by Doug Draa
And then it became clear: what Dorothy hated about her mother was what she hated about herself. Dorothy had become the spitting image of her mother. That was why Dorothy could no longer stand to look at herself in the mirror even long enough to comb her hair.
Lizza, too, looked and acted a lot like her own mother. But mother was beautiful and mother had always protected Lizza from harm. Lizza’s mother was nothing like the horrible human mother Dorothy hated. Lizza longed to see her own mother again, to feel protected. If mother were here, she would know what to do. Mother always knew exactly what to do.
But mother wasn’t here, and Lizza felt helpless and alone and abandoned, exactly as Dorothy had felt as a child. Dorothy’s father had beaten her, her older brothers had sexually abused her, and Dorothy’s mother watched and did nothing. Dorothy hated her mother worse than she hated her father, her brothers, and even her husband.
Dorothy’s madness was contagious, and Lizza began to hate her own mother, too. Mother had left her all alone in the park to fend for herself, and Lizza made a horrible mistake she never would have been allowed to make if mother had been present. But mother had abandoned Lizza to attend to her own needs. Didn’t mother realize Lizza was too young to hunt by herself?
Lizza wanted to punish mother for leaving, and Lizza imagined mother returning to the park much later than planned, searching desperately for the beautiful doll that was no longer there. Mother would worry that she had so badly misjudged her timing that Lizza had shriveled up and faded away while she was gone. It served mother right if mother worried herself to death.
But Lizza knew worry wouldn’t kill a witch. Only fire could kill a witch. That was a given. Mother would simply craft a new doll and forget about Lizza entirely.
Lizza couldn’t bear the thought of mother making another doll to replace Lizza. After Lizza helped Dorothy, Lizza would beg Dorothy to return the favor and help Lizza kill mother. They could burn down the entire apartment building where mother slept tonight while mother was sound asleep because the only way to kill a witch or a witch’s doll was starvation or with fire. If mother had fed today, then mother would need to die by fire.
Mother deserved to die.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” one part of Lizza’s mind questioned. “You’re only seven. There is so much more mother needs to teach you before you’re ready to survive on your own.”
“Dorothy will teach me,” said the new part of her. “Dorothy is a grown-up. She can be my new mother. I can learn all I need to know from watching her.”
“No, you can’t,” Lizza argued with herself. “You saw what kind of mother Dorothy is. She killed her own children. Do you think she will take better care of you?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“No, you can’t. Look what happened when you chose Dorothy as a donor. You’re falling apart, Lizza. You’re rotting from the inside out.”
“I can fix that. All I need do to repair the damage is to find a beautiful donor.”
“Do you think any donor will let you get close enough to capture her essence? The way you look now, you’d scare away any woman who possessed enough sense to make a difference in the way you look and feel. You can never be well again without mother’s help.”
“I can too!”
“Can not!”
Lizza arrived at Dorothy’s house at 6:10. She had more than enough time to go into the kitchen and find the butcher knife she wanted in the drawer next to the stove. The knife had a nine-inch-long razor-sharp stainless steel blade Dorothy used to carve pork roasts and Thanksgiving turkeys. Now she intended to use the knife to carve up her husband.
Lizza didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t close her eyes and she couldn’t turn away. What little was left of the beautiful Lizza felt powerless against the dominating influence of corruption that infused every cell of her body.
The doorknob turned, the door swung open on squeaking hinges, and a big man wearing dirty oil-stained khaki-colored work clothes swaggered into the room, tossed his empty lunch pail onto the kitchen table, looked around for his family who obviously weren’t in the kitchen, and shouted, “Where the fuck is everyone?” as he balled up his fists and angrily strode into the living room.
Dorothy made Lizza follow the man through the entire house before she stabbed him in the back. Then Dorothy rolled his bleeding body over, opened his pants, and sliced off his private parts.
She forced the bloody flesh between his slack jaws.
Then Dorothy left her own house and walked to her parents’ house. When she finished with her parents, she paid a visit to each of her brothers.
What little was left of the old Lizza heard the new Lizza direct Dorothy to find a book of matches and bottles of flammable fluids. The new Lizza guided Dorothy to the apartment where mother slept.
“You can’t do this,” whispered what was left of the old Lizza.
“Just watch me,” said the new Lizza.
The old Lizza could do nothing as Dorothy and the new Lizza spread accelerant around the building where mother slept. The old Lizza tried desperately to keep the new Lizza from striking a match. For a brief moment, Lizza called upon the last of her old energy to mentally arm wrestle the new Lizza to a stand-still. The match moved an inch toward the striker pad on the matchbook, moved slowly away an inch, gradually moved back again. Back and forth it went, an inch at a time.
But the effort eventually proved futile, and the old Lizza’s energy was nearly extinct when the match ignited, dropped onto the accelerant, and the building Lizza and mother had called home for nearly three months suddenly burst into flames.
Lizza watched, horrified, as residents evacuated the building. Some exited screaming, their clothes and hair ablaze, their skin blistering and turning black. Some made it out unscathed. Mother didn’t come out at all, nor did the woman whose apartment they had shared.
