In The Tall Trees

By

Angel Van Atta

Copyright © 2023 by Angel Van Atta

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

1

I always waked up before Momma. Always. It’s 'cause she says it’s safer in the daytime than it is the night, which means I have to sleep when it first gets dark. In case the bad man comes. Momma hates the bad man. She hates him with all her heart.

“Momma, why do you hated the bad man?” I ask her now, as she rolls over and sits up, her hair all messy from the pillow.

“He’ll grab your face and eat out your eyes!” Momma says. “He’ll plop them from their sockets and slurp them up inside!”

"Momma, that's silly!" I giggled up at her as her hands, which she had turned into claws, raced up and down my belly and my side, tickling me, which she knowed I hated. "You can't slurp up eyeballs inside of you."

"The bad man can." Her voice was full of ice and fear and I all of a sudden had to go. From the scarediness that her words gave me, but also from the tickling. Momma knowed I hated that. "The bad man can rip your head right off your tiny, frail shoulders Mella, doubt it not." Her voice is low but her eyes are fire, and she sounds like she does when she's really extra trying to learn me something.

"The bad man is make-believe. He can't be real. Monsters are all dead," I whispered, and my bladder screamed at me and my face was all squeezed shut tight. All squished up 'cause I had to go, but also 'cause I didn't wanna hear it if she said the really scary thing again. The thing that keeped me awake in the dark and all shivery, even when it's warm. That Daddy is the bad man.

"Go. Go use the potty before you pee your last pair of pajama pants," Momma sighed at me and sat back against the wall that our bed was pushed up into. I could hear the metal collar she wore scrape against the crookedy wood behind her back and the red, rubbery-covered, metal wire whoosh against the rough woolen blankey. Momma says woolen means from sheep, which are covered in clouds, but the blankey isn’t soft like clouds. "I don't feel like heating up the water for laundry just now," Momma said, sounding all sad.

I really did have to go, but I stared at her for a second. Her face was tired and bruised and her cheekbones poked out more than the mommies in the books she reads at sleepy time. They’re all round and pretty, those drawn on faces on the pages. Not like Momma's.

"Go on," she tells me, but nicer now. Calmer. More like regular Momma, so I went, and the scarediness left me as I did, thank goodness.

Parts of my heart think already that Daddy is the bad man. But my other part doesn't wanna believe it. He's my Daddy. I'm his Mella Moo. Daddy loves me. He does all the things he can the best ways he can. I know he does. But I can hear them sometimes, at night. Her crying all low and soft, begging him to stop. To leave her be. Begging him to not hurt her anymore. And he yells at her on those times. His voice so loud and scary and mean. Like a dog bark-screaming, like the one that came from the woods that time. Bark-screaming and snapping his spit-sticky teeth at me. Daddy saved me then. ‘Cause Daddy is a hero.

‘Cept for when the bad man comes. Maybe the bad man steals Daddy. Maybe the bad man is made of shadows and forces himself up Daddy's nose or eyes or ears and wears Daddy like a great big Daddy suit. Daddy pajammies.

"What's so funny, nugget?" Momma asks me while I wash my hands. I didn't even knowed I was laughing, and I didn't wanna tell her my joke about Daddy pajammies ‘cause it wasn't really funny anyways. Plus, Momma never laughed about Daddy. Momma hates him with all her heart, and she doesn't want me to love him either. But I can't help it. I love him. He's my daddy.

"Can we play wooden blocks?" I asked her, even though I knowed she'll say yes 'cause Momma loves me and always says yes to stuff like blocks and animals and I Spy With My Little Eye. Well, mostly always. Momma even plays the games with me I make up inside my head.

But just as Momma starts to say a thing, Peter starts crying and Momma sighs again and then stands up off the bed. Peter was named after this magical hero who lives in New York City and saves people with his magic webs. Only people don't know it's Peter ‘cause he dresses like a spider all red and blue and that makes me think of Daddy, too. ‘Cause nobody knows Daddy is also the bad man. Only Peter is a hero and saves people from the bad mens. And Daddy is the guy that people need to be saved from. Momma says.

"It's okay, love, it's okay," Momma calls out as she heads out of our room and into the kids’ room.

I follow Momma into the room where Peter sleeps in the crib between the two sets of bunk beds, one against one wall and the other against the other. This is really supposed to be my room, too, but only when Daddy comes. Momma says I can sleep with her for as long as my heart wants me to. At least when Daddy isn't home. Daddy only lives here sometimes. The rest of the time he's away for his job and also with his other family. We're a secret. Ssssshhhhh.

Momma starts rocking little Petey, and I climb onto my sometimes bed. I hate this bed most of the times 'cause when Daddy's here Momma is sad a lot. And when the bad man comes I cry on the flat little pillow with the little yellow flowers and if Petey wakes up and screams sometimes the bad man comes in and yells at us both that nobody can hear us and we can cry, cry, cry all night and it wouldn't matter. That mommy could scream and scream and scream and nobody would come. And that if we didn't stop maybe he would get tired of coming out here at all and we would all die with hungry tummies, ‘cause nobody knows we're here but him. That's what makes us a secret.

"Momma?" I ask as I reach my wiggly little toes up, up, and up to the bottom of the mattress above me.

"Yes, love?" Momma asks back as she lays little baby Peter on the other mattress, the mattress that will belong to him once the baby in Momma’s belly comes out.

"Who are all these beds for? The tip-top ones?" I say my question as Momma changes Stinky Pete's stinky diaper.

"Those will be yours and Peter's someday, once we have a few more babies," a new voice says from the doorway, and Momma and I both jump. Even Petey seems surprised at Daddy's voice, and I pretended not to see as Momma's eyes flinched away from him.

"Daddy!" I cry out, all happy in my heart even though a little dark piece of it feels sad 'cause I know I shouldn't be happy that he's here. ‘Cause what if he brought the bad man with him?

“Mella Moo!” Daddy cries and picks me up in his big strong arms and throws me up in the air, and I laugh and laugh. It’s the best when Daddy is in a happy mood. That’s when I love him most and when I feel less bad about it.

“Daddy Doo!” I cry back, and now Daddy laughs, too. ‘Cause Daddy always gets my jokes when it’s really him, and my whole heart opens up with relief. Daddy is alone this time, I think. He didn’t bring the bad man with him.

“I didn’t hear you drive up,” Momma says, and her voice is weird sounding. LIke it gets when she’s nervous. It’s like that a lot when Daddy comes.

“Oh, I left it at the bridge. Thought I would sneak up on you guys like a surprise.” Daddy laughed and Momma smiled, but I could see it wasn’t a real shiny smile. Her eyes weren’t sparkly like when she’s happy. This made my heart nervous ‘cause sometimes when Daddy comes over, Momma tries to pertend to be happy but it makes Daddy angry, and then when Daddy’s angry, the bad man comes.

“Daddy, I wanna see the bridge! Can I come with you to get the truck? I haven’t been on a car ride in a million days!” I say to him, and gently place my hands against his rough, furry cheeks. Daddy doesn’t have a beard. He says it’s called a shadow, what he has. I think that’s where the bad man hides sometimes. In his fuzzy shadow. 'Cause shadows can sink into other shadows.

“No,” Momma says, and her voice is suddenly very mad, and I know that it’s 'cause I asked to go with Daddy. She hates it when I go with Daddy. She tells me all the times that I’m not s’posed to ask to go with him, and that I’ll get in trouble if I do, but I love to leave this stupid little house. He always carries me on his hip so I don’t step on anything ‘cause we’re not allowed to have shoes, like Daddy has. Shoes protect your feet from all the pokey things. But you don’t need shoes on the inside and so Daddy says they’re a waste of monies. Momma says it’s so we can’t run away. But that’s silly 'cause Momma’s chain doesn’t let her even leave the porch. So there’s no way we could.

“Alix,” Daddy said, and his voice was full of yellow exclamation points, like in the comic book with the spider man that saves the old ladies and little kids and the man driving the underground train. All of a sudden, tears fill up the place behind my eyes, and I’m scared, and my heart is beating bum bum bum inside my chest and throat, and I try really hard not to let the tears run down my face. 'Cause Daddy doesn’t like tears. Daddy only wants us to be happy.

But Peter starts to cry 'cause he’s afraid of Daddy’s voice when it’s all yellow, and Momma gives me an angry look but really fast like she didn’t mean to do it, and the tears are even closer now. They want to escape and run away, and so do I. I wish I had shoes 'cause I would run far far away before the bad man could come and away from mommy’s angry eyes.

“I’m sorry, Daddy. I can stay home. I can wait for you.” I look at Daddy’s chin and cheeks, looking for any sign of moving shadows.

“Hush, Mella, no need to be sad. Mommy isn’t the boss of us, now is she? I think a nice walk to the bridge is the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Daddy tells me, and his voice is nicer now than when he said Momma’s name, and my heart splodes with happy feels. There were no shadows moving around in Daddy’s furry cheeks, so I’m pretty sure the bad man isn’t here.

“But, Charlie, the water,” Momma says, and my heart freezes. I can hear the scarediness in her words and it makes me kinda scaredy. Why is she afraid of water? I love water!

“Alix, I’m not gonna let her fall in the river, for fuck’s sake,” Daddy says, and I giggle at the swear he used, and he smiles at me then. His smile is the most beautiful thing in the world. Like the ones in the books Momma reads to me at night.

“She’s just at that age, and it scares me,” Momma says, and she’s talking really fast now. I watch her carefully pull the chain a little to her side so that it doesn’t hit Peter’s head as she raises him to her boobie. Momma feeds Peter milk from her boobie. Which is a funny word and I giggle again, though nobody said anything new, and they both look at me all weird.

“I’m her father, Alix. You know she listens to me. And I’m not gonna put her down, anyway. The ground is covered in pine needles. I don’t want her feet to get pricked.” Daddy’s voice was like a drill sergeant from the movie where the guy who becomes the captain of all of America is joining the army and he’s too scrawny and gets yelled at by the drill sergeant guy. That’s what Daddy says he’s called, and Daddy knows everything!

Momma just looks at me then, her eyes full of questiony marks, which are the ones at the end of the sentences when the person is wanting an answer. I don’t know what answer Momma wants from me so I look away, not wanting her to see my smile 'cause I know that I’m gonna go with Daddy. And I don’t want her to see in case the tears do start to fall down my face. I don’t know why, but they’re still there, and my heart feels both happy and sad, and that makes the questioney marks fill up my eyes, too, I think.

“I wasn’t even gonna move the truck, you know?” Daddy asked me as he turned and started walking us to the front door. “But I can never say no to you, now, can I?” He asks me and I smile so hard it almost hurts my cheeks. I love it when Daddy makes me feel like this. Like he loves me all the way and would never leave us alone out here. Like I’m special and he loves me most out of all his children. Even the unsecret ones.

2

Daddy carries me tight against him as we walked. The sun is barely awake and I’m proud for how early I woked up today. Momma wants me to sleep longer in the day, but I like to wake up when the sun is fresh and bright. The shadows aren’t as scary then, 'cause I know there’s a whole day between right now and when the darkness comes, 'cause that’s when the bad man has the most power. I know it. And that makes me think of something, so I lift my face up from Daddy’s chest, and I look at Daddy’s face. He’s breathing kinda hard now, 'cause we have to walk up a hill and the driveway is long, long, and long and just keeps going.

