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Setting her eyes on me for the first time in almost a day, she takes in the wet knots tangling my hair and the blood pooling around me. “Maude! Are you fucking kidding me?” Bending to her knees, she grabs my wrist, ripping it away from my chest before yanking off the worthless, makeshift bandage. Blood begins oozing from the slash again. Thankfully, the stream isn’t as aggressive as it was before.
Ignoring the fury rising in her gaze, I go to stand, but my numb, aching limbs and frozen muscles send me back to the ground with a punishing thud. I don’t have the strength or energy to catch myself before my face connects with the floor, busting my lip in the process.
Little white dots dance around my eyes as my mother comes to stand before me. Watching me from above, she growls, a wet rumble shaking her chest as she nods in disappointment. “Why do you have to fucking do this!? Why can’t you just be fucking normal!?”
Licking away the blood from my lips, I dip my head, almost certain I can hear his deep, soul-rattling laugh ricocheting around my skull.“You’re a Greene. A God. There’s nothing more you could ask for.”
“Get off the ground, Maude. You look ridiculous.” Her shrill, biting tone drowns out his memory, hurting me more than any wound ever could. I do my best to listen to her and pick myself off the floor, but my arms fumble, slipping and sliding in the growing puddles. I don’t ask for help, hoping she’ll be a mother and assist me while I struggle. After a few more laughs and a swift, subtle kick to my hands, she finally does.
Reaching down, she wraps her fire-red nails around my injury, pressing her claws in just slightly before yanking me up by the arm. The force of her jerk almost rips my shoulder from its socket, bringing tears to my eyes and a small yelp from my lips. I’m barely on my feet, fighting to keep my balance steady, before she pushes me back into the wall. This time, I keep my cry to myself when my head connects with the stone, biting my tongue between my teeth while she gets in my face. “Stop that fucking bleeding before you come up. I don’t want to see your nasty tracks on my floors. Understand?”
Nod.
“I asked if you understood, Maude. Use your fucking words. Or are you too stupid for that?”
“Yes, Mother,” I rasp, rolling my eyes to meet hers. “I understand.”
“Good.” When her hand releases my skin, she’s coated in me. It disgusts her, my blood on her body, but he loved it. He couldn’t get enough of the silky redness coating his length or the rich iron flavor on his tongue.
I don’t cry for my mother or the pain she caused me. I let the tears fall for the man I crave, for the man who would look at my wound with a wolfish grin and open me farther. Shuddering out a sigh, I prick at the forming scab, needing to feel him before I’m forced to shove thoughts of us away. Quickly, more blood pours from my gash, staining my skin and leaving gory imprints of my feet as I dawdle to climb up the stairs after her. When I finally make it up the steep flight of crumbling wood, leaving the very tracks she warned me not to, she’s waiting for me with a straight, pinched face, studying me as I emerge from the darkness with a glass of swirling amber liquid in her shaking hands.
“Get rid of that disgusting dress.”
As she demands, I peel off my stained, torn chemise, letting it fall from my fingertips to my feet. While it flutters into an airy pile, the floorboard groans in front of me. Keeping my eyes on the dirt caked under my toenails, I hold my breath, knowing Mother is lurking closer. She likes to think of me as prey, so I let her, waiting, listening for her gnarled, ragged breathing as the ground subtly shifts. I know she’s at the tips of my toes when the hairs on my arms rise with agitated shivers.
Ready for the screaming to start, I stand still, ramrod straight, as her hand clenches around the wound in my wrist. Dancing two fingers along the congealing scab, she hisses sharply between her teeth, burying her nose in the crook of her shoulder. “You smell like fucking shit, Maude. What were you doing? Rolling around in your filth?”
“I’m sorry.” It’s all I can do to apologize. Someone needs to take the blame, and I know it won’t be her for leaving me down there.
Spearing her hand through my tangled, onyx hair, Mother rips my head back, exposing the long column of my neck to the open window across the room. “Is that what you were doing, Maude? Playing around in your bloodandthe mud?”
“No. I-I said I’m sorry,” I repeat, gazing at the empty, dead fields surrounding our decrepit trailer. Long trunks of pine trees used to tower into the sky, shading our home from the light as well as the wanderers who pass by. Now everyone who looks in can see the insanity swirling in my mother's gaze.
Sniffing the air around me one last time, she pushes me toward the exit. “Get in the shower and wash that grime off you.” Her tone is cold but calm, a stark difference from the mother I had in the basement. The swift change in her attitude throws me off balance, tripping me up as I turn to leave the room. I sense her eyes on me the entire way, burning a hole into my back even as I round the corner. That’s something she and her brother have in common, their eyes. They’re everywhere.
The first night, after my mother dropped me off, it frightened me how I could feel my uncle in every part of the strange house. There was no privacy, nowhere to hide from his domineering presence. I didn’t know what to make of it in the beginning. How is it that he could be everywhere, yet nowhere, all at the same time? But I quickly lost whatever fear I felt when he pulled me into bed.
It hurt.
At that age, I had never had anyone push inside my body before. I never felt the sensation of my insides stretching in two. I cried into the sheets while he forced my face into the mattress, my body bouncing and shaking as he grunted against my back. Never had I felt such pain, but then his lips came down onto my skin. They grazed my trembling flesh and spoke such loving words, I felt the agony vanish with my cries.
From that moment on, I took everything he gave me and only cried because he loved it so much.
Once I’m in the seclusion of the bathroom, letting the memory play behind my eyes, I reach for the lock, momentarily forgetting my mother swapped the latches to the outside. She doesn’t trust me behind closed doors. If it were up to her, she’d remove every door in the house altogether, but then she’d suffer just as much as me.
Carefully, I remove my damp clothes, gingerly running the moist fabric over my congealed abrasion, so it doesn’t open again. It was a futile attempt. Once the scalding water hits my skin, the scab swells open, dripping pretty red dots into the porcelain tub. I watch, mesmerized, as they swirl with the water, the light pink hue vanishing with the steam.
What a waste.
CHAPTER TWO
Twenty minutes later, spotless, smelling of cherries, and no longer bleeding, I slip down the hall, covered in nothing but a scrap of a towel. Quietly, I hum to myself, a cheery tune I heard my uncle whistle once or twice.
Slipping into the bare room my mother graciously gifted me, I drop the towel, staring down at the long-sleeved pink blouse and a white skirt neatly placed on the sheetless mattress. Confused, I take a step back, leaning toward the entrance to listen more intently to the sounds coming from the house. Typically, I close myself off, not wanting to hear my mother screaming and complaining about what a disappointment I became, but today I hear something else.
Laughter.
And not just her own.
