Mother Loves Me

by Abby Davies

  Why would Mother lie?

  The question made me look up from the page. I winced with guilt.

  Read the article again. Think about the dress.

  No.

  Yes, yes, yes!

  Suddenly I knew what I had to do. My heart pounded. You’re going to die soon anyway, so you might as well.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I turned on my lamp and held my hand directly under the bulb – not close enough for the heat of the bulb to burn as it would burn anyone, just close enough to see if my skin would react oddly. The light illuminated my hand, making it look a sicky, yellow colour. I counted to thirty. Nothing. No redness, no swelling, no burning sensation and definitely no rash. I held my hand there for another thirty seconds. Another thirty. Nothing. No change in my skin at all. No itching or burning or anything.

  I exhaled and turned off the lamp. Inspected my hand again, to be sure. My skin was absolutely fine. That meant, according to the encyclopaedia, that I did not have an extreme case, which also meant that I was very unlikely to experience the other awful symptoms I had looked up. I frowned. If I didn’t have an extreme version of the condition did that mean light exposure would not kill me? With a sudden jolt, I realized something else: nowhere in the text did it say that SU made you die young. According to the big book, as long as a person stayed out of sunlight, they did not run the risk of dying. So why did Mother always say that dolls lived short lives? Was there something else wrong with me? Some incurable disease she’d never told me about?

  I shook my head. No.

  I nibbled on my nail, realized, stopped. Mother would be mad if I ruined my nails.

  Suddenly I felt like screaming and hitting my fists against the walls. I stood and paced the small room, panic licking me like searing flames. My eyes fell on the frilly pink curtains that were nailed into the wall. The centre of the curtains was sewn together in a neat cross-stitch. I had never tried to unpick those stitches, but now I wondered. Were boards nailed over the windows behind the curtains, or was there nothing but glass behind the thick pink material?

  Be brave. Find out. But take precautions.

  There was a pair of nail scissors in the bathroom. I hurried out of my room, retrieved them from the bathroom cabinet and froze. Deadly was sitting on the door frame at my eye level, poised to attack. My heart raced. I could rush past him and hope he didn’t jump at me or … I scanned the room. My gaze landed on the bar of soap on the sink. I picked it up. It was slippery and gross. I took aim, inhaled and fired. The soap hit the door frame above Deadly. He didn’t even flinch. I looked at him, wondered what he was thinking. I’d attacked him so he had a right to attack me now, which was probably his plan.

  There was no time so I grabbed the flannel from the side of the bath and folded it in half so it was thick but not too small. Keeping my upper body dead still, I raised the flannel and crept towards him.

  Deadly remained in his place, bold and arrogant.

  I stared at him. My enemy.

  I stopped a safe distance away, my heart jittering.

  He was so big but so small at the same time. I looked at the flannel in my hand. Looked back at Deadly. He stayed where he was. Was it possible that he was just as afraid of me as I was of him? Too frightened to move, not too evil to be afraid.

  I lowered the flannel. Deadly and I looked at each other. He didn’t move a leg. His stringy bedroom hung above his head in the corner of the ceiling. There were no dead flies in there. I wondered if he was hungry. If he was hungry, he would be even more tempted to bite a chunk out of me.

  I raised the flannel again. My hand shook. I took a step closer, weapon ready in case he attacked.

  With a squeal I leapt past him out of the room and ran into my bedroom.

  Heart slowing, I stood and stared at the centre of the curtains. If I unpicked the curtains, Mother would see what I’d done next time she came into my room. But I had to know.

  I pulled a yellow doll dress out of my wardrobe and laid it on my desk. Trying to steady my trembling hands, I took hold of the centre of the curtains and began to snip through the very centre stitch. There were a good fifty stitches holding the curtains together. I cut open the first one and wiped sweat from my forehead. Good. One down, tons to go. I snipped through the next and the next, biting my lip, struggling to keep from shaking. Every few seconds I glanced at the door, certain Mother would rush in.

  With five stitches snipped, the curtains still revealed nothing. Each curtain kissed the other, protecting me from what lay behind. Unsteadily, I placed the nail scissors on my desk and picked up the yellow dress, wrapping it around my hands. I took a breath, shuffled my body to the side out of the path the sunlight would take when I parted the small unpicked space in the curtains. If there was no wooden board behind the material I would be subjecting myself to real light. My heart pounded. I inhaled, exhaled then pulled the curtains apart. My heart sank to my feet. Disappointment curdled with fear. There was no glass, just wood. Mother had made certain I was protected – or unable to get away.

  My last thought rocked me to my core. I let go of the curtains, grateful to see them fall back together. You couldn’t even tell I’d picked some of the stitches out. Mother would only notice if she inspected them closely, and why would she? They had held fast for my whole life. They were a permanent feature of my bedroom. My life. My short, short life.

  I wondered if Clarabelle’s room was the same. Mother must have boarded up her window too. That must have been why she had spent so much time in the spare room prior to Clarabelle’s arrival. And I had heard banging when she’d been in there, I remembered.

  Something in my mind clicked. My eyes went wide. My tummy lurched.