“Daddy?” I ask him and then keep talking 'cause sometimes he doesn’t say what and so it’s easier to just keep asking my questions when I have something in my mind. “How come you came in the morning time? You never did that yet before.”

“Today is a special day. An anniversary. It’s been two years since you guys moved in here. Two whole years already,” Daddy tells me, smiling as he keeps on walking and breathing big.

“Wow,” I say in a ssshhh voice, and Daddy just nods to say he agrees with me there, kid. “Where did we live before we camed here? With you and your not secret family?” I asked him, 'cause I only ever remember living here. In this little house in the woods where the stray dogs live so I have to stay inside the house unless I’m with Daddy or playing in the backyard that has a fence to keep us safe. And mommy’s chain is long enough to let her go in the backyard so I don’t have to be afraid of an evil doggy jumping the fence to eat me all up.

“What used to be doesn’t matter, now does it? We’re in the here and now, and that’s what we should focus on, amiright?” Daddy’s words are weird to my brain and make me take a second to think. Sometimes I feel like I can remember a before place and before people, but just like the bad man, those thens live in shadows and, anyway, they scare me. Sometimes Momma tries to talk about the back then. It’s always at night when the lights are off and when the fan is on. She talks in ssssssshhhhh voices when she tries to say about it all, but I never wanna hear it. I don’t wanna listen. Back then scares me to know, but I can’t say why. So when she starts to talk about the people and the houses from before, I always put my hands over my ears and start singing Hush Little Baby until she stops. She always has that sad face when I do this. I know it’s important to her heart for me to hear, but I can’t. It’s a scaredy place in my brain.

“Yes, Daddy. I love you,” I say again all shushed, and he stops walking and looks at me, and my heart explodes with the happy feels as he tells me the best words in the whole wide world.

“I love you, too, Mella Moo.” And then we’re going over the top of the hill and it drops down into the forest and way ahead in the morning light playing tricksies through the trees, I can see Daddy’s truck, and the bridge, and the white tops of the water as it whoooooshes by. I’ve never been to the bridge yet before, and I’m so excited.

“Daddy! That water is loud and fast!” I tell him as we get closer, and he laughs and nods.

“I guess I can understand why your Momma was so worried about you being near it,” he says, and I nod my head this time up at him.

“Is it a monster?” I say all in a scaredy voice, and he laughs and I feel silly.

“No, Moo Moo, it’s just the water rushing from the mountains around us. It’s made of melted snow and it all collects together super fast and rushes away to the sea. It looks and sounds like that 'cause it has a fast current and it really could rush you away from us, and that wouldn’t be a good thing at all, now would it?” he asks.

“No way, Jose,” I say and then clap my hand over my mouth. Momma says I shouldn’t say it but Daddy likes it when I do, and he laughs even louder this time, and I can feel my face turning hot and red, all full of embarassedness.

“Aww, Mella, you’re okay. Momma’s not here, so live a little.” He winks at me, and then I lay my head back down against his chest.

This was nice. A nice walk with my Daddy. I know Daddy has other little kids with another mommy far, far away, but right now I pretend that he only has me and nobody else. Not even Peter, though I instantly feel bad about that. I love Petey. I really, really, really, really do. But I never get to see Daddy and when I do, Peter’s always there too. Sometimes I just wanna be the only one in the whole wide world that he loves. ‘Cept from Momma. I wish he could love her all the times.

We walk on, but quietly, and I just be in the moment like Momma says to be. I listen to the birdies in the trees singing to the sun and catching early bird worms. I listen to the water rushing by and by and it reminds me of the sound the fan makes at night when it mixes into the sound of rain pouring down from the skies. I watch the shadows moving around in the hundred, million trees around us, great tall trees with pointy tops, and the shadows seem alive as we go. But even though the bad man might be out there somewhere, watching us even, I’m happy. I’m happy 'cause I know that he can’t get to Daddy’s face shadow and sink in through his eyeballs or nose holes 'cause Daddy is too happy right now. And I feel safe as we crunch in Daddy’s shoes across the wooden planks of the bridge and the little rocks from the road, and I hug him tight as he leans down to put me in the truck on the sticky, red seat.

“Alright, let go now, Mella. We need to get back to your Momma. You know how worried she gets any time I take you out of the house. And you should never make a pregnant woman worry.” He pushes me away a little and I finally let him go, already missing him even though he’s still here. I feel like I’m always missing Daddy, even when he’s right there next to us.

“What’s pregnant mean?” I ask as he climbs in next to me and pulls the keys out from under the seat.

“That’s what it’s called when a baby is growing in a mommy’s belly.”

“Oh! Momma’s pregnant! She has a little baby growing in her belly.” I’m all excited to learn this new thing, and I look down at the empty seat next to me.

“I know. I put it there,” Daddy laughs and then starts the truck by turning the key in the little silver circley thing. The truck goes roooooarrrrr like a giant lion from a zoo and I jump. I forgotted it was so loud and Daddy patted my head.

“Daddy, did you put me and Peter in Momma’s belly?”

“I put Petey in your Momma’s belly exactly two years ago yesterday.” Daddy’s voice is low and in the way it does when he’s remembering stuff, so I say a thing that I don’t know if I should or not. Momma wouldn’t like it if I asked, I think. 'Cause Momma doesn’t ever want me to make Daddy angry, and questions sometimes make Daddy angry, even for no reason at all.

“Daddy, did you bring any groceries this time?” I asked him, but 'cause I saw no bags and that made me sad to think about.

“No, honey, not this time. Mrs. Me back home overspent again, and so I didn’t have any money that she wouldn’t notice missing.” His voice sounded sad, and the smile he made didn’t look happy at all, and my heart got super sad too. And all of a sudden the tears were just coming out of me and I hated them.

“I’m so hungry, Daddy,” I say, and I didn’t mean those words to be said any more than the tears to be cried, and suddenly the shadows outside seemed too fast as the truck whooshed forwards and my body pressed backwards into the seat.

“I’m sorry,” Daddy said, and suddenly his voice was hard and red and orange and I could see the bad man in the shadows on his face.

“No, Daddy, it’s okay. I’m not really hungry,” I lied to him even though he told me to never, ever, ever! “We have lots and lots of beans and Momma makes the best beans ever in the whole world!” I try to stay calm when I say these words, but suddenly the tears are too full and they rush down and down and down my cheeks and I can feel snot start to drip out, too, and now my heart is bum, bum, bumming so fast in my chest 'cause as we drive, I think I can see the shadow man crawling up Daddy’s chin and cheek, reaching out its shadow fingers and pulling tight and tight as he goes up and up and as the truck beneath me bounces and I try not to slide all around I see it disappear itself into the side of Daddy’s mouth and now the scarediness takes over and I cry too hard.

“Shut up!” Daddy screams at me all of a suddenly, and now I’m screaming and crying and wanting Momma and wishing I never had goed on this stupid dumb walk with Daddy.

He must have been hiding in the truck I think as we bounce along the road, and I know Daddy is driving fast, fast and I know I should be wearing the seatbelt, but I forgot and now I’m really, really scared.

“Stop fucking crying!” Daddy screams and slams on the pedal that makes the truck stop, and I can hear a weird screeching sound as I’m pushed forward in the air by an invisible hand, and I know it had to be the bad man from the shadows, even though I saw him go inside Daddy’s mouth. I felted my body be pushed, and I slid forward super fast like a comet, but Daddy’s hand was faster and I felt myself fly into his arm, and he had me pulled into a hug all of a quickness and he was saying over and over “I’m sorry, Mella Moo, I’m so sorry,” and I could hear all the love for me he had inside his voice, and I cried and cried and cried. And we just sitted there, like that, in the big truck in the middle of the road in the driveway to our house.

“What are you doing?” Momma suddenly screams out at us, and I can hear her voice through the door of the truck, and I have to stretch my neck up to see out the window in the front. I can see our house and the door open and Momma’s head peeking out as far as she can poke it. I can’t see the collar, really, just one eye and her long, long hair hanging down, but I know it’s there. It’s always there. Momma’s collar isn’t allowed to come off and we can’t try to make it, 'cause Daddy says it has to stay so Momma and me stay safe inside. It’s dangerous in the outside. There are feral dogs all over the outside, Daddy says. And things even bigger and meaner and hungrier.

Momma tries to tell me that the outside has wonderful places, sometimes, in the dark night, when I’m s’posed to be sleeping. I hate it when she tells me this stuff 'cause she has to whisper it all shhhh quiet so Daddy can’t hear on the cameras. I hate it when she tries to tell me these things 'cause they’re lies, and Daddy says we’re not s’posed to lie. Never, ever, ever. I know they’re lies 'cause I asked Daddy once if there were any good places Momma and me could go and be safe and he said no, and then he asked if Momma was planning on leaving ever and I said no, but I know that’s a lie, too, and my face got all red and burney, and his eyes got all squinty, and I started crying 'cause I didn’t know what to do. And that made Momma come in the kids’ room to check on me, and Daddy got mad and yelled at her that he would never hurt me. Never ever. But Momma doesn’t believe Daddy. Momma says Daddy lies. That all his words are lies. But he’s Daddy, and he would never lie to me. Not really. ‘Cause he hates liars. He told me so.

Daddy sighs then and puts me back on the seat next to him, and for a part of a second I’m kinda scared when he puts his foot on the other pedal and we jump forward again, only this time it’s a gentle jump and I don’t fly back or forward or any way as the truck brum, brum, brums forward to where he always parks, under the carport with the ‘lectric, solar glasses on top. They’re like windows ‘cept you can’t see through them. They’re all black and shiny. I got to help Daddy put a new one on last time he came home, and that was so much awesomeness 'cause I got to go up high and see far, far into the forest. We live in an ocean of trees!

“Come on, Little Moo, let’s show your Momma that you’re alright, okay? I promise next time I’ll bring lots and lots of food,” Daddy says, and I get so happy. I love it when he brings lots and lots!

“Will you please bring some candies too?” I ask, but soft soft 'cause I don’t wanna make the angry part come back.

“Oh! Wait, I do have something you can have.” Daddy leans forward after he puts the knobby thing by the wheel all the way up and turns the key off and pulls it out into his hand. He opens the glove box, which doesn’t really have gloves in it even though sometimes people do put gloves in there, Daddy says. He puts the keys inside and then pulls out a bright orange package, and my eyes leak with tears again, only this time they’re all happy and my heart squeals like Petey does when Momma blows on his tummy sometimes.

“Peanut butter cups for just me? I don’t have to share?” I ask all excitedly, and I already know he’s gonna say yes, but I also already know I’ll save one of them for Momma 'cause they’re her most favorite candies in the whole world! The whole wide world!

“Well, Peter’s too young for candy, now isn’t he? And your Momma would want you to have it all to yourself, now wouldn’t she?” Daddy asks and winks at me, and his face is beautiful again. Not angry or sad or anything, but happy, and I hug him all tight, tight and we both laugh, and he hands me the candy and then pulls me up as he steps out of the truck and into the chilly outside air. I shiver a little 'cause I haven’t got a coat, and Daddy walks me across the yard and puts me into Momma’s waiting, reached out arms.

“I’m so sorry, it’s just the noise startled me,” Momma tells Daddy as she hugs me tight. And then puts me down behind her, standing between Daddy and me. “I thought maybe the truck got a flat tire and went out of control or something.”