Lizza, what was left of the old Lizza, cried inwardly. She couldn’t remember crying since she was a baby, and today—in one single day—she had cried twice. When she cried earlier in the park, it was only because she was afraid for herself and she didn’t want to die. Now she cried because mother was dead and all beauty in the world seemed gone forever. She wept not for herself. She cried for mother, and she cried for the others who needlessly lost their lives in the fire.
Dorothy and the new Lizza laughed as they watched the building burn.
Behind them, from the buildings and sidewalks across the street, people rushed to extinguish burning clothes on burn victims and to render first aid. Lizza could hear sirens in the distance. Fire trucks were on their way, but they would arrive too late to save mother and other occupants still inside.
While Dorothy and the other Lizza were laughing and had their attention focused on the flames, Lizza was able to turn herself visible. The new Lizza sensed the change, and she took her eyes off the burning building long enough to instinctively look around to see if any of the bystanders posed any kind of threat. When her eyes made contact with the eyes of a young woman in a nurse’s uniform coming rapidly toward her to ask if she needed assistance, the old Lizza reached out with the last of her fading strength and extracted the healing life-essence of the nurse before the new Lizza could prevent it. As love and caring and concern flooded Lizza’s body with new vitality, Lizza felt Dorothy and the other Lizza wither away like fruit left too long on the vine.
Lizza was back in control of her body again, and she instantly dashed toward the burning building to try to rescue mother. Though she knew in her heart it was already too late, she had to try. So what if she burned up herself? She didn’t care about herself anymore. All she cared about was mother.
But before she could enter the building, the roof collapsed and falling debris and flying sparks drove everyone back. Lizza felt adult hands grab onto her arms and carry her to safety. In her hurry to save mother, she sudden
ly realized, she had neglected to render herself invisible. Someone had thought they were saving an ordinary seven-year-old girl—not a living doll—from the flames.
This time Lizza had chosen wisely and well. The donor, a rather ordinary-looking woman in her mid-twenties, possessed such inner beauty that she had healed Lizza almost immediately. Lizza’s hair was again long and silky and blonde, her skin flawless, her eyes bright blue like the sky on a cloudless day.
“Are you all right, little girl?” asked the man who had rescued her. “Where’s your mother? Or your father? Aren’t they with you?”
When the man mentioned mother, Lizza’s eyes once again flooded with tears. Lizza had no father, but she had once had a mother who had nourished her and cared for her and carefully trained her.
And, though neither witches nor dolls had a soul, Lizza knew that mother had loved her as much, if not more, than most mothers who did have souls.
And Lizza, who had been too young before to know what love was, now knew that mother had loved her and Lizza had loved her mother even more than Lizza had loved herself. Lizza knew what love was because she had learned first what hate was and had rejected it.
Fire trucks arrived on the scene, and everyone was pushed back out of the way. As soon as the man let go of Lizza’s arm, she turned herself invisible and slipped away from the crowd.
Mother was gone, and Lizza was all alone in the world. Lizza had no idea if there were other witches left alive anywhere in the entire world, or any witches’ dolls. Was she the only living doll? Or were there others like her somewhere?
Lizza was young, perhaps too young to survive on her own. But she would try. Mother had taught her well. Lizza had a fighting chance.
Lizza decided it was time to leave this city of so many memories, both good and bad. Mother said they would need to leave soon anyway, and Lizza knew how to hop a bus or a train and go anywhere she wanted. Lizza had never been on an airplane before, but she didn’t suppose getting onto an airplane would be much different than getting on a bus. She might even travel to distant lands in search of others of her kind. Perhaps, someday in the not so distant future, she would find another doll or another witch who would show her how to make a doll of her own.
Lizza wondered what kind of a mother a doll would make.
Lizza was unaware of the beautiful young-looking woman, hidden in the crowd across the street, who watched Lizza’s every move even when Lizza turned invisible to ordinary human eyes. Perhaps it was smoke from the burning building that brought tears into the beautiful young woman’s blue eyes, or perhaps it was recalling the painful lesson her own mother had taught her when she had been only seven and newly weaned. Two soul-feeders in the same town at the same time was one too many, and the human herd would soon notice so many disappearances and the witch hunts of old would begin all over again. How many witches and witch’s dolls had to be burned at the stake before it became obvious what needed to be done?
“Faire thee well, child,” mother whispered as she wiped tears from her eyes. Severing the umbilical was painful but necessary. “Faire thee well, darling Lizza.”
Soon it would be time to craft a new doll. Mother tried to cheer herself up by thinking of names for her next baby.
GUT PUNCH, by Jason A. Wyckoff
“Antiphon! Antiphon! It sloughs history!”
Her laugh is fay. She wobbles the royal wave; one imagines wine sloshing from a goblet. In any other setting, I would think she was drunk or high; I’ve certainly seen her that way often enough. But I’m told she has been under observation for five days now. My mother is in a robin’s egg gown, sitting on a cot in a locked room, talking to no one.
I can’t watch her anymore. I never loved her, but this hurts—it hurts me (sans pathos) because however pitiful the circumstance, however strange the performance, the comportment is too familiar, re-opening every wound of my youth.