  Mother had prepared the room for Clarabelle. Mother had known Clarabelle was coming here before that day in the supermarket, before she had seen Clarabelle and known she was being hurt by her father and known she had to rescue her. Did that mean …

  I couldn’t, wouldn’t complete the question.

  Chapter 11

  Mother went out an hour later. The door slammed shut; louder than usual, I thought. Maybe she was still angry with me. Did she suspect I’d lied earlier? Was I going to be punished when she got back? I winced at the thought. Would it be the silent treatment again?

  I thought about going to Clarabelle’s door, seeing if she was awake. No – Clarabelle needed to sleep and Mother would be cross if I disturbed her.

  But Clarabelle was only a delaying tactic. I was never going to go and talk to her. I had already made up my mind.

  I left my room and slowly descended the stairs. I knew I was going to go through with it. Dread was unfurling in my chest like a huge black demon hand and I let it. The hand closed on my heart and squeezed and squeezed. I felt like I couldn’t breathe but I also felt that if my heart didn’t slow down, I would have a heart attack. I imagined Mother coming home to find me sprawled on the floor clutching my heart, my eyes rolled back in my head, froth dribbling out of my mouth. She would be so upset. She’d dash over to me, hold me in her arms and sob. She’d tell me how sorry she was, how much she loved me, how I was not going to die …

  Guilt gnawed and nibbled at my heart, but a creeping, dreadful sense of certainty lived in my head now, and it was beginning to thrive. I had to know the truth. I desperately wanted to believe in Mother; to believe anything else was to shatter my world as I knew it.

  But it will also mean you’re not dying. That you’re not allergic to outside. And what’s so good about a world of locked doors and boarded windows?

  They battled: the need to believe her and the desire for her to be lying.

  I entered the living room, walked to the rocking chair and dragged it over to the living room doorway to face the front door. I picked up The Secret Garden and sat on the rocking chair, setting the swing in motion with a light push of my feet. The chair creaked comfortingly. I’d sat on this rocking chair so many times but never in the living room doorway in the direct path of
the front door.

  I was in position now. All I could do was read my book and wait for Mother’s return. When she opened the door, everything would become clear and I would finally know the truth. Even if it killed me.

  Chapter 12

  The grandfather clock struck six o’clock, droning the hour in its loud, rough voice. The sound tugged me out of my book. I looked round at its hideous face and wondered where Mother was. She rarely stayed out this late.

  I re-read my last paragraph. Mary was about to show Colin the secret garden. I couldn’t wait to see Colin’s reaction. With a jarring shudder, it occurred to me that I might not live to read on and see it. I might never find out how the story ended. I would never know if Mary Lennox ended up happy.

  Then I heard it. A crunchy growl of wheels. A grumbling engine. The slam of a door. She was right outside, right now.

  My heart flip-flopped and I placed my book on the floor beside the rocking chair and stood up. It was too late to turn back.

  The front door clicked and I jumped as it inched open and a band of light raced towards me across the floorboards. As the door opened wider, the band grew, stretching across the floor and lengthening, running diagonally across the narrow hallway towards the living room door and me. The light was white. My eyes tingled but I fixed my gaze on that ever-growing light.

  The door stood open about a hand’s width and remained in that state. The light had not yet reached my feet. I looked down at my bare toes. They were an inch away from the band of sunlight. All I had to do was lift one foot and take a step forward and I would know. But fear was my enemy and sucked my courage away. I stood, frozen to the spot. Behind me the rocking chair still rocked, creaking on and on and on as if it could creak on, moved by some unseen presence, for all of eternity.

  A bag flew through the front doorway. I stared at the brown paper bag as it tried to stay upright, then flopped onto its side. A red apple rolled across the floor, escaping the collapsed bag, only stopping when it hit the wall to my left.

  Mother will kill me when she sees me standing here.

  Not if the light kills you first.

  Clarabelle’s voice came from above sending loud, frightened cries through the ceiling, cries that pierced my heart and gave me courage.

  Another bag and another thumped onto the floor and the door drifted open a little further.

  It was now, and finally know the truth, or never, and never know for certain. I needed an end to this uncertainty. That, more than anything else, was the thing killing me. Not knowing was like a disease eating me up from the inside out.

  I held my breath and stepped forward.

  I felt light on me. Warm, lovely light. I swam in it. I waited for the pain, the rash, the headache, the nausea, the vomiting. My heart pumped hard and fast but nothing happened. I took another step, making sure I was totally enveloped by light. Then another step. Two more bags landed on the floor in front of my feet. I raised my hand, took hold of the door, pulled it wide open and stared at the outside. Sun hit me. My eyes burned with tears. Mother lunged at me, pushed me back screaming and cursing, shocked, but worse – enraged.

  She slammed the door shut, locked it, pocketed the key. I lay on the bottom step of the stairs. Other than a bruise on my back from hitting the stairs, I felt fine, giddy in fact.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she screamed.

  I smiled up at her, too happy to respond.

  She slapped me across my face. Hard. Once. Twice. My eyes focused and tears streamed. Mother had never hit me before.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother – I just – I don’t know what got into me! I wanted to know what it was like and I kind of got mesmerized and then my feet were pulling me towards the light and I couldn’t stop myself.’