“Jesus, Alix, you will never trust me with them, will you? You do know I’m a good father, don’t you? You always make me feel like shit around them.” Daddy’s voice is a little orangey again and I’m afraid that the bad man is in there, in his mouth, climbing up into his brain.

“Mommy knows you’re a good Daddy, Daddy! You bring us all the foods and presents and candies!” I say, trying to sound all happy happy so that Momma and Daddy will get happy happy, too. “Oh! Can we watch a movie? The one with the lady who goes bam, bam, bam and beats all the bad guys and her hair is all pretty red?” I ask as I hand Momma the candy to open for me.

I can hear Peter in the kitchen, which is a tiny room next to the one we’re in right now. The living room, it’s tiny too. Our whole house is tiny. I only know that 'cause the houses in the movies are always big. Daddy says that his grandpa built this house with his own bare hands! He says that his grandma and grandpa raised his daddy here and that my daddy came to visit when he was little and he ran a muck! I don’t know what that means, really, 'cause mucky stuff is usually icky, like when Momma cleans it out of my ear, but Daddy makes it sound really fun, and sometimes I hope I get to run a muck outside. If only I had some shoes.

The chain on Momma's collar isn’t really a chain, but just a thick wire covered in squishy rubber like that covers the handles of the pliers Momma uses to turn on the water in the bathroom. The chain runs from Momma here in the living room, through the hall, and into our room, which is really her and Daddy’s room. It connects to a thick, metal circle that’s buried halfway in the cement on the floor. Daddy put it there himself, when he got the house all ready for us to come. That’s when he put up the solar glasses, too. So we can have ‘lectricity to watch movies and have a fan in the bedroom and turn on lamps and stuff. Sometimes the ‘lectricty gets broken when the wind blows all hard and scary outside, and we have to wait for Daddy to come back to fix it. I hate it when that happens. I love movies.

“Black Widow is your favorite Avenger, isn’t she?” Daddy asks me, as Momma hands me back the package of Reese’s, and I slide one of the chocolate yummies out onto my hand, knowing there’s only one left and feeling a little sad that I’m gonna save it for Momma. Daddy’s right, she’ll tell me I can keep it, but sometimes she says thank you and eats it all up. Which is good but also, I get kinda sad when that happens, 'cause I really, really love Reese’s peanut butter cups.

“Mmmm hmmm,” I nod my head as I carefully peel the black paper from the delicious melty chocolate, and my tummy rumbles up, and I’m so happy I could cry again, and I don’t know why I always want to cry when Daddy’s here. I have so many emotions inside of me about it. Momma says emotions are things that tell us how to feel. And I wish that they would just tell me to be happy always. And Daddy too. And Momma. “She’s kick ass!”

“Mella!” Momma scolds, and Daddy starts laughing, and he ruffles my hair, and I hated it so much when he does that but I love it, too. He sits down in the comfy chair, and I climb up into his lap as I push the yummy chocolate into my mouth. It fills it all up and it takes a second for my tongue to get the flavor, and then it does and my mouth fills with spit, and I swallow it and almost start to choke 'cause the candy is so big and tries to go down with the spit, but it can’t fit and my tongue stops it and Daddy pats his big hand on my back.

“Slow down, Mella Moo, you don’t wanna choke and die on candy, now do you?” he asks me, and I smile and nod my head again.

“You alright?” Momma asks, and Daddy stares at her all mad and hard, and I feel bad for making him look like that at her. Just 'cause she loves me. Just 'cause she wants to always know I’m safe.

“Alix,” Daddy’s voice is low low and mad mad, and suddenly the chocolate in my mouth makes me sad instead of happy. “She’s fine. Stop hovering. I’m completely capable of being her father.”

“I’m sorry, Charlie. We’re so far away from help out here, there’s nothing I can do but worry, 'cause if anything happens…” Momma’s voice is low, but I hear her and I know Daddy hears her, too, 'cause I can feel his body grow stiff like sticks and I don’t know what to do to make this stop. To keep the bad man away.

“Daddy, can we watch the movie now? While Momma makes breakfast?” I ask him, but my words are all goobled up 'cause the candy is so much, and even though I’m chewing it’s taking forever to swallow it all.

“Alix, goddamnit, I’m tired, okay? I came out here to get away from all the fucking stress, and I just need you to get off my dick about shit, okay?” I hate it when Daddy uses the bad words, 'cause when he’s happy and nice he never says the bad words around me or Peter. “Just go make some fucking breakfast 'cause I’m hungry as fuck and I honestly need you to not be where I can see you right now.”

Momma hearded the warning Daddy was putting in his voice and she didn’t say anything else. She just gived me a sad look and then she turned around, grabbing her cable and holding it out of the way so she wouldn’t trip. I could hear Peter in the tiny kitchen in his tiny pen, and he started making happy sounds when Momma walked in the room.

“Black Widow, it is,” Daddy said after a few minutes of sitting still with his arms and legs all wooden, and I sat as quiet as I could, waiting for him to come back to happy Daddy and hoping that the bad man stayed away. I was so happy when he did that I forgot I was saving a piece of the candy for Momma, and I peeled the paper off and ated it as Daddy picked up the remote. I think I knew it was happening and it wasn’t really a forget, but that makes my heart a little hurtie to think about so I try not to have any thoughts of it at all.

3

I sat snuggled up on Daddy’s lap and whenever he laughed, I laughed too. We ‘specially love the giant red man who Daddy said is on another show about the upside down, which sounds scary but also really, really cool! Daddy says he’ll bring it for me sometimes. Maybe for my birthday. He just has to find it and be a pirate and put it on the drive. I love the drive 'cause Daddy puts so much stuff on it from his computer that he brings sometimes. It doesn’t work to connect to the websites 'cause where we live has no towers. I wish it did. Towers are really cool and super tall. Kind of like the trees that go up, up, and up. But right now I have almost all of the Marvel movies to watch and that makes me happy 'cause heroes are the good guys and sometimes I can pretend that they are here at night when the shadows get all dark.

Pretty soon Momma brings me and Daddy each a plate, and then she goes back into the kitchen to eat with Petey. Pete cries a lot around Daddy 'cause Petey loves Momma most, and it makes Daddy angry when he tries to hold him and Petey does the thing where he arches his back and screams and screams. One time when Daddy wouldn’t let Momma take him when he cried, Petey arched his back too high and then he fell right out of Daddy’s arms into the big comfy chair. Thankfully Daddy was standing there, otherwise Momma says Petey coulda been hurt really bad and maybe even died. I know what died means 'cause Wanda’s brother died in the movie, and that made me sad to think about. ‘Cept he came back in the t.v. show but different. I asked Momma if Petey woulda come back like that, ‘cept different, and she just looked at me all sad and said no but wouldn’t say no more 'cause Daddy was sleeping and sometimes he pretends to be sleeping but he’s really listening like a sneaky guy.

Daddy’s plate is full of sliced SPAM and mushed up beans that are actually yummy, but I’m tired of beans. My plate has a slice of SPAM, too, and my tummy grumbles 'cause I love SPAM more than anything else. Mostly 'cause I can read it all by myself on the can. It’s all large lettered and pretty. Plus it tastes really salty and yummy. Sometimes Daddy brings us eggs and SPAM and he teached me how yummy it is to take a piece of the meat and dip it in the bright yellow runny yolks and I wish we always could have eggs. Mmmmmm! And SPAM.

I take a piece of my SPAM and dip it in my beans, to pretend like the beans are really runny egg yolks, and it’s almost just as yummy, so I do it again and again but the last time I do, my plate slips on my lap and flops all the way over and warm beans go splashing all up Daddy’s arm and leg and he stands up all quick and his plate falls of the edge of the comfy chair and hits the ground all with a clatter and breaks right in half, and suddenly he’s mad again and he pushes me back and away. “Goddamnit, Mella!” he says in that orangey voice, his words all in big letters in my ears. Momma says the big letters are yelling letters in the books we read.

“What’s going on?” Momma asks and rushes in, and in the kitchen baby Peter’s already crying, and then I start to cry and I run away as fast as my feet can go.

“She fuckin’ spilt her food all over my pants and on the fuckin’ chair,” Daddy yells at Momma, and I know he’s mad at me and not at her, but he always makes his mads be at her, no matter if it’s ‘cause of me or not, and my heart feels bad again and I hide underneath my bed even though I can barely fit and last time hit my head on the wooden part that runs down the middle.

“It’s okay, Charlie, I’ll clean it up.” Momma’s voice is low and calm and I can barely hear it with Peter crying so loud and I wished I would have gone in the kitchen, instead, to try and calm him down, ‘cause Daddy hardly ever calms down when we’re loud. “Come in the kitchen and I’ll grab a towel and wipe your arm, and then I’ll wash your pants for you, okay?”

“I honestly don’t know why I come out here at all,” Daddy says, but his voice is already less orangey, and I pray inside my heart for Pete to stop crying so the bad man stays away. “Every fucking time I do I just feel guilty for something. Not bringing the right thing or not coming enough so my own fucking kids will feel safe around me. Tina and Charles aren’t like this, you know. They love me, they respect me.”

Momma says something else then, but they must be in the kitchen 'cause I can’t hear the words, only the voices, and I calm a little more underneath my bed. There aren’t any toys down here, Daddy makes us keep it super clean and put away. All of my toys are hand me downs. And thinking about my toys makes me want my bunny. It’s old and torn, but mine, and I love it. Momma says it came from the hobspital when I was born. I got one and my sister did too. Mine’s pink and hers is a purpley one. But that doesn’t make sense 'cause we only have a pink one and Petey wasn’t born in a hobspital, plus he’s a brother. I asked what a hobspital was and Momma said it’s a place where you go when you’re very very sick or when you’re going to have a baby.

I think Momma must be a liar like Daddy says 'cause of the lies about the rabbit and the hobspital. It doesn't make sense. A lot of what Momma says doesn’t make sense. And now I can feel my thoughts inside my mind turning orange and all scrambled up 'cause I don’t know what’s true and what’s a lie, and I don’t know where I left my bunny. I think it’s in Momma’s bed, but I don’t wanna crawl out. I just wanna stay down here in the shadows 'cause it’s daytime and at least these shadows are safe. At least right now 'cause I already know where the bad man is. The bad man is in Daddy’s brain.

4

“Mella, it’s okay, honey, you can come out now.” Momma’s voice sounds soft and gentle. I ‘magine it’s like the color blue that’s on Petey’s favorite blankey. The one Daddy says used to be our big brother’s.

His name is Charlie, too, like Daddy, but I’ve never seen him yet, ‘cept in the pictures Daddy shows us on his phone. Daddy says he can bring his phone in ‘cause it can’t get internets either and that makes it safe around Momma. I asked Daddy what the internets were and he says they’re where the websites live, and that makes me happy 'cause that’s where t.v. comes from.

“Is Daddy okay?” I ask her, and her face gets sad and she sits down on her bottom with her back away from me.

“He’s fine.” Her voice is all less blue now. Kinda yellow, I think.

“Momma, do you hate me?” I ask her, and for a second she doesn’t say anything and it makes my heart turn into ice, and I think it’s gonna break before I hear her crying all soft like she does when she doesn’t want anyone to hear. ‘Specially Daddy.