Dr. Duenger leads me back to his office and bids me sit. He dawdles as though composing his thoughts; it’s a performance to add weight.
I don’t have the patience. “What did she take?” I ask. “What could do that—cause permanent damage?”
“Well, that’s just the thing, Mr. Wince.” He milks the pause to recoup the drama I deprived him of. “The toxicology report came back…negative.”
I chuckle. “That’s impossible.”
Spock cocks an eyebrow. “Ah, yes. Her history.”
“Ah, yes, her history,” I echo.
“You didn’t know, then?”
He has me on something; it annoys me and clearly delights him. “Know what?”
“Your mother has been going to meetings since last February. She’s been clean for more than a year.”
That’s unexpected, but I’m not invested enough to be impressed. “A backslide, then. No, wait.” I hold up a hand. “I know—the toxicology report came back negative.”
He shrugs. “We were hoping you could shed some light…but you say you’ve had no contact with her?”
Out of the blue, she’d called twice in the last month. I hadn’t answered. “No contact,” I say. “Not for a while now.”
“A shame.” He sighs almost wistfully.
“A necessity. How did she end up here?”
“Her sponsor hadn’t heard from her in a week. He went to check on her. He called us right away.”
“She was…like that?” I nod towards the hallway.
“She appears to be in a state of arrested euphoria, as it were.”
No bad deed goes unrewarded, it seems. “That’s your diagnosis?”
“No, no. That’s an observation. The problem with her diagnosis is…well, you could throw a dart and hit one that fit, as long as you include the caveat that should disqualify it.”
Ah, so that’s how it’s done.
He goes on, “The euphoria is somewhat symptomatic of the manic period of bi-polar disorder, though she shows no signs of agitation, and is, in fact, quite compliant.”
He smiles as though he’s just congratulated a parent on their child no longer eating paste.
“Also, actual psychosis is rare with bi-polar disorder; her level of extreme dissociation is more indicative of schizophrenia, but that condition is often linked with an inability to feel joy. And while she is not withdrawn per se, she is non-communicative in such a way that we cannot establish any sort of self-valuation, which would be instructive. In the past, we might have identified ‘schizoaffective disorder’, a sort of broad-based diagnosis which has recently fallen out of favor, but might actually be germane in this instance.”
He leans forward, interlaces his fingers, and props his chin on his thumbs. He stares at the wall behind me, as though having judged me an inadequate audience.
“The problem is exacerbated when one considers that all of those conditions are developmental, with initial symptoms generally manifesting during early adulthood. It is unlikely one of these disorders would suddenly bloom at this stage of life absent a secondary factor, possibly physiological in nature. Nevertheless, as the administration of anti-psychotics is appropriate for all the aforementioned diagnoses, we pursued that course. But she has remained unresponsive. Typically, we would expect some sort of behavioral response.”
“You mean you gave her drugs that should have knock her senseless, but didn’t.”
His expression is smug in its flatness. “I would hardly put it like that. But, yes, her condition has remained resistant…one might almost say, ‘obdurate’. For example, she hasn’t slept since she’s been here.”
I scowl, wondering what kind of quack factory Mommy Dearest has landed in. “You haven’t sedated her?”
“In general, we avoid sedating patients with a history of substance abuse,” Duenger drips, as though I should know better. “We strive to restore balance by putting our patients on their own two feet, not by giving them crutches.
Nevertheless, in extraordinary cases like your mother’s, we will prescribe drugs called hypnotics, or soporifics. These have had no effect. Concerned for her well-being, and against my own better judgment, I even approved Seconal. This, too, proved unhelpful. Some impulse spurred me to run another tox screen, and those results were most curious of all, as there again appeared to be no trace of drugs in her blood—even after she’d been given a barbiturate! Now, I can’t account for that, but it did bring to mind another unlikely possibility. Tell me, when your mother was sober, did she ever have seizures, or was she…eh, fearful?”
I wasn’t expecting a question about her not drinking, but the answer is easy enough. “No, she always felt good about it. Until she felt so good about being so damn good and responsible that she’d reward herself the only way she knew how.”
Duenger tapped a pen on his desk pad. “Yes, well, it was a bit of a longshot. There’s a neurological phenomenon called ‘kindling’ wherein the harmful effects of withdrawal become increasingly more severe from instance to instance; one possible outcome is the development of psychosis in the substance abuser.”
“Wait—you’re saying that sobriety drove my mother insane?”
He waves it away. “Again—it is unlikely, especially without precedent, which you say she has not demonstrated.”
I have no reason to feel ashamed of how long I’ve been away, and of being ignorant of the possibility of my mother’s behavior changing, but for some reason I don’t want to share that with the good doctor. He shrugs as though already aware of what I don’t choose to acknowledge. Naturally, I find it irksome.
I say, “You mentioned a ‘secondary factor’.”
“Yes. Of course we tested for several neurological diseases, electrolyte imbalances and mineral deficiencies and such, but we saw nothing unusual in her blood panels beyond an elevated white cell count—nothing particularly alarming, given her condition. She had several bed sores that needed tending.”
“She was bedridden? I thought you said she wasn’t lethargic.”