by A. R. Wise
“This is where he lost my baby boy.”
The yard was abuzz with insects as Amanda walked up to the door. She had to push away the weeds as she went, and Alma stopped several feet behind, refusing to follow.
“Come on, Alma,” said Amanda as she stood at the door of the dilapidated house.
Alma shook her head.
“You don’t want to test me, little girl,” said Amanda with a vicious tone.
“I don’t remember anything about your son.”
Amanda was incensed and burst through the space between them, pushing the weeds aside like a lioness emerging from the brush to kill her prey. She latched onto Alma’s arm and jerked the ten-year-old forward, causing her to yelp in pain.
“He’s your brother! He’s your brother, Alma! I’ll make you remember.”
“I won’t do it!” Alma screamed.
Amanda threw the girl against the door, causing it to shudder on its hinges. Then she pulled her open palm far behind her head, ready to strike. Amanda paused, her face contorted in fury, her lower lip bleeding as she bit down on it. Her eyes resembled nothing of the woman that Alma had once loved. Her black eyes were devoid of a parent’s love.
Amanda slapped Alma as hard as she could. The force of the strike sent the little girl falling from the stoop and into the weeds that lined the house. She hit her elbow first and immediately felt the burning sensation of broken skin. The fall stole her breath and she gasped as she stared up at her mother.
A snake slithered through the weeds, just as scared of Alma as she was of it.
“Don’t fight me on this,” said Amanda, unfazed by her daughter’s gasps for breath. “I’m not crazy!” She screamed as if defending her honor to an affront that no one had made. “I’m the sane one! I’m the only one that remembers my little boy! You’re the one that’s trying to hide him from me, but not anymore. Not anymore. Get up. Stop wheezing. You’re fine.” She reached down and plucked her daughter up.
Air returned to Alma’s lungs and she doubled over as she coughed. Amanda cursed at her and then tried to open the door, but it was locked. “Fuck. Well, it looks like you’re going in through the window.”
“What?” asked Alma with a hoarse voice.
“Help me find a big stone,” said Amanda as she stepped into the grass.
“No, wait,” said Alma, struggling to speak. “Snakes.”
“Nevermind,” said Amanda as she reached down into the grass. “I’ve got one.” She pulled up what had once been part of a border that lined a flowerbed in front of the house. It was a red, square brick that she struggled to lift. She got it up to her shoulder and then took a step closer to the house before counting down. Then she tossed the large brick at the window, shattering the pane into hundreds of pieces. She cheered as the glass fell to the floor inside and then she took off her shoe so that she could break away the remaining shards.
“Okay, come on,” said Amanda as she put her shoe back on.
Alma stepped back, away from her mother.
“Get your ass over here,” said Amanda as she pointed at the ground in front of the broken window.
“No, Mommy,” said Alma. “I don’t want to go in there.”
Amanda was furious as she ran over to the steps and caught her daughter. She grabbed Alma by the waist and lifted the kicking child. They struggled, and Alma started to slap her mother when Amanda slammed the girl’s face into the house’s siding, breaking off flecks of paint on her cheek. She seethed, “You’ll do what you’re told.”
“You’re hurting me,” said Alma as she cried.
“I’ll kill you,” said Amanda as she pushed Alma’s face even harder against the wall.
“Okay, I’ll go in! Please stop.”
Amanda released the girl and smiled in satisfaction. “That’s what I thought. Now let me help you up.” She got on one knee and then pointed at the other, offering it as a stool beneath the broken window.
Alma could remember looking through the window to watch the children at the nearby school as they walked home. If she remembered correctly, there was a couch pushed up against the wall that would soften her fall when she crawled through.
She put her foot on her mother’s knee and then set her hands on the sill, but the glass poked into her palm and she retreated. “There’s still glass there.”
“Stop being a baby,” said Amanda. “Climb through and go open the door for me.”
“But there’s glass there. I’ll get cut.”
“God damn it,” said Amanda as she grabbed her daughter’s waist and pushed her up.