“No, baby, I don’t hate you,” she finally says, and all my heart melts and I can hear it bump, bump, bumping in my chest all fast, and I don’t wanna be underneath anymore, so I scoot forward and climb out like a wiggly worm. And then Momma grabs me up in her arms and holds me tight tight and together we both cry all soft and that’s when I see that Petey is sleeping in his crib even though the light from the window is shining in extra bright like it does at lunch time. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Momma.” I tell her, and I mean it with all my heart and my brain and I hold her as tight as I can. “I’m sorry, Momma,” I whisper, but I hope she can’t hear me so I don’t have to tell her why.

“Oh, honey, nothing is your fault. Not one little thing, I promise,” Momma says, and I know she doesn’t know why I said sorry and so I know I have to tell her, and the tears come a little more now 'cause now my heart is scaredy. I know Momma won’t be mad, but I don’t wanna make her any more sad. 'Cause Momma is always sad.

“I’m sorry I ated both peanut butter cups.” I say it quick quick all at once, as fast as I can 'cause Momma says that it’s better to get the bad stuff over with all at once, like a bandaid 'cause it ouchies less that way.

“Oh, baby!” And then Momma’s laughing and she puts up her knees and pushes me back, but soft and gentle like her voice, and I sit on her lap like she’s the comfy chair, with my back against her legs. “That’s okay. That was your candy and I wanted you to eat it all up!” Momma says these words as she takes her hands and brushes them against my cheeks, wiping away all my tears and pushing the runaway hairs from my eyes. That’s what Momma calls them. Runaway.

“Daddy said you wouldn’t care,” I tell her, and then she laughs again and I’m surprised, 'cause usually when I say about Daddy she gets sad or mad or both.

“Hey, you’ve found something I agree with him on,” she says, and I can see that the smile really is all the way up into her eyes, and my heart is suddenly so happy.

“You’re the best Momma in the whole world!” I tell her, and my voice is too loud, and Petey makes a sound inside his crib, and we both freeze like penguins and take peeks at him inside his bed, but he’s still sleeping. And then suddenly we’re giggling again, but quiet like.

“You’re the best little Mella Bella a Momma could ever have.” Momma knows I love it when she calls me that 'cause Belle is my most favorite Disney princess.

I love her the mostest 'cause she lives locked away in a castle in the great big scary forest, just like me. And 'cause she loves the beast like I love my Daddy. She’s the only one who does, and that breaks the curse and turns him back into a handsome prince. Sometimes, at night, I wait until Momma is sleeping and I go to the window and look and see if I can see the wishing star, super bright. And when it’s there, I make a wish that my love for Daddy will take away the beast parts and turn him back into the happy Daddy always. Then maybe we can go with him and not be a secret anymore. At the end of Beauty and the Beast, all the townsfolk come and dance and there are no secrets then.

“Did Daddy leave?” I ask Momma once our giggle fit is done. Momma says that’s what it’s called when we can’t stop giggling. I like it better than the fits Petey throws.

My mind is a ball of confused lines all black and scribbly when I ask 'cause I want Momma to say yes, but if she does I know I’ll be super duper sad 'cause I also want Daddy to still be here. I want him to tuck me in at night and tell me a funny story that’s only a little bit scary. I want him to lift me way up high like he does sometimes and tell me I'm an airplane and zoom me through the air. And I want him to tell me that I’m his little Mella Moo, princess in the tall trees, and then sing me a song before he turns off the light.

But I also don’t want the bad man to come. He almost always comes at night when Daddy’s here, after the lights go out and he and mommy close the kids’ room door. That’s when we can hear him come, Petey and me, and hear Momma beg him to stop. To leave her alone, to please just let us go home. But that’s weird 'cause we are home, and where else can we go?

“He did, love, but that’s okay,” she says, but suddenly my heart is sad 'cause he didn’t say goodbye, and I’m angry at myself 'cause I know it’s my fault he left, and I hate Momma for not loving him, but mostly I hate me. I hate me for hating her. But mostly I hate me for not being enough for Daddy. Why do I have to be the secret and Tina gets to live with Daddy and go to school and have friends and do all the things they do in the t.v.?

“Why does Daddy hate me?” I ask, and my tears are back and I hate them, too, and me even more for making them.

“Ssshhh, baby, sssshhh,” Momma says, and she picks me up and carries me out into the hall, her collar biting into my forehead a little, and suddenly I’m so angry. Angry at her for having to stay locked up in this place to keep us safe and angry at Daddy for leaving and not saying goodbye and angry at this stupid little house for being in the middle of the tall, tall trees and the wild dogs that run and bite and bark and scream!

“I’m not a baby!” I yell and push away from Momma, hoping she drops me like Daddy dropped Petey that time and not even caring that she’s standing on the hard floor. “I hope I fall and break my head all open and die 'cause there’s no hobspital anywhere around this stupid fucking house!” I scream again and Momma just holds me tight and keeps walking me down the hall. I think Peter will wake up now 'cause I’m so loud but he just keeps sleeping, and Momma closes our bedroom door 'cause it’s ours again now that Daddy’s gone.

“I know you’re not a baby. You’re a big girl, almost all grown up.” Momma’s voice is still soft and gentle and blue again, and the sound of it takes away my anger, and suddenly I’m all tired again, even though I just woked up. “Let’s cuddle and take a little nap, okay? Peter cried for a long time until Daddy left and he’ll probably sleep extra long, so we can be lazy for a bit. Would you like that?” she asks, and I wanna scream again and say no and kick and hit and pull out all her hair, but I just nod and let her lay me down all soft upon the bed.

Momma pulls the scratchy blankey out from underneath me in a way that only rocks me just a bit, and then she whooshes it high up in the air and lets it float down over me, like a parachute in the movies. My eyes are tired now, and I yawn even though I don’t want her to know how tired I am, and she smiles at me, just a little, with her lips and with her eyes, and I smile, too, even though I don’t wanna smile right now. Then Momma twists around her collar so the red rubbery coated wire points out the back, so it doesn’t wrap around me while I sleep, and she pulls me up into her arms, and I feel safe. Really safe. And she sings to me our song.

“You are my sunshine.” Her voice is soft and beautiful, even though her face is hard and kind of ugly where a new bruise puffies out one eye. The bad man must have come when I was hiding under the bed.

“My only sunshine.” And now I notice the cut on her lip as my eyes grow heavier and are harder to keep awake. The bad man must have done that, too, and I gently raise a hand and press it softly against her cheek.

“You make me happy.” She puts her hand on mine, and I let my eyes close tight as I tuck my head underneath her pokey chin, her hand still warm on mine and mine still warm against her face.

“When skies are grey.” I hear her voice still singing, but it’s far, far away now as my mind slowly floats into the place my mind takes me when I sleep.

5

Daddy has been away for eight days. That’s a many days. Over one week! Momma taught me days and weeks and months and years. But years is harder 'cause it’s a lot of those things all rolled up together. Momma has been a nervous nelly lately 'cause Daddy didn’t bring any food last time and before that only a little. I wish Daddy would come soon, too, 'cause we ate all the canned foods already, even the ones she was saving special for when Daddy comes, and the beans are almost all gone.

I hate it when Momma is a nervous nelly 'cause she doesn’t wanna play as much and that makes me bored, so I decided to make a tower of blocks all by myself. I have seventeen blocks. Momma taught me how to count them all on my onesie. I used to have eighteen, but I left one out in the living room once and Daddy stepped on it and then threw it off the porch far, far away into the woods, just like Little Red Riding Hood. Sometimes I pretend I can see it and tell Momma I know where it is and I’ll just run out really fast, like Quicksilver, and be right back. But then Momma remembers me how Quicksilver died and she doesn’t want me to be like Quicksilver, so I have to stay inside where it’s safe. I really liked that block 'cause it was the one with the letter M. Which stands for Mella Moo!

When the blocks are all as high as they could go, I make a wish that my tower would give us internets so we can watch the show with the upside down, and I ask Momma if we can check and see if my wish comes true, but she says no, they’re just blocks, so I knock them all down, boom boom boom, and start again. Only this time I make a little house for my big red car. It’s shiny ‘cept where the paint is all peeled off on one side, but that’s okay 'cause it makes it special 'cause it’s different. Like me.

I don’t have enough blocks to make a roof, but I don’t mind 'cause Momma says the car has its own roof, and I ‘member she’s right and so I laugh and she laughs. And then Petey crawls over and takes the block that was one of the doors and starts to chew on it. That’s so gross, but Momma doesn’t care 'cause she’s just staring at the t.v. that’s playing Doctor Who, but the new ones. Momma says there are old ones, too, that are black and white even, but I think that’s another lie 'cause all the movies and cartoons I’ve seen are bright and full of colors. Momma is the biggest liar, but I love her anyways. I wonder if I should tell Daddy about her lies about the black and white Doctor Who but decide not to. Her secret is safe with me. Momma taught me that, too!

“Mommy! I hear Daddy’s truck!” I say, which is not a lie 'cause I do! It’s loud and goes rumble, rumble, rumble, like a troll under a bridge, and Momma stands up super fast and grabs up Petey and the car and rushes to the kids’ room.

“Quick, Mella, get your toys picked up so he doesn’t see, okay?”

I don’t know why Momma even had to say 'cause I was already doing it. I don’t want him to throw them outside too. I only have twenty-three toys. Seventeen blocks, one mostly shiny red car, my rabbit, a dolly with a ripped, polka dotted dress and long yellow hair, a rubber, green ball that bounces high up into the sky until the ground hits the part where there’s a piece missing, and then it goes boing straight in another direction, and it’s so much fun! Also there’s a baby toy that’s hard but also kind of soft and shaped in a circle that’s red that Petey likes to chew on, and a little man with arms and legs that bend that’s missing a head. I pretend his head is invisible 'cause he’s a superhero, and sometimes I like to make him ride on top of the car or climb up the tower of blocks.

Daddy says my toys are hand me downs, aside from rabbit that was always mine. Hand me downs are things that other kids decide to give you 'cause they got too old. A long time ago Momma told Daddy they weren't safe and that he should bring us something new that’s just for us, but Daddy called her words and the bad man came and pulled her down into their room and slammed the door, and they stayed in there for a long, long time. So mommy never said another bad about my toys, but I wish that he would bring us something new that was never for anyone else but me and Petey. That would be so cool!

In a second, Momma comes back and helps me with the rest of the blocks, and I can hear Peter in his crib making funny sounds like he does sometimes. Last time I heard him make those sounds, Momma said that’s just him trying to learn himself how to talk, and that makes me smile now to think of. I’m so happy also 'cause Daddy’s back and I hope so much he brought us candy.

“Did you get them all?” Momma asks as I dump them in the toybox next to the dresser in the kids’ room and I say yes, but then I get scared and need to double check, so I run back in just as I hear Daddy’s truck rumble up, and I’m suddenly scared again. What if the bad man is with Daddy? What if he’s not happy happy but instead all orangey inside? Momma comes out and scoops me up and looks around and smiles. “All is well, just be on your best behavior, okay?” she says, but all whispery. I nod back at her instead of talk 'cause my words are stuck all inside my throat.