  I looked up, conscious of my face, how I must look. My make-up must be ruined. My eyes were probably red from crying.

  ‘You look awful. I expect the light will be working its way into your veins right now,’ she said, leaning over and bringing her face close to mine, ‘Yes, I can see it. Oh you poor, silly doll.’

  My hands flew to my face. ‘What? What can you see?’

  ‘The disease, of course, spreading through your body, contaminating your skin. Killing you.’

  She sighed and dragged her hands down her face.

  ‘Killing me? No – I feel fine. It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine. Look,’ I showed her my pale, smooth arms.

  She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t show there, but on your face. And inside. Inside your body things will be happening now. Terrible things.’

  ‘Please – what’s wrong with my face? Terrible things – what things?’

  ‘Your organs will be starting to melt into one another, and then even more horrible things will start to happen.’

  Her eyes glinted. She turned her face away and I noticed her lip curling up on one side into a half-smile. A thought hit me: was she enjoying this?

  ‘You need to be punished for what you’ve done,’ she said.

  I said nothing. My face felt fine, but I wanted to see what she was talking about. Was she lying or was something happening to my face? Had I just carved my own coffin?

  Mother turned away from me completely, waving her hand. ‘I can’t bear to look at you right now. At what you’ve done to yourself. You disgust me. Go to your room. I don’t want to see you for the rest of the day and there will be no dinner for you tonight.’

  I sat on the step, frozen for a moment. She walked away, leaving me alone.

  Heart pounding, I scrabbled up the stairs on my hands and feet and ran into my bedroom, flicked the lamp on and faced the mirror. I stared, horrified. Not horrified by a rash or anything like that, but horrified by Mother’s cruelty. There was nothing wrong with my face. Other than a slightly pink handprint from where she’d slapped me and two black streaks of mascara, my face was absolutely fine.

  The light had not hurt me. I was not dying.

  Chapter 13

  To my surprise, Mother went out again. I heard the door slam, the car growl away.

  Time had passed and nothing had happened to me. I was fine. Absolutely fine. I didn’t even have a headache.

  My tummy churned as I remembered Mother’s meanness. Anger and misery burned like fire and ice in my veins, and hot, prickly confusion pierced my mind like a thousand needles. Mother was wrong about me having a light allergy that was killing me. Had she been lying or had she made a mistake? I didn’t want to believe she was lying but I couldn’t stop thinking about the article, and fearing that she’d been lying all along, about everything.

  I shook my head so hard my brain rattled. There was a way to find out more. Clarabelle. Clarabelle, the little girl Mother said she’d rescued from Utopia. The little girl who thought her name was Emma and said her daddy was the kindest man in the world.

  Mother would be livid if she knew I was going to talk to Clarabelle without her permission, but right now, I didn’t care. My cheek still hurt from her slaps. She’d slapped me. Twice. And she’d smiled. There was a side to Mother that wasn’t kind. She could be cruel. Very cruel. And cruel people probably lied.

  I thought about Miss Minchin from A Little Princess and shivered. There was something about Miss Minchin’s character that reminded me of Mother. I’d always felt it but had ignored the feeling until now.

  Shaking my head to get rid of such disloyal thoughts, I stroked my bruised cheek and thought again about Clarabelle and what she’d told me about her daddy being a good, kind man. The little girl had no reason to lie. Mother said she was confused but I wasn’t so sure, especially not now. Mother had never me hit before. I’d never dreamed she would.

  I looked at my bedroom door and snagged my lip between my teeth. I had to know if Mother was lying or making mistakes. I had to know the full truth. About everything.

  Fearful Mother might be back any second, I dashed out of my room and hurried along the landing.

  Clarabelle’s room was quiet.

  ‘Clarabelle?
It’s Mirabelle. Want to talk?’

  A rustling sound came followed by her voice, which was bright and chirpy. ‘Mirabelle? Hi! I’m glad it’s you. Can we play I Spy?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I Spy. Can we play it? Please? I’m bored. I’m asposed to do colouring but I don’t want to any more.’

  ‘What’s I Spy?’ I said.

  ‘You don’t know what I Spy is?’

  ‘No. Tell me.’

  ‘OK. It’s where you say a letter and I have to say a word with that letter.’

  ‘P.’

  ‘No, silly! You have to say, “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with P.”’ She giggled. The sound made me feel warm inside. I was relieved to hear her sounding happier than before, and less sleepy.

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with P.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ she said excitedly, ‘I know! Paper! Am I right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied, still not understanding the game.

  ‘Can we play again?’

  ‘I need to ask you a question first. When did you first see Mother?’

  She was quiet for a while. I heard a clicking sound coming from her room.

  ‘At the supermarket. She told me to come with her. She said she was Mummy’s friend and Mummy wanted me to go with her, because Mummy was poorly, but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But it was funny.’

  ‘Why? What was funny?’ I pressed.

  ‘When I was in the car, Mother gave me a sweetie that didn’t taste nice and I heard Mummy shouting my name. I wanted to say bye to Mummy and I waved and then my head went all funny.’