“No!” Alma screamed as her mother forced her into the window.
Amanda grasped her daughter’s crotch and pushed until the ten-year-old was thrust halfway through the window. The shards of glass cut into Alma’s arms and belly, ripping her shirt as she was forced into the home.
There was no couch waiting on the other side. Alma fell face-first to the floor and onto the broken glass. Her hands crunched in the shards as she screamed in pain.
“Go open the door,” said her mother. “Hurry up, it’s almost time.”
Alma rolled onto her back to keep the glass away from her flesh. She saw a piece sticking out from her palm and suddenly felt the pain. She shuddered and felt her stomach lurch at the sight of the blood trickling down her arm. When she pulled the glass out, the blood flowed freely as her mother screamed from outside, “Hurry up!”
The house was empty. All of the furniture had been taken out, replaced by dust and cobwebs. It smelled of urine, certainly from an animal that had burrowed its way through the walls somewhere. Yet the house felt alive to Alma, as if there were people here watching from the dark corners.
She went to the door and turned the deadbolt, smearing the metal with her blood. Alma was in pain, but wanted this to be over. She just wanted to leave Widowsfield behind as quickly as possible.
Amanda was startled by her bloody daughter’s appearance. “How in the hell did you manage to cut yourself so bad?”
Alma didn’t respond. She had no interest in participating in this any more than she had to. The pain inflicted by the glass wasn’t what scared her most here. It was a nuisance, whereas her mother’s determination to initiate a nightmare had been an all-encompassing terror. Alma felt different now that she was inside, as if she’d left her fear on the stoop and had accepted the inevitability of the horror on the other side of the door.
“Not speaking to me?” asked Amanda. “Fine, whatever. Stay here as I go get my bags.”
Alma stood at the door and watched as her mother ran back to the car and got out two bags. Alma didn’t move, and allowed the blood to drip away from her fingertips as her arms hung at her sides. She glowered at the woman that had brought her here.
Alma looked down at the blood that pooled below. She would’ve sworn the floor was soaking it in.
“Move,” said Amanda, startling her daughter out of her daze. The girl was standing in Amanda’s way, and casually stepped aside to allow entry.
Amanda looked queerly at the girl. “Why are you acting so strange?” She set her bags on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room.
Alma didn’t answer.
“Fine, be that way.” Amanda glanced at her watch. “We don’t have much time. Go rinse your hands off and stop bleeding all over the floor.”
Such callous disregard for her daughter.
Such hatred.
Amanda Harper would pay for this.
Alma went to the kitchen sink and tried to turn on the water, but nothing came out. Her blood dripped from her palms to the bottom of the stainless steel sink.
Plink, plink, plink.
She stared at the blood as it flowed to the edge of the drain and then lingered. The blood filled the small gap between the basin and the drain, then flooded over to disappear within the gaping maw. It felt as if the house was swallowing her offering.
“What are you doing?” asked Amanda. “No water? Of course t
here’s no water. Maybe go check one of the toilets. Don’t give me that look. Open up the back of one of the toilets and see if there’s still water in it. You can wash off in it. Stop looking at me like that and do what you’re told.”
Amanda Harper was setting candles out in a circle on the floor. Alma walked through the circle, leaving a trail of blood droplets as she passed. Her mother cursed and used her sleeve to clean the blood out from the inner circle.
There was a bathroom on the first floor, near the stairs, but Alma stopped at the door. She looked up the stairs.
It was bright upstairs, whereas the downstairs bathroom was dark and ominous. She looked at the stairs; the same stairs where she stood and yelled for her father when she wasn’t sure he was still alive. During those weeks spent in this cabin, sleeping on the couch as she watched an endless loop of cartoons, when her father would stay upstairs and do drugs with Terry, the red-haired addict. Alma would go for days without hearing from him, and sometimes called for him from the bottom of the stairs, praying for his angry response. God forbid the day she might have to go up because he’d stopped answering.