“Mella!” Daddy calls from outside, and his voice is full of excitement and happiness, and I try to get down from mommy to run outside, but Momma won’t let me go. “Hurry! I need to show you something awesome! You’re gonna love it!” I can hear Daddy’s words even though the door and windows are closed and I wanna go, but Momma has a scaredy look on her face and won’t put me down. “Mella!” He yells this time and his words are not so patient and Momma finally lets me down, though I can tell she doesn’t want me to. I feel bad, but I run right to the door and twist the knob and run outside. I can’t wait to see what Daddy brought!

“Daddy!” I’m so happy that I run too fast down the porch steps even though there’s only three and I almost trip and fall, but Daddy’s there and scoops me up and throws me way up high and catches me all safe inside his big strong arms. I love it when Daddy does this. It makes my heart all full of smiles.

“Be careful,” I hear Momma say, but soft soft from the front door where she’s standing, as far out on the porch as her chain will let her be, and Daddy and I both pretend not to hear. That makes me happy 'cause I know that Daddy hates it when Momma tells him what to be.

“What did you bring us, Daddy? Candy?” I ask but then I wished I didn’t just in case 'cause last time in the truck that made him orangey mad and also reddy mad too. But Daddy just laughs and doesn’t say a thing and walks us to the back where there’s something big and large underneath a bright, blue tarp, and I’m so happy 'cause blue is the color of the great big sky and also the color of Momma’s voice when she’s happy too.

“We’ll get to the food stuff later. Right now I have something even better than candy!” Daddy says, and I can’t believe it 'cause there’s almost nothing better than candy in the whole wide world! Then Daddy puts me down, a little bit afar, and he turns and puts the tailgate down. That’s a funny word 'cause animals have tails, but so do trucks, and gates belong on fences and also trucks, but on trucks they’re all squished up together.

“What is it?” I say again, but now my words are full of big, white, cloudy wonder and Daddy turns and smiles so sweet, and I smile back even though I didn’t know I was gonna.

“Sssshhh, can you hear that?” Daddy asks in a whisper quiet voice, and I listen and I can! I can hear it!

It’s little sounds like cluck, cluck, cluck and I know that sound from movies, but I can’t see the image of it in my mind, and my eyes go all big as I get excited. 'Cause even though I don’t know exactly what it is, I know that it’s an animal, and I’ve never seen an animal up close before, ‘cept that dog that tried to eat me all up that time. “Is it a pet?” I ask him, my words still all cloudy like.

“Lots of pets!” Daddy winks at me, and then all at once he pulls the blue blankey thing that’s called a tarp up and off his truck, and it flies up in the air with a woosh like a parachute and then floats down onto the ground. Daddy throws a brick from the back of his truck on top of it so it won’t blow far, far away in the wind like I wish I could sometimes do when the bad man comes. Then he lifts me up again and points to what was under the big blue tarp, and I giggle with all the happiness in the whole wide world.

In the back of Daddy’s truck there’s a giant cage that Petey and I could both fit inside if we wanted to, ‘cept inside is already full of white and brown and grey birdies all plump with shiny eyes and little yellow and orange and black beaks. I know what they are but the word is hiding in my brain, but I don’t even care 'cause my heart is all filled with beautiful butterflies.

“Are they all for me?” I ask, so glad that something can maybe be just mine.

“Sure, if you want them. But you may want to share them with your mommy and Petey 'cause they’re gonna be a lot of work, and you may not wanna do it all by yourself.” Daddy puts me down in the truck, and I take a couple of wibbly, wobbly steps over to the cage. Inside they’re all pecking and scratching and making the coolest sounds I’ve ever heard in my whole long life! “You’ll have to clean out their poop every day and make sure they have clean boxes to lay their eggs in.”

“They’re gonna lay eggs?” I say, and I look at Daddy to make sure he’s saying true, and he just nods all proud at me, and my heart melts with the love there is for him and for all my new pets. “And we can eat their runny yolks with SPAM?”

Daddy laughs and nods, and on the porch Momma just stands super still, not saying any words at all, and I can’t tell if she's happy or sad or angry at the new pets Daddy brought. “See, this is called a kennel, and it’s too small for them to live in. It’s just so they could stay safe under the tarp on their way here. It’s kind of like how I got you and your mommy here,” Daddy jokes and looks at Momma and winks, but her face isn’t laughy and it turns a weird color like I’ve never seen it do before.

“Is that their house?” I ask him so he looks back at me or at the thing behind the kennel and not at Momma anymore. I’m scared that he’ll get mad at her not laughing at his joke even though it wasn’t very funny to me neither.

“It is.” Daddy nods and pulls the kennel out and sets it on the porch, almost where Momma stands, and she kneels down to take a peek. I think I see her smile a tiny teensie smile as she looks inside and I think Daddy sees it too, 'cause he nods before he turns back to me. “It’s called a coop. It’s where chickens live, and these boxes are where they lay their eggs.” Daddy reaches in behind the coop and brings out a stack of wooden boxes with one side missing and lids on top with hinges so they can open up and close. He shows me how they work and where we’ll slide them on once the coop is in the backyard.

“Can I name them all?” I ask Momma but Daddy answers first and says I can, and I can’t wait to name them Black Widow and Hulk and Iron Man. “The red one is gonna be Iron Man!” I say all happy, and now my words are yellow, like the sun!

“That’s a great name but, just so you know, they’re all girls.” Daddy says this as he pulls the coop out to the back and then carefully lifts it down onto the ground. “Ooof, that’s heavy.”

“Oh,” I say a little sad, 'cause I don’t think Iron Man would like it if he were a girl, but maybe he would. ‘Cause I would like to be Iron Man and I’m a girl, so that’s what decides it for me. “Iron Man it is!” I announce, and Momma smiles and that makes me happy.

“Alix, bring the kennel out into the backyard while I get this up onto the porch, and then you can help me carry it through the house. It’s too heavy for me to bring it around the back, and I didn’t bring the dolly with me like an asshole.” Daddy starts to slide the coop over from the back, and I reach up to grab the stack of boxes where the eggs are laid, and Daddy tells me no, they’re too heavy, so I just take out one instead, and he shrugs when he sees that I’m strong strong and I can carry them one at a time like a big girl. Like Iron Man Girl!

“Okay,” Momma says and has to reach out her arm super long, long, long 'cause her chain is tight and won’t let her get any closer to the cage. Her fingers can barely make it, and Daddy and I watch as she twists her face and pulls even harder against the ring around her neck, and her fingers barely can even reach in through the bars to wrap around.

“I can help you, Momma! I can slide it closer! I’m a big girl now!” I say and start to walk over, buy Daddy puts his arm out and makes me stop, and he just stands there watching her. His eyes are all shiny and I know. I know that the bad man is in there now. Maybe not all the way in but enough to make his eyes be evil sparkles, and I feel Momma’s eyes touch mine and she shakes her head, just a bit, telling me no. So I stand there quiet, and I wait to see what happens and suddenly I have to pee again, real bad, but I’m too scared to go and the wooden box I'm holding is getting heavy and heavy and why come when Daddy’s here I always wanna cry?

“Uuuueeeg.” Momma makes a weird sound as her fingers grab all the way through and around the bar that’s holding the other bars in place, and I can see the collar squinching into her neck and it looks like it would hurt. I see a tear fall from one of her eyes; I don’t know if it’s the right one or the left 'cause Momma only just started teaching me that and it’s hard for my brain to catch it.

Finally Momma pulls and pulls and the kennel doesn’t wanna go, but Momma doesn’t wanna give up, and she keeps making that sound like there’s pain inside, and I just wanna run and push the kennel toward her, and finally Daddy goes and tries to push it closer, but it won’t budge and he says the big bad word, the one that starts with the eff letter, and now I really, really have to go, and I should hurry and run and leave the box right here so I don’t go inside my pants, but I’m still too scared to leave.

“Aw, goddamnit!” Daddy finally says as he lifts up the large chicken cage and sees that it was caught on a nail that’s all sticky uppey, and he sets it down to the side so that Momma has to reach out and pull it in again, but this time she does and it slides slowly across the porch to where she is, and all the chickens inside are making silly noises, kinda like Petey in his crib.

I can tell Momma is trying not to cry 'cause her lip is a little twitchy and her eyes are extra shiny in the sun, and Daddy looks at her all happy like he just gave her the bestest present in the whole wide everywhere, and it makes my heart all weird inside to see. Momma doesn’t say a word or even make a grunty sound like Daddy did when he put the cage onto the ground, and she just pulls it and pulls it into the house. I run and go real quick while she pulls it down the hal,l and I leave the box sitting on the floor outside the bathroom as I do. When I getted done and washed my hands and comed back out, she’s just pushing it into her room, and I follow right behind with the box for laying eggs and wished she would hurry, but I don’t wanna say 'cause the air is all ‘lectriky like when there’s a big storm and we can’t play in the outside anymore 'cause Momma is afraid of the lightning coming crashing down and zapping us all up.

We can only get to the backyard through Momma and Daddy’s room. That’s what makes her be able to come outside and play with me. The door is glass and slides like whoosh, and it has a giant curtain to close it all up so the light doesn’t come through so bright in the morning. Daddy says it’s so the monsters in the shadows can’t see in from all the trees around our house, and I believe him 'cause Daddy never lies.

“Fuck, Alix! You scratched up the floor! I’m gonna make you fucking buff that shit out, and you better fucking pray it does.” Daddy’s voice is loud now, and it sounds all out of breathy, too, like when he carrieds me to the truck on the bridge that day over a whole week ago. But it doesn’t sound really, really mad. Just the kind where mad can come if we aren’t all the best ways we can be.

“I’m so sorry, Charlie. I’ll fix it.” Momma’s voice is the same amounts of out of breathy as Daddy’s is, and I pull on the long cord to open the curtain, and then I rush super fast to unlock the door and slide it whoosh right out of Momma’s way. It’s hard to do these things with the box, so I left it on Momma’s bed first so I wouldn’t drop it and make it break. I know the bad man is hiding in Daddy’s brain, and I don’t want him to come out 'cause of me. Oh, no.

“You fuckin’ better,” we hear Daddy say, and in the kids’ room that’s really mine and Petey’s, Peter gets all quiet, as if he’s trying to tell about the bad man too.

Please don’t cry, please don’t cry, I whisper inside my mind, 'cause I don’t even dare whisper outside it in case Daddy hears. I think Petey must have heard my wishes 'cause he stays quiet, and I help Momma pull the cage that’s a kennel up over the metal tracks of the door and down the cement steps that Daddy’s grandpa made a long, long time ago. We hurry fast fast so Daddy doesn’t see me helping, and then when the chickens in their metal box are out under the shady bits from the trees, which is most of the backyard 'cause of how we live in a whole big forest, we hurry hurry all fast to go back to where Daddy is standing, waiting all scary looking for Momma to help him lift.

It seems like it takes hours and hours to get the coop all set up in the backyard but once it’s done and the egg boxes are on, Daddy takes a small saw that goes vvvvvvrrrrrr vvvvvvvvrrrr vvvvvvvrrr as he cuts through the wooden piece of fence. He makes it so it lines up with a door that slides up and down in the coop. That way all we have to do is open it in the morning times and close it up at night, and the chickens can run around in the forest all day and free range. But Daddy says the most important part is we can’t open it for a few days, which Momma says means three, so that they learn in their little chicken brains where their new house is and don’t get lost in the woods like Hansel and Gretel did. He says we can open the other door, though, the one that will let them run around in our backyard, and that I shouldn’t chase them or scare them or else they won’t make us eggs.

