Demon's Daughter: A Cursed Book Read Free Page A

had been relaxing for the weekend at Owl Creek Park, a few miles northwest of Temple Texas. I had wandered from the campsite and heard a baby crying in the forest. I’d followed the noise, and found a pale baby screaming and crying in a patch of earth that smelled like rotten eggs.
    Since I hadn’t been able to stand the heart-wrenching, tortured cries she’d been making, I had wrapped her up in my coat and soothed her as best as a four year old could, rocking her back and forth and even singing to her. She stopped crying, then opened up her big blue eyes and stared at me. Her pale, chubby hand reached up and batted against my chin.
    That was something I still liked to tease her about; that the first thing she did when I took her in was cry and punch me.
    I had always wanted a sister. I’d overheard my parents talk of wishing they could have another kid, but Mom couldn’t get pregnant again for some reason. So I had walked back to the camp and found them, holding a naked, pale baby in my jacket, and smiled like the lunatic I was.
    “Mom, Dad, look! You can have a baby now! I can have a sister!”
    My parents had wanted to give her back to her family, and not just for the obvious reasons. We were poor. Really poor. The rusted, hundred dollar camper and a trip to the RV Park was the most Dad could afford for a vacation. He had been a construction worker and Mom had worked two jobs. They worked at places that didn’t care about immigration status, or lack thereof, and stayed wary of cops.
    We had come across the border when I was two, since Dad wanted to escape his employment as a drug runner in Mexico. If the cops had found out, they would have sent us back across the border, and we would have been worse off.
    Bringing them Dro had been another burden they hadn’t needed. I was a handful as a kid, always causing trouble, but I couldn’t leave her there. Even as a four year old, I knew right from wrong. It was wrong to leave a crying baby out in the middle of the forest to starve or be eaten by wolves.
    It took almost endless convincing and a minor tantrum, but when no one showed up to reclaim Dro, we decided to adopt her. Dad wouldn’t risk giving a baby up for adoption in case the authorities got wind of us being illegals. Needless to say, it wasn’t long before they loved her as much as I did.
    I suggested the name Andromeda because I saw it in a book about constellations, something my teacher taught us in the first grade, which my parents managed to slip me into a year early. Andromeda was a Greek Princess who had been chained to a rock for a sea monster to eat because her mother, Queen Cassiopeia, had been mouthing off about Andromeda being more beautiful Poseidon’s water nymphs. The hero Perseus saved her, killed the sea monster, and together they lived happily ever after. I figured at least the first half of that story matched Dro’s appearance in the woods, and my parents had liked the ring of the name.
    We always knew she was different, but we never knew how much until the weird things started happening. Like her knowing things about the neighbors. Healing my cuts and bruises with a single touch. Sensing things way before I could.
    The horrible nightmares, which only got worse as she got older…
    A gentle rap on the car window startled me and made me jump about a foot in the air. Dro was standing outside of the car, an awkward grin on her face. She walked around the car and got into the passenger’s seat next to me.
    “You looked really intense just now,” Dro said, closing the car door. “You okay?”
    “Yeah,” I replied. “You just scared the crap out of me.”
    She grinned. “I was trying to get your attention. Guess it worked.” Her grin faded a little. “You look tired. Do you want to get something to eat?”
    I tilted my head at her. “Not sure that’s a good idea, little sister. We’re fugitives, remember?”
    “Come on, when was the last time we had a good breakfast?” She was