My mouth opened, but nothing came out. Not even a squeak. She advanced, half-stumbling, half-floating, like a marionette whose strings had been slashed but not fully severed.
I wanted to back up, but my feet had become part of the floor.
She lunged, caught my wrist in a grip that was all bone and desperation. Her eyes—god, her eyes—were pure blacked out, a bottomless nothing that terrified me.
“You always wanted her gone. Don’t lie.” Her nails dug into my flesh. “You never loved her like I did. You just want to be the only one left, so you can finally get all the attention you thinkyou deserve.”
The words spilled out in a slurry, slaughtering anything in me that still felt like a daughter.
I tried to twist away, to pull free, but she just clamped down harder, breathing through her teeth. “I see you. Don’t think I don’t see you. You and your fucking secrets.”
My vision shimmered; for a second, I thought she might try to bite me. She shook my arm, wild, like she was hoping to rattle Lillian’s ghost out of my skin.
“Mom, stop.” I meant it to sound forceful, but it came out pathetic. An afterthought. The house echoed the panic in my voice, every surface reflecting back a more frightened version of myself.
She let go suddenly, sending me sprawling. I caught myself on the edge of the coffee table, breath punched out of me, pain jarring up my arm. She stumbled backward, arms flailing, nearly fell into the shards of glass on the kitchen tile.
She collapsed, boneless, at my feet, sobbing into the spilled whiskey. The wetness on her face was equal parts liquor and tears.
I stood over her, body vibrating with the shock of her words, her violence, the living ghost she’d become.
For a long moment, I wanted to leave her there, let her drown in her own mess, let the loneliness finish what Lillian had started.
But the sight of her, crumpled and weeping, twisted something inside me. I crouched, ignoring the sting in my cheek, and stroked her hair.
It was the same color as Lillian’s since she dyed it, and for a second I could almost believe I was comforting my sister instead of the monster who’d made us both this way.
She whimpered, curling in on herself. “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.” The words were wet and hoarse, her lips grazing my wrist.
I pressed my hand to the back of her head, willing myself to mean it. “I’m not going anywhere,” I lied, the words slipping out effortlessly with a sting of bitterness.
She was already snoring, shallow and wet, before I’d finished the sentence. I waited until her breathing settled, then peeled her off the floor and dragged her to her room, half-carrying, half-hauling.
She muttered something about Lillian, about how “she wasalways the pretty one,” and then laughed, a thin and colorless sound that scraped my insides raw.
I stripped the stained hoodie from her shoulders and rolled her into bed, then stood there for a long minute, just watching her sleep.
I wondered when the transformation had happened. When the mother I remembered had been peeled away and this broken, venomous thing left in her place.
I imagined her body decomposing right there in the sheets, sinking into the mattress one cell at a time until she merged with the house itself. I would find her one morning as a crumpled outline, a greasy silhouette on the sheets.
Maybe then I could finally say goodbye.
I left the room and shut the door quietly, careful not to disturb her. In the hallway, the air was rank with sweat and rotting fruit.
My hands shook as I scrubbed them under hot water at the kitchen sink, trying to scour away the touch of her, the sound of her voice, the words that had fused themselves to my bones.
THE PRESENT
AMELIA
The sun hung high in the sky, casting elongated shadows that danced across the forest floor like ghostly figures. Sounds of rustling leaves and distant animal calls filled the silence, but the tranquility felt like a cruel joke in the face of our grim reality.
Caiden and I had been walking for miles, our footsteps echoing in the stillness. Hours slipped by without a word being spoken between us, both too stubborn to break the silence.
It was as if we were caught in a standoff, too afraid to unravel the tension that had been simmering between us for years.
It had been almost a full day and a half since we began wandering, lost and disoriented, with no clue how to find our way back.