I ask Daddy what it means to free range, and he says run around and find food like bugs and little grasses and plants and stuff 'cause he can’t always be bringing chicken feed, so we have to feed them just enough to make it last. Then he goes inside with Momma, and I stay outside to play with my new pets, and I know not to go inside until a long more time has passed 'cause Momma and Daddy have to talk about growed up stuff that I wouldn’t understand, and that’s okay by me! 'Cause now I have new friends!

Iron Man isn’t really red, but kinda red in a brownish way. I named the one with black and white feathers Black Widow, and I love her most 'cause she’s spotted. The others I’m not sure yet what to call 'cause it’s hard to think 'cause sometimes I can hear Momma crying, even though I know she’s trying not to be so loud, and I’m scared that baby Petey will start to cry, and I can’t get inside to tell him sssshhhhh baby, ssssshhhh, it’s all gonna be okay.

The grey one is also kinda blue, and I think she’s beautiful when the sunlight from between the branches of the trees hits her feathers and they shine super bright. Maybe I’ll call her Nebula, who Momma says is also Amelia Pond. I take a tiny scoop of the special food Daddy says is feed, and I sit all the way across the yard against the fence so I’m far, far away from the glass door into where my Momma and my Daddy are. I can hear her saying ouchie words and it makes my tummy all turny and sad.

“Here little birdies, here’s some delicious food!” I say, but quiet and soft so it’s not a scary sound for their little tiny ears that Daddy says was underneath their feathers when I asked.

Nebula peeks at me from the side, and Iron Man scratches in the dirt and hits the ground with her beak tap, tap, tap, and Black Widow just stands on the top of the cage which she flewed up to, and I laughed at the sound it made, all fluttery and whumpy like. I throw a little tiny pieces at Nebula, and she takes a couple steps, all slow and scaredy cat even though she’s a bird, and I stay really still and wait, my heart thump thumping. I want to touch her feathers and feel how soft they are.

“Charlie, please, it hurts and she’ll hear us. She’s just right outside.” Momma’s voice drifts over, and I wish I had gone inside and watched a movie instead but Nebula starts to walk even closer, and then I hear a loud hitting sound like a crack, and Momma’s cries get louder, and baby Peter starts to cry, and I can hear him through the window in our bedroom but I can’t go to him to tell him sssshhhh. I just try to ignore it all and focus on the chicken friends, but Nebula ran away when the slapping sound came, and now the sky seems darker and I’m scared, too, like Peter.

“She can’t hear shit, now shut the fuck up,” I hear Daddy say, and Momma makes another noise, and I just wanna disappear. I wish I could free range like the chickens, way out in the forest underneath the trees that reach tall tall up into the sky. I wish I could run away into the woods like Hansel and Gretel even though their Daddy brought them there. Were all daddies mean and scary sometimes? Maybe daddies have to be.

6

It was almost dark by the time Momma came to get me. The shadows were like black reaching things with giant claws and missing eyes! At first Momma didn’t see me ‘cause I had crawled inside the coop that’s the house of my new friends. They were kindsa scared of me for a little, ‘cept for Nebula, who is my new bestest friend. She was never scared of me at all. Chickens are the coolest ever! They let me pet them, and Nebula even sat up on my lap with her feet all pokey, but I didn’t care.

When Momma came outside, she sounded soft like when she has hurts, and I crawled out as soon as I heard her calling. I didn’t wanna make her sadder in her heart than her voice already told me she was. I love Momma, even though sometimes she says not truths.

“Come on, Mella, let’s go make dinner, okay?” Peter was on Momma’s hip and his face was all swolled from crying, but not as much as Momma’s was. In the dark-time light in the backyard, Momma looked all poofy, and both her eyes were squinty and her lips were cutted on the top and on the bottom.

“Where’s Daddy?” I asked but I knew it wasn’t him. ‘Cause the bad man had to be here now.

“He’s in the shower, so let’s hurry and get supper all ready, okay?” I knowed Momma was trying to sound chipper, like Kipper the Dog from the hard drive, but she wasn’t doing such a good job.

“I can help you, Momma! I can help you cook!” But then I remembered there was only beans, and an idea that was shaped like a hope popped in my mind. “Did Daddy bring any foods?” I said it low low so he couldn’t hear, even though the shower was down the hall a little.

“Yes. He brought so many yummy things. I can’t wait for you to see.” Her voice was again all soft like it hurt to talk any more loudly and I don’t know why, but that made me hurt deep inside my chest.

“How long until the eggs come, Momma?” I asked, 'cause Daddy usually brings SPAM, and I know how much Daddy likes it when Momma makes him SPAM and runny yolks. The happier Daddy is, the farther away it makes the bad man go.

“Oh, I don’t know, love.” Momma leads me inside and whooshes closed the door. “Sometimes when they have a big change, it can take them awhile to adjust. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”

“Yeah! It was so nice of Daddy to bring us those new friends! He must love us very very much!” I say to Momma, and to Peter, though I’m not sure how much Petey Boy gets it when I talk. I just want Momma to remember that Daddy loves us. That he would never hurt us. Not really. That it’s the bad man. Even though part of me whispers right then into my heart and brain that Daddy is the bad man, and that maybe I’m a liar, too. ‘Cause I don’t want to believe it’s true.

Momma doesn’t answer and only moves the door aside so I can get by as we walk into the hall and toward the kitchen. She is walking funny, like a limp, and I see that her foot has a ouchie on it that looks like a bite, and I get scared for if the bad man bitted Momma. Peter just makes baby sounds and puts his hands inside his mouth and looks at me with his big, blue, Petey eyes. I loves him so.

“Oh, wow!” I say as I see all the bags on top the table and sitted on the floor. “Daddy brought so many things!”

“Can you help mommy put them all away?” she asks, but yes, of course I can! I’m a big girl, and I know where everything goes. The cold stuff has to go inside the fridge 'cause it’s perishable, which is a word that’s long and means it goes bad really fast. Daddy doesn’t bring a lot of that. He mostly brings us stuff in cans and boxes that we can put inside the big, long cabinet on the wall.

I love the perishable stuff the best 'cause it’s special like me, Momma says, but I don’t think that’s a lie. Stuff like cheese and milk that doesn’t need to have water all mixed into powder. And hot dogs, which are long tubes of yummy meat that in a movie racoons say are made of lips and buttholes. But a different word that I’m not allowed to say but Daddy told me. It was so funny that I laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Oh, can we have hot dogs for dinner?” I ask all happy like, 'cause I only ever had them just a couple times, but mommy shakes her head and makes another ouchie sound as she puts Petey down inside his tiny playpen.

“No, he brought something extra special for dinner tonight.” Momma puts her hand on Petey’s cheek all soft like and then smiles at him with so much love that I can see it shooting out of her all pretty pink, and my heart gets a little ouchy like the sound she made, but just for a second 'cause I know she loves me too.

“What, though?” I ask as she walks to the fridge and bends down all low in a super slow way, and then she stands and steps back and sits in the chair at the little table.

“Can you grab it for me, Mella? It hurts right now to move around a lot.” Momma looks at me and I see that love like how she looked at Petey, and my heart gets warm and fuzzy, and I know it’s gonna be okay. It’s always okay when Momma gets all ouchie after the bad man comes.

“Okay, Momma,” I say as I walk around the table and look into the fridge. Momma already put a few things inside; it musta been earlier, after Daddy and she pushed the coop, which is the house of my new friends, into the back. There’s milk and a great big block of cheddar cheese and even the pretty, blue box of the kind of cheese that comes all wrapped up in a hundred million wrappers, each one with its own slice. Momma uses that kind for making grilled cheese sammies, and I love those most of all!

“What did Daddy bring?” I ask, my mind all full of wonderment at everything I see. There’s orange juice and butter, which is yummy on toast, and jelly, and that makes me hope there’s peanut butter too! And bread.

“He put it on the very bottom shelf, all the way in the back.” Momma’s voice still sounds soft, almost like a whisper, and I try to not hear how much it makes her pained to talk.

There’s a thing that’s like a bucket, only made of paper that’s all white and red and has a man with glasses and a funny beard and letters that say K and F and C. Momma taught me all the letters even though I sometimes forget some. Next to the bucket is a bag with the same man, and inside it has a lot of stuff 'cause it’s touching all the way up to the wire of the shelf above!

“What’s in it?” I ask as I pull out the bag first, 'cause the paper bucket is all greasy looking and I don’t know if I should touch it with my hands.

“It’s something most delicious.” Momma smiles at me, but only a little, and then she makes a scrunchy face like the smile hurted just a bit, and I think maybe I shouldn’t ask any more questions.

“Do we cook it? The stove is cold and no fire,” I say, but then feel bad for saying 'cause that means Momma will have to talk.

“We can eat this cold. I already asked what he wanted me to do. We’ll just have to put away all the other food while he’s still in the shower, okay?” Momma reaches out and I hand her the bag, and then I reach back in all the way to the very coldy back and pull out the bucket super careful so I don’t drop it, kersplash, all over the floor!

I want to know what’s inside the bag and in the bucket 'cause it smells so good through the little holes the lid has where it presses up against the sides, but Momma says it’s a surprise for when the stuff is all put away and I tell her not to worry, I’ll be quick quick like The Flash! And so I hurry hurry and put the cans exactly where they go, just how Daddy likes them, with the labels all pointy forward and matching with their friends. Then Momma asks if I can do the cold stuff next so they don’t go bad, and I say yes and put away all the stuff where Momma tells me to. The hotdogs and the hamburger go in the freezer, and I’m so happy that he brought us hamburger 'cause it’s my most favorite thing besides SPAM and runny yolks 'cause it tastes way better.

When everything is done, even the boxes of macaroni and cheese which I’m all excited for, Daddy comes in and ruffles my hair. He smells so good, like Irish Spring soap which he brought with him, too, since we were all out a long, long time ago, like a month, which is bigger than a week even! I’m so happy my heart could explode into a hundred gazillion pieces, and I could float away into the stars and be happy forever in the clouds!

“Hey there, my Mella Moo!” Daddy’s voice is bright and the color yellow which is like flowers and the smiling sun, and it makes me even more glad.

“Daddy Doo!” I say and let him pick me up, and I put my arms around his neck and kiss his cheek super hard. “Thank you so so so so so much! All the muches!” I say, and Daddy laughs.

“Did you see what I brought you?” Daddy sets me in my special chair, and I nod and point at the big white bucket as Momma gets up all slow like a turtle in a big green shell and gets out plates and silverware and glasses.

“Uh huh, but it’s a surprise and I don’t know what it is yet.” I say, my voice all yellow like Daddy’s.

“No, not the fried chicken,” Daddy says, and I wonder for a minute why they named my friends chickens when it’s food. “This.” Daddy stands and walks over to the freezer and opens up the door as Momma waits quietly for him to move so she can get the orange juice out 'cause orange juice is Daddy’s favorite drink in the whole world ‘cept for rum. Daddy says he loves rum 'cause he’s a pirate, arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

“What, Daddy? What?” I ask, and Daddy just stands with his back to me and acts like he’s moving things around in there, and I try to peek and see and know what it is, but he’s in the way.

