WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) Read Free Page B

stick.  The stupid stick hadn’t seen a speck of paint in its entire life but it could etch out the back side of our thighs in a heartbeat which is why it was named the whelp maker.  We hid out for three days until neither of us could take another day not seeing Maw Sue because w e missed her.  Sometimes, there are worse things than whelps.   
    The screen door let out an eerie squeal and the bell clanged. We stood in front of the kitchen table nervous and silent. Maw Sue was sitting down on the opposite side, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee. The air was thick and daunting. The red stone eyed me with its piercing glaze. I gulped and fidgeted. Mag swayed and her knees knocked. From across the room, the statue of Jesus melted us with his hot stare and the lamb bleeped and bleeped. Maw Sue never looked up. She didn’t have too. The message was clear.  On the opposite end of the table was the whelp maker and sitting on top of it was the mangled remain s of two ninja crackles.  They d ied for the cause but Mag and I took the punishment. 
     

SALVATION
     
    They say you gain strength in what’s left behind but what if you can’t remember what you’ve left or why? I’ve lived with my parent’s for months, how many I’ve lost track. I woke up daily from nightmares, strange creatures, shadows and slinks, wailing sounds, rustling and sifting, hands touching me, grabbing and prodding, wanting, touching me and chilling me into a cold sweat.  I was afraid to open my eyes for the fear of what I might see but it was always the same.  I was in my childhood bedroom which seemed to be haunted.  Or maybe I was the vessel that was haunted, I’m not altogether sure anymore.  I never leave this room, I rarely get out of bed, except to pee.  I sleep and sleep, dream and dream, toss and toss, turn and turn until I feel as if I’m just waiting on death to take me.  I have no wants to do anything, to talk to anyone, to speak to anyone, to get dressed, to bathe, or to brush my teeth or comb my hair.  My breath has become the same stale puff of air as a dogs and I barely have the strength to lift my head from the pillow.  The worse part about it—is I don’t know why.  But I don’t have the strength to care.  Just to lift my arm is an effort.  My bones are wasting away and I want nothing more than to die and leave my ravaged pitiful body behind.  My mind is a simply a torn up road map, scattered everywhere and I cannot make sense of it.  Here, there, everywhere.  How I came to be here—I’m not sure.  There are rare times when I rise up with a sudden gust of energy, supernatural in nature, I cannot explain it otherwise, and it reckons me to pick and pilferage for land marks, a road, a doorway, a map or a memory but all I get is the adamant cries inside the house, from the dark house inside me.  No lesser light—just dark, overwhelming dark .  And I realize it’s not supernatural at all—it’s her.  She will not let me be.  So I lay in my childhood bed of suffering, limp body, cold heart, listening to t he sounds of the world spinning while I cannot silence her deafening screams.  I can do nothing but what I know to do.  I retreat internally to cope, while I shut the world I cannot bear, out of mind.  No matter where I go, internally or outwardly, I struggle to hold her inside me, keep her where she belongs.  SHE CANNOT COME OUT! I fear the walls are not strong enough to hold her. She is violent and adamant, determined to find a way out but as long as I have anything to do with it— that  will never happen. As soon as I assure myself, my mind thinks it—I feel a rupture inside and the foundation of the house splinters and shifts under the weigh t of her heavy heartfelt cries as if she is throwing a fit as she is prone to do.  Voices slip through the cracks of the house, of my soul.  I rise up from my death bed, eyes wild and alert. For the first time, in months, I say, I