feet and prepared for another onslaught, reminding herself over and over that this wasn’t real, wasn’t happening except in her head. 

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The new stove and refrigerator became animated lumps of white enamel and chrome, which tore themselves away from the walls with horrendous wrenching sounds and trundled across the kitchen. The refrigerator’s door was now an obscenely flapping mouth that vomited groceries. Apples and oranges rolled across the floor, shrieking with tiny, toothless mouths, and the chicken she’d bought to make stew tumbled into a puddle of soy milk, tore free from its plastic bag, and flailed its naked limbs. It flipped over onto its breast and crawled towards Deegie with erratic jerks of its plucked wings and naked, truncated legs. Waves of nausea rushed her from all sides as a foul, open-sewer stench poured into the kitchen from a heating vent. She gagged and fought to control her gorge over this latest assault to her senses. The chicken dragged itself closer and reached out for her shoe with a questing wing tip.

“Nice sideshow, death breath.” Her voice dripped with scorn, but her heart was galloping crazily in her chest, and her breathing was quick and shallow, as if the air were scarce. As much as she hated to admit it to herself, the demon’s mind-bending antics were becoming too much to bear. She kicked the creeping chicken and sent it hurtling into the kitchen sink, where it flopped and writhed and emitted thick, burping noises from its empty body cavity. “You bore me, but I’ll be back. You can be sure of that!”