“Hmmmmm, I can’t seem to find it anywhere,” Daddy says but I can hear the joke inside his words, and I know that it must be something really good!

“Oh, no!” I say, but it’s in a laugh 'cause I’m in on the joke, and Daddy turns and winks and then, in his hand is another paper bucket, only one I’ve never seen before ‘cept in movies. “Daddy!” I say, all excited 'cause he’s holding something he said that he could never bring 'cause it would get all melty. “Is that iced creams?”

“It sure is!’ Daddy grabs a spoon out from the drawer and then sits down and pops the lid open, and it’s all pinky with red chunks, and I already knowed it’s strawberry just 'cause that’s how it looks on the show where the family gets iced creamed cones! Momma told me its name!

“Wow,” I say 'cause my words are all gone and as Daddy sits, Momma grabs up Petey and puts him in his special wooden chair that lets him sit at the table with us, and Petey grabs his special little plastic spoon that’s green and starts to put it in his mouth and drool falls out. It’s weird how quiet Petey is, sometimes, when Daddy’s nearby. Normally at dinner he’s all happy noises and reaching for all the stuffs. But when Daddy’s here, Peter gets all quiet most the times, ‘cept for when he’s scared and starts to cry.

“Okay, this is gonna blow your mind!” Daddy takes the spoon and dips it into the iced creams and scoops out a whole big bite as Momma starts to make Daddy’s plate all big and full with the fried chicken and things from the little buckets I’ve never seen before.

“Wow,” I say again 'cause that’s all the words that I can even make come out right now. I feel like my brain is broken with all the new stuffs I’m about to try.

I take the spoon and bring it close to my lips, but I don’t open. I just smell and feel the cold from it, touching me before the spoon is even there. My lips tingle just a little and I smile, and the smell is like something I’ve never had before. It’s sweet and red but in a good way, not an angry way, and my heart goes bump, bump, bump all fast, and I can’t take it any more, and I put the spoon inside my mouth. Instantly I feel the cold all on my tongue and teeth, and the taste is so beautiful that tears spring down my cheeks. It’s like the jelly, but only just a little tiny bit, and there’s nothing else I have in my mind to compare it to. It’s delicious and sweet and just so pink and red and yummy, and I smile with all my heart up upon my face, and I can feel the happy in my eyes!

“Take it slow now,” Daddy laughs as he puts the lid back on the iced creams bucket and places it back into the freezer so it can stay all cold and yummy and not melty. “There’s a new store on the way here, right before the turnoff, actually, so I stopped and grabbed some ice cream for you to try. I knew you’d love it.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” I say, but the words come out all sideways and frozen, and I can see white puffs in the air like when it’s cold cold freezing outside and the white puffs come from my words.

“You’re welcome, Mella Moo,” he says and sits, and Momma starts to put food on my plate, too, as I slowly let the iced creams on the spoon melt inside my mouth, and my tongue goes numb from it all.

The stuff she puts Daddy says is called cold slaw, and that’s why I think we can eat it without it being hot from the stove. The other stuff is corn on the cob, and it comes with little wooden sticks in bags, and Daddy says it’s better warm, but it’s not bad cold either, and he sprinkles salt and says the yellow bag it's in has butter in it.

The chicken is a leg, and that’s funny 'cause real legs have feets and this one is just a bone with meats. The outside, though… The outside is the most yummy thing I’ve ever eated! It’s crispy and brown and salty but other flavors, too, that I don’t know how to call, so I just eat it all up and ask for more! This is the best dinner I’ve ever had ever in my whole life of living, and even Peter loves the cold slaw and the little pieces of chicken. Momma even cuts off the yellow pieces of corn for him 'cause you can’t eat the middle part that’s like a bone too. We’ve had corn from a can lots and lots but never how it grows right out of the ground. It makes me think about how the fried chicken grows and I wonder if it’s in a garden, too, but I don’t wanna ask any questions 'cause sometimes too many questions makes the bad man come.

I think I’ll wait and ask Momma after Daddy leaves, even though I don’t know if it’s true or not, what she says. Sometimes I think she lies just to keep me happy. Maybe it’s 'cause she doesn’t know.

After dinner I brush my teeth, and now I don’t have to just use that white stuff from the box with the superhero arm on it all muscles and big 'cause Daddy remembered my toothpaste this time! I love my toothpaste 'cause it’s full of stuff that keeps my teeth strong called floor eyed, which is another silly word that makes me giggle to think about. But the best part is that it tastes like bubblegum, and that’s true 'cause Daddy brought me some once that was big squares all pink and yummy.

Today I’m the happiest that I think I’ve ever been. Today was a magic day full of new foods and friends who are also pets. I don’t even care when it’s time for bed and I have to sleep in the kids’ room next to Peter, 'cause I’m tired even though I don’t want to go to sleep, and the story Daddy reads me is the most best story I’ve ever heard even though he’s read it to me a hundred, million, billion times before.

7

I wake up in the middle of the night and it’s dark dark. There’s not even any moonlight from the window, and I suddenly feel all afraid. I don’t hear any sounds, not even the whooo whooo of the owl that lives nearby that Momma and I named Steve. I can kinda see the shape of Peter in the crib next to me, all a lump of almost white from his blankey through the wooden bars like a prison for babies, but mostly he’s lost in shadows. Bunny is next to my pillow, so I grab him and hold him close and look around the room for what woked me up. I never waked up in the night unless Momma and Daddy are making noises, but there’s none.

I listen with all my ears, and the no noise feels heavy against my brain, and I look as hard as I can through the black that’s like a wall before my eyes. I can see the dresser by the toybox and the door, but just a little whisper of it, and the lamp that’s like a bear with a bright yellow ball up on its nose even less, but I recognize its shape all familiar, like a friend. I smile 'cause Bear really is a friend. I talk to him sometimes when Momma's in the shower or I know she can’t heared me.

The door is closed and so there’s nowhere for anything to hide behind it, and that makes me happy in my heart but also kind of not 'cause that means Momma and Daddy can’t hear me as much if I decide to scream. The closet door is closed all shut and tight, too, which is good 'cause sometimes the shadows in there seem to move around when I’m sleeping and scare me in my heart even though Momma says there’s nothing there every time she checks. Momma says it’s just my ‘magination, but sometimes I think she’s wrong. Sometimes I think the shadows are alive.

I start to look at the other bed across the way, the one Momma always uses to change baby Pete’s diapers in that Daddy says is gonna be Petey’s soon when the new baby comes. But just as I start to look away, something moves in the corner between the bookshelf and the closet door, which is the blackest most darkest place in the whole room. I can’t hear a noise at all, not even the tiniest little baby sound of Peter while he’s sleeping, but it feels like there should be a noise as I watch the shadows move.

The air is all coldy, even though I’m wearing my pink footie pajammies. They’re thick and warm, ‘cept for the feets that Momma had to cut away when I grew too tall for them to fit. But my feet are all snuggled up underneath the blankey, so they should be warm, too, but everything a part of me feels cold like there’s ice inside my body, and the scaredy part goes from inside my heart and up into my brain, and I shiver as I stare as hard as I can at the dark, moving corner. I stare so hard it makes my eyeballs hurt inside my head!

There’s a blackness that’s darker than the rest of the blackness there, and at first it’s all down low like a giant blackness ball but as I watch, it’s like it pops out elbows all bendy at the sides but on the top. Then another circle pops up in between, all dark and ovally, and it reminds me of a head, and all my blood seems to grow all heavy in my veins where Momma says it lives.

The head part of the shadow kinda twitches then, to the one way and then the other, as the elbow things get longer and grow all straight like arms. Then the big round ball of blackness grows taller and taller up up into the air, as tall as the dresser now. As it stretches up and up it gets thin, like Momma is, ‘cept for the part where the baby lives, but there is no baby part in the shadow man that’s standing up in the corner of our room.

It grows and grows until its head is tall against the ceiling and its arms stretch and stretch, like black shadow claws against the white, painted walls. If the walls were darker colored I don’t think I could even see the shadow man at all. But as I watch the shadow stretch I can finally hear a thing. A raspy sound all creaky and low, like the time Petey got really sick and Momma was afraid he was gonna get new moan ee-uh, which made him breath all crackily like dried up leaves from the maple trees that are all mixed in with the pines.

I can hear the sound, all quiet, and as it comes I can see the shadow chest moving slowly out as if it’s breathing, and I wonder if it's sick, and I wish it would just die 'cause as I’m watching, its shadow hands grow longer, so many fingers like claws spread out, too many for me to count 'cause I’m so scared. Across the walls the shadows move, and the head that’s growing still pushes up against the ceiling and bends toward my bed, and I can hear that too. A soft scritching noise as it rubs against the wood and it’s all bent over now, a giant shadow monster, and I know who it is. It’s him. It’s the bad man come to eat me up.

I try to scream but no words come out, and my body feels all pressed against the mattress, even though its hands are not on me yet. I try to move, but my body doesn’t work. It’s frozen, and I’m frozen, and I think it’s 'cause my blood is like the ice that Momma makes inside the freezer that’s special just for Daddy when he’s here.

Then its head is gone 'cause it’s bent so far over that the bed above me blocks it out, and I’m so happy 'cause maybe it doesn’t know I’m here beneath my blankey though my head’s still poking out. I can hear it as it moves across the room, closer and closer its shadow head scrapes against the inside of the roof. Scccrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiitcccchhhhhh, it sounds almost like a whisper. I want to turn my head to look at Petey, but I can’t. I’m stuck. I’m helpless and scared, and bright hot tears push themselves out from behind my eyes where they always seem to be, and the feelings of them racing down my face around my ears and into my hair is hot and itchy against the coldness of my skin.

Tap scritch tap, another sound as the long shadow fingers of the bad man suddenly pop up on the underside of the bed above my face that will one day be mine, and I can feel my underwears get all soaked with potty as I go even though I’m a big girl and haven’t wet my bed in a million, billion days. I almost like the warmth of it even though I know Daddy’s gonna be so mad, 'cause maybe the warmth will keep me safe like a hug does when I’m scared in Momma’s arms. The bad man is grabbing the wood with one hand, and I can hear the wood creak like when the wind blows really hard but there is no wind, just the bad man’s whistley, snotty chest as it gets closer and closer, ‘cause of how it’s stretching even still.

I wanna scream and yell and shout and run, but still my body is all broken and cold even the pee that I didn’t mean to make has lost its warmth and now the other hand with long, long fingers that have pointy tips are there, and my bed shakes a little like when Daddy grabs it in the same place to pull himself up after reading me a bedtime story. I’m so scared that I think my whole brain is gonna burst and my heart is beating extra loud that I can feel it in my whole body. Bum bum bum bum bum bum all fast like a rabbit and I think it’s gonna burst kablooey!!!

“Hellllllllooooooooo, Mellllllaaaaaaaaaa Moooooooooooooooooooo.” I hear its voice now as it bends down lower and lower, and it’s the sound of all the darkness in the world. All the greys and ugly greens all scribbled together with angry hands and as it talks, its chin appears and then its lips and inside its mouth that grows long, too, I see rows and rows of sharpy teeth, all black and made of shadows, and still I’m frozen!

