“There are maps through your bones and skin,
to the way you’ve felt and the way you’ve been.”
—Christopher Poindexter
“Ipity you like I pity the Devil.”
My bones quiver, and the shackles slip against my sweaty wrists. It’s not enough to drown out Mama’s distant, throaty voice.
“You’ll suffer for conjuring his demons, little girl.”
I close my eyes, squeeze them hard, and shake my head.Get out, Mama. You don’t belong here.
“I’ll make it end. But only once your soul has been cleansed.”
Two hours. The grandfather clock across the room tells me I have been hanging from these chains for two long hours.
“You behave like an animal, and you’ll be treated like one.”
My knees knock together, a tremble running through them. I’m lightheaded and drenched in sweat, and I haven’t seen or heard a thing since Raife’s suit-clad back as he walked away. Not until that memory, now twelve years old, found its way back to me. Still echoing in my ears, it won’t leave me alone.
“But Mama, I—”
“Don’t you dare call me that.”
Teeth chattering against the harsh wind, I tried again. “I’m s-sorry, Agnes. I just—”
“Look at it.” Mama only ever spoke in whispers and snarls, yet her hushed commands struck me with more intensity than if she had raised her voice.
I shifted my feet, feeling my toes sink deeper into the fresh mud. Then I lowered my gaze to the painting that sat on the ground between us. Streaked with runny lines of red and black, paint blended together as the rain splattered my sketchpad.
“Face your twisted demons like you force me to,” she ordered, “because this will be the last time you ever summon them in this house.”
“But I’m telling you, Ma—Agnes. I didn’t summon any—”
Mama’s hand rose so quickly I flinched. She froze mid-air, fingers inches from my cheek, seeming to remember at the same time I did that she never hit me. She never touched me at all. I once overheard her tell Frankie to keep her distance because I could be contagious.
After a tense moment of silence blending with rain patter, Mama lowered her hand to her side. I knew better than to talk back. I did. But this was the most she had spoken to me in seven months, and my heart had filled itself with a silly fluttering sensation that felt a lot like hope.
Hope that maybe she’d listen.
Maybe she’d try to understand that the dark images muddled my brain until it hurt, until I had no choice but to let them out.
That maybe one day she’d look at me like she did Frankie. Not like she loved her—I didn’t know if Mama was capable of such an emotion—but even when she was disappointed in my big sister, even when she punished us, Mama looked at her with a spark I couldn’t place. A spark that I reminded myself would never flicker for me.
I admit, I didn’t make it easy for her. Frankie has always looked just like her, with their blond hair and brown eyes. And from the broken and confusing way my brain works, I was beginning to wonder if Daddy passed down much more than just his looks to me.
“Are you an animal, Emmy May?”
I sniffed and shook my head. “No, Agnes.”
“Are you rabid? Are you a stray? Have you not been cared for like a proper child under a roof protected by the Lord?”
“No, Agnes. I’ve been cared for well.”
“Then take a good, hard look at yourself and ask what kind of person would think up such horrors?”
I dropped my head, feeling a sob working its way up my throat. “I don’t know, Mama. A bad person?”
