There’s something odd about my grandmother’s house. Something about it that I don’t like. I have vague memories from when I’d last visited, a little over ten years ago, each blurry recollection discoloured with discomfort.
My mother and I step through the gates. I shiver the moment my foot makes contact with the ground on the other side.
I’m probably being paranoid. Mummy hates coming here, too; her disquiet is probably bleeding into mine, making the house seem more sinister and unwelcoming than it is. I’m not sure why we even came; since the last time, Mummy has had nothing nice to say about Mama.
A tiny voice tells me our visit might have something to do with my—with themadness. How it has gotten worse the past few days. How the hunger has become practically unbearable.
Last night, when I’d gotten home, the meat in my mother’s stew had been practically raw. I’d grown claws, too out of control to stop it.
Mummy had noticed. I already felt the brutal pain of a hammer coming down hard on my knuckles, splitting my bones apart—of a sinfully sharp blade sinking repeatedly into my flesh through the spaces between my ribs.
But all she’d said was, “Eat.”
I hadn’t been able to sleep all night. An injured bird had cried pitifully outside my window. I’d bitten my tongue until I’d nearly sawed it in half. Squeezed my right thumb in my left fist until I’d ground the bones to dust. When Mummy had seen me this morning, I knew she was aware of my struggle. Shealwaysknew when I lost control, ready with a brutal reminder of what happened when I did.
But once again, she hadn’t reacted. She hadn’t punished me.
I don’t know what’s happening. How I’m losing control so easily after everything I’ve been through. After all the years I’ve spent perfecting it.
A part of me, though I don’t want to face it, is afraid it has something to do with Rosemary. We’re graduating soon. For some reason, my panic at what we’re going to do—how I’m going to keep her—seems to be mixing with the hunger, worsening it, like a knife twisting viciously in my gut.
I refuse to think about it. Not here. If my mother catches even a whiff of this secret friend I’ve had forthreefucking years—she’ll destroy it, destroyher.
As we’d left the house, I’d heard a rat in the bushes. The sound of its rapid heartbeat. Its rushing blood. My mind escaped my grasp like a fly before I could crush it, rushing back to the time I’d sank my teeth into one when I’d been five or six, the pure euphoria as all that warm blood had spilled into my mouth, down my throat. The memory of my mother staring down at me with disappointment and disgust.
She’d sat me down at the dining table, and dropped yet another rat caught in a trap, the poor thing squealing to be put out of its misery.
The “madness” had taken hold before I could blink, and I’d hungrily reached out.
She’d broken all my fingers. Waited the few minutes it took for them to heal, each bone snapping back into place while I screamed and sobbed and trembled, the betrayal and confusion worse than the pain.
Then she’d done it all over again. Then again and again until I realised she broke only nine fingers when I stopped crying out. Eight when I stopped flinching. Then none when I no longer responded at all.
I don’t outwardly react to the memory, but my mother still somehow senses a shift in my disposition. A side effect of her training means she’s abnormally attuned to every minute change in my emotions, even if I never outwardly show them any more.
“It’s just for the weekend,” she says briskly, misinterpreting the reason for my discomfort. I don’t correct her.
My grandmother’s form, tall and imposing, waits on the veranda. Unlike my mother, who’s similarly built as me, her body sinewy with muscle, my grandmother is tall and thin. Her completely gray afro looks too heavy for her head, pulled into a loose bun that’s almost as big as her skull. Her skin is a shade darker than mine and Mummy’s, hanging a little bit from her flesh and bones. She’s only in her late-sixties, but somehow, I’ve always thought she looks and feels much older.
“Hello, darlings,” she greets. Her smile is wide, but doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Mama, eredwo,” Mummy and I greet.
“Ehen, dwo-dwo. Come in, come in. How was your journey?”
“It was fine, mama.”
We stop in the foyer. I try to sharpen the blurry recollection of when we’d last come here, but they pass through my fingers like smoke. Standing inside the house, though, for some reason, makes the building itself feel more vivid. I could draw out a map, that’s how strong the impression is.
The vague memories show me running through the halls, trying to entertain myself. Playing alone in the back garden. Sitting stiffly at the dining table for every meal, the gentle scrape of cutlery loud in the uncomfortable silence.
“You go on and unpack your things,” Mama says to me. “I need to speak privately with your mother. You can take the second bedroom upstairs. You remember where it is, yes?”
I nod, grab our things, and make my way up.
There are three bedrooms upstairs; my grandmother’s, my mother’s, and a spare. I remember there being a guest bedroom downstairs, but I don’t think it has ever been used. At least, not while I’ve been here.
I drop my mother’s bags in her room, then mine in the other bedroom. Then I saunter into the upstairs living room to watch some TV while they talk.