She remembered one time when instead of screaming down to her, he appeared at the top of the stairs. He’d been nude, and soaked with sweat. He was smoking a cigarette, and the orange blaze illuminated his hateful frown.
Her father never let Alma go into the bedroom. He didn’t even want her to go up the stairs.
She looked at her mother, who was busy perfecting the circle. Then Alma heard the familiar squeak of the permanent marker as Amanda scrawled the symbol for pi on the floor in the middle of the candles.
Alma went up the stairs.
Each step echoed as she climbed. Then the barren hall faced her, leading to the room where she was never supposed to go. The house was empty, a tomb with no graves. She went down the hall and paused at the threshold to the bedroom. A whiff of acrid smoke momentarily startled her. It was the same scent that had drifted from under the bedroom’s locked door when her father would smoke his glass pipe in here.
She stepped in and stared directly at the bathroom on the far end of the room. She knew exactly where it was, although she never recalled being in the room before. Then she thought she heard the chattering of teeth before her mother screamed from downstairs.
“Alma, get down here! It’s almost time.”
Alma wasn’t certain how long she’d lingered at the door. She looked down at her bleeding hands and decided to ignore them for now. It was nearly 3:14 on March 14th, and it was time to appease her mother’s insanity.
“Coming,” said Alma as she turned away from the bedroom and went back down the hall to the stairs.
A thought entered Alma’s mind as she went, as if someone else was influencing her.
“What does it feel like to go mad?” It was as if she was having a conversation with herself in her own head. “When the comforts of home are poisoned, and the walls watch you as you sleep.”
Alma felt lightheaded and put her hand on the wall to steady herself, leaving a bloody handprint behind.
“When would a person know they’re mad?”
“Alma, what are you doing?” asked her mother from the bottom of the stairs.
Alma felt smoke burning her throat and, for just a brief moment, knew what it felt like to be her father, standing at the top of the stairs and looking down at his daughter, his head swimming with the effect of drugs, and his nude body cooled by the breeze flowing in through the open windows.
“It’s time,” said Amanda Harper.
Alma took her hand away from the wall and immediately lost the sense of her father’s experience in the same spot. She walked down the stairs to her waiting mother.
“You didn’t clean yourself off? Oh well, forget it. We don’t have time to waste. Hurry up and get in the kitchen.”
Alma did as she was told.
“Get on your knees near the circle.” Amanda guided the girl to the circle of candles and positioned her so that she could stare down at the symbol for pi drawn on the tile in the center.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Alma. It felt as if someone else was speaking through Alma’s body. It was almost as if she were floating above the scene, bearing witness to the horror instead of taking part in it.
“Stare at the symbol. Just stare at it and try to remember Ben.” Amanda looked at her watch and bit her bottom lip in anticipation. “Almost time.”
Alma looked at the symbol.
“There!” Amanda yelled and pointed excitedly at the circle of candles. “It’s 3:14. What do you see? What do you see?”
Alma reached out and touched the symbol, and memories of Ben flooded back into her mind. She recalled his smile, and his goofy laugh. She recalled his expressive eyes, and the time he tricked her into eating one of his boogers by claiming it was a watermelon Pop Rock. She recalled his chattering teeth as he sat on the edge of the bed…
“No!” Alma fell back and retracted her hand as if she’d been burned. Amanda caught her from behind and pushed her back toward the circle.
“Don’t pull away! Keep staring at it!”
Alma tried to look away, but Amanda grabbed her by the back of the hair and pressed the ten-year-old’s head down. Alma put her hands on the floor on either side of the circle and screamed as she clenched her eyes shut.
“Stare at the symbol!”
“Fuck you!” Alma screeched and swiped her arm across the floor to knock over the pillar candles. She felt the searing wax on her arm as a glass jar fell over, spilling wax from the Christian-themed candle into the center of the circle.
“No!” Amanda released her daughter and scrambled to pick up the felled candle.
Alma saw the visage of Saint Francis of Assisi staring back at her from the side of the glass jar that the candle had been poured into. A lamb was at his feet, licking the saint’s knee as the man stood plaintively staring at Alma, a wooden staff in his hand. The flame was still lit within the candle, kicking up black smoke that marred the inside of the glass.
Amanda continued to curse as she righted the jar and then tried to wipe away the wax, which burned her hand. She turned on Alma, angry and violent. Amanda raised her hand, now discolored by the wax, and Alma sat and waited. She glared at her mother as if pleading for the coming punishment.
“Do it,” said Alma. “What are you waiting for?”
Amanda kept her hand in the air, her face contorted in fury.
“Hit me!” Alma screamed at her. “Go ahead and do it!”
“You need to show me some respect,” said Amanda. “I’m your mother.”
Alma scowled as she hissed, “You’re no mother.”
“Excuse me?” Amanda was shocked and appalled by what her daughter had said.
“You’re no mother of mine.”
“You’re asking for…”
“You want to know what we did to Benjamin?” asked Alma, her voice heavier now.
Amanda stepped back and knocked over the Saint Francis candle again.
“Do you want to know how long it took him to stop weeping?”
“Oh my God,” said Amanda. “Who are you?”
Alma stood. “Do you want to know if he cried out for his mommy as we took his skin?”
Amanda backed up until she bumped into the countertop. She placed her hand over her heart and started to pray.
Alma walked forward until she was standing in the center of the circle of candles. Her bleeding feet smeared the hot wax over the symbol for pi.
“Do you want to know if he called out for you when we broke his bones?”
Amanda gasped and appeared as if she was going to vomit, but then calmed as she stared into her daughter’s eyes. She nodded, pathetic in her terror.
Alma smiled as she crushed Amanda with three words, “He did not.”
A tear sprang from Amanda’s right eye and coursed down her cheek. “Why not?” asked Amanda.
“Because you’re no mother.”
“
Don’t say that,” said Amanda as she wept. She was whimpering now, as if pleading for her life.
Blood dripped from Alma’s fingertips as her hands hung at her sides. “Ben called his sister’s name, because she was the only one that loved him.”
“Stop saying that.” Amanda was terrified of whatever demon had possessed her child. “I loved him more than life itself. That’s why I’m here. I’ll do anything to get him back. I loved him so much.”
“Want to know how you can save him?” asked Alma, her inflection wavering.
“Yes,” said Amanda. “Please, tell me what I need to do.”
Alma raised her right hand, the gash on her palm still dripping, and motioned for her mother to come closer. She continued to beckon Amanda with her index finger until her mother dared to take a step.
“Closer,” said Alma.
Amanda leaned in.
Alma put her bleeding hand against her mother’s cheek and caressed the soft flesh, smearing blood. Then she set her finger on her mother’s lip and traced it like the exploration of a lover. Amanda didn’t retreat, caught in her daughter’s paranormal grip. Alma leaned in so that their cheeks touched and then whispered directly into her mother’s ear, “The Watcher says to kill yourself. Kill us both.”
Then Alma fell unconscious to the floor, sprawled out over the symbol for pi. Her skin was pale white except for the brilliant red blood that continued to flow from her wounds.
Amanda Harper cried in pain and anguish. She got to her knees and reached out to touch her wounded daughter, but refrained, as if frightened that any contact might break the girl. She gently placed her hand on her daughter’s cheek. Alma was as cold as a corpse.
An odd consideration entered Amanda’s mind in that moment. She asked the question out loud.
“Did my babies die together?”
Widowsfield
March 12th, 2012
Michael Harper returned to Widowsfield to hunt down, and kill, his daughter. Despite his warning, she’d chosen to go with the paranormal investigators to try and remember what had happened here sixteen years earlier. He couldn’t let her succeed.
Michael’s own memories of the event were muddy, and he was certain the drugs had affected them. He hadn’t been lying when he told his wife that he didn’t remember ever having a son, but there was no denying that Ben had existed when Amanda produced picture after picture of the boy.