I try to open up my mouth to say a “No!” and a “Go away!” but only a squeak comes out that hurts my throat, and now its nose drops below the edge of the bed above me and I can hear it as it laughs. A soft laugh, like a chuckle Momma calls it, but it’s a sound so mean that it reminds me of the mean doggie that tried to eat me up, and I know that’s what it wants. That’s why it’s here. The bad man has come to feast on me like we did the fried chicken dinner.

“Youuuuuu’reeeee a taaaaaaaaaaassssssssssssssty little nuuuuuuuuuuget,” the bad man says and finally I can see his eyes, all shiny like the arrow head my Daddy showed me once. He said he found it in these very woods and that it was made of volcano glass, and I wonder if that’s what the shadow man is made of, too.

The bad man’s head keeps coming down, and now I see his shoulders, and one of his long, long arms makes his hand let go and it races all fast and presses down next to my head, and I feel the mattress shake beneath my body, and my tears go pouring faster from my eyes. His head moves closer and closer, and I can smell him now. A smell like rotted leaves all stuck together with dead bugs, like the time Daddy unclogged the gutters that keep the water off the roof. I can see his nostrils, which are the things on our noses that let us breathe in air Momma says, and they grow and shrink and grow again as he breaths, and I know he’s sniffing me in before he eats me all up, like Daddy does when he’s eating something new Momma never made him yet before.

“Shhhhhhhhhould Iiiiiiiiii ssssssssstart wiiiith your tooooooooessssssieeees?” the bad man asks, but he keeps moving closer to my face and not my feets. “Orrrrrr mmmmmmmmaybeeeeeeeee Iiiiiiiii’lllllllll juuuuuussssssst nnnnnibble offfffffffff yourrrrrrrrr eeeeeeears to ssssssssssstarrrrrrrrt?”

His chin skin touches mine as he says these words, and I can feel the icky cold of them against my cheek, and now my tummy feels like it’s gonna throw up all over, and I wanna push the bad man off but still my body is all stuck in place. His flesh is like the worms that I sometimes find, like a shadow filled with worms all squirming around, and I can feel them pressing against me as he moves closer and closer to my ear. I know he’s opening his mouth all wide 'cause the way it feels against my face, and a sharpness hurts me there and I finally can scream.

I scream and scream and scream as loud as my throat can let me, and I kick and thrash and hit and suddenly I’m all wrapped up in a tangle in my blanket, and I’m crying, and it hurts inside my throat and on my ear, and I think he bit it all off! Then Petey’s crying, too, and the sound of it is like the bad man has him and I try to look and see, but it’s still so dark and for a second I think I’m actually gonna die, and Peter, too!

“What the fuck is happening?” I hear Daddy yell as the door to our room is crashed open with a bang and the light, oh how I loved the light with all my hearts, turns on and the bad man is gone!

“Are you okay?” Momma is there beside me now, and she pulls me up into her arms and holds me super tight. I love her, I love her, I love her, and I think I’m saying that out loud, but I don’t know and Daddy is there, too and I can see where the bad man went. I can see him in Daddy’s eyes.

“Stop fucking babying her,” Daddy says, and his voice is low like the bad man’s was, and my tummy is too angry at me now, and I try to get off the bed to run fast, fast, fast as I can to the bathroom, but my legs are all tangled up and I can’t and it’s too late 'cause I throwed up all on my blankey and on Momma and the bed. “Jesus fucking Christ Alix, I’m too tired to deal with this shit right now. Make that baby shut the fuck up so I can get some sleep.” Daddy turns and leaves, and I’m sad 'cause I want him to pick me up and hold me and tell me everything is okay and that he’s here and he’ll keep me safe from the bad man, but he’s gone and the doorway is just a dark square of the hall.

8

After Daddy left, Momma picked up Petey from the crib and brought us both into the bathroom, and she put us all three into the shower, all hot and soothing. She helded me and rocked me and told me it was all a dream, and this time I hope she was saying the truth 'cause the bad man is so scary. Petey is laying against mommy’s chest, too, and our faces are looking at each other and he’s tired, but he smiles at me and it makes me feel happy. I know that one day Petey will be all growed up, and then he’ll keep me safe and not just me keeping him safe. That will be a beautiful day 'cause sometimes I feel like I’m so alone and that there’s nobody really who can keep any of us safe, at all.

I can feel the baby inside Momma’s tummy move when I think these thoughts, and I think that means it’s telling me that soon it will be big, too, and we can all be there to make each other happy and safe and never, ever, ever be alone. Not really. I hope the baby’s a girl though, 'cause a sister would be so fun.

“Momma,” I says, and Momma takes a hand and pets it down my hair and kisses my forehead, and I know that’s her saying, “What my little princess?” even though she says no words, so I ask the question that’s on the top of my mind. “When I grow up will we still live here, or can I go away to school like Peter Parker does?”

Momma doesn’t say no words for a long long time. She just keeps petting down my hair as the water tap, tap, taps us all and the steam rises up around us like a hug. After a while I think that maybe there are tears on Momma’s face, sliding out between her puffy eyes that are all bruisy and ouchie, but it may could be the water from the shower raining down like when the clouds are full and grey. “I don’t know, Mella. I hope you get to go away to school. I hope you get to make a ton of friends and have all the best memories you can. I hope we get to leave this place and you can learn all the things there are to learn and get to live free and happy and fall in love with someone who will treat you right and keep you safe.”

“Like Daddy keeps us safe?” I ask and yawn 'cause I’m tired again, even though I don’t wanna fall asleep, in case it really is a dream.

“No.” Momma’s voice is low now, just above a whisper, and her tone makes my blood as cold as it was when the bad man came, even though the water tap, tap, tapping us is still warm and almost hot. “He doesn’t keep us safe, Mella. Not even close. We are never, ever safe here. I need you to see that. I need you to understand. This isn’t safe. This is-”

Suddenly Momma’s chain gets tight and it yanks up between Petey and me. Momma is jerked forward by her neck and the wire that’s all red and covered in rubber, what Momma says it’s called, jerks Petey all sideways, and he falls out of Momma’s arms and starts screaming out in pain. I fall, too, 'cause Momma’s ripped forward, right out of where we are and through the curtain. Peter’s screaming and screaming and I think I am, too, 'cause I hit my head on the wall, and the shampoo fell from the shelf and hit me in the shoulder, and I don’t know what’s happening at first.

“Is this the kind of shit you say to them when I’m not here?” Daddy’s voice is loud and mean and angry, and then there’s crack slap hitting sounds and Momma’s screaming, too.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she says, but Daddy doesn’t care 'cause the sounds keep happening, and Petey’s crawling over to me and up into my arms, and the look on his face is so scaredy, like how I think I looked when the mean dog came that time. His eyes are big big and I can see the white parts more than I ever seened in them before.

“Shut the fuck up, you evil bitch! She’s my daughter now, not his! You're my wife now, not his. That’s our baby that we made and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re fuckin’ stuck here, aren’t you? I own you, you stupid fucking cow!” Daddy’s voice is so loud that I think maybe the bad man made him grow and grow all large like he did inside my dream that I don’t think was really just a dream at all.

“Stop it!” Momma screams and her voice is not like any time I ever heard her screamed before. It sounds like Daddy’s, kind of, it’s all red and orange and full of exclamation points like in the comics Daddy sometimes brings. “They’re not yours! They never were and they never will be! They’re mine! They’re mine and h-” but before Momma can finish and say whose we are, a clapping sound so loud makes Petey and I both jump, and Petey screams again, so loud, and I try to hold him tight but we’re both so slippery and the water is turning cold, and I just wanna get us out and dry but I’m scared to go out 'cause the bad man is out there inside of Daddy, and Momma is screaming, too, with pain. Like the time the doggy came and it was me who hurted.

“Don’t you ever fucking talk like that to me again,” Daddy says all quiet now, but his words sound meaner than when he yelled, and Momma is crying and Peter is crying and I know I’m crying, too, even though I’m saying all the shushing sounds to Petey so Daddy doesn’t come. “That little brat may not be mine, it’s true, but that’s my son and I swear to fucking god, Alix, if you don’t stop lying to them, I’ll take them both. I’ll throw her in the river and tell my wife that he’s some lost cousin’s kid, and we’ll raise him as our own. Or I’ll just take him and abandon you two fucking bitches here and let you starve and die and you can watch her wither away to nothing, and there’ll be nothing that you can do to stop it.”

“No, Charlie, I’m sorry,” Momma says. Her words are all puffy with the pain and hard to understand, but I knowed it’s what she says. “I’m sorry, I won’t say anything to them again, not ever.”

For a minute we just sit there in the shower, Petey and me, his arms around me as much as their little baby size can reach, and mine around his all the way 'cause I’m bigger than him, and we just wait. The water is cold cold now, and I can feel us shivering as it drip drop drips, but we don’t say a sound. We just wanna be forgotted and not remembered until the bad man goes away from Daddy’s mind.

Finally, after a million, billion hours or seconds, I can’t remember which is which right now, my brain hates me as much as the bad man does cuz the words for things are all mixed up, Momma makes another sound, like falling, and Daddy grunts real hard. I can tell that he’s pulling her again by the chain 'cause the way it sounds like Momma’s being jerked across the floor, and the sounds she makes are like the sounds of when she’s slapped, but different, just a little.

“Get in here, you godawful piece of shit,” Daddy makes a grunting sound as he says.

“No!” Momma screams it out, an exclamation point but in a word, and Daddy starts to laugh.

“Fuck you, Alix! You have no say, here! You have no worth or value. You’re invisible. I could murder you right now and just take Peter and leave and who would care? Who would come looking for you? Nobody! No fucking one. Nobody cares. They’re not even fucking looking for you anymore, did you know that? And that knight in shining armor that gave up even trying to find you guys after eighteen months is living with some bitch! It’s all over their facebook pages. How happy they are. How in love. It’s like he never even cared about you at all.” Daddy’s voice is happy and he’s laughing, and Momma’s crying even more, and I don’t understand anything Daddy’s saying. It doesn’t make any sense at all inside my brain.

“I’m sorry.” Momma is begging Daddy now, like when I beg 'cause I wanna watch another thing or play a little longer instead of brush my teeth or go to sleeps. “I’m sorry, please, I’m so sorry. I’ll do that thing you like, just please, let me put them to bed. The water’s probably getting-” but then a bump, and we jump again, and the door to Daddy’s and Momma’s room slams, and Peter is talking to me in Peter words and I don’t know what he’s saying but I know what he means. He’s cold and scared and so am I, and we both just shiver 'cause I’m too little to knowed what we need to do.

“You’re such a stupid cunt,” Daddy tells Momma, and he laughs some more. “I could just fucking put my hands around your throat and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until the life drains away from your eyes, and then I can bury you in a hole in the forest and bring some other stupid bitch out here to raise them and make me more. I don’t need you for this. It could be any fucking body there is, can’t you understand that? I can find someone younger and healthier and way more beautiful than your ugly fuckin’ broken ass.” More bumping sounds and something crashes, and Momma screams and cries, and finally I know that I have to get Peter dressed and warm. He only has a couple teeths but they’re all chattery, and then I think that’s not his teeth at all that makes that noise right now, that’s mine.

“Charlie,” Momma’s voice, but soft and scared. “Charlie, please, I’m sorry.”

“Fuck your sorries.” Daddy laughs again and then he makes a grunt, and Momma screams like I’ve never heard her screams before.

I stand all slow and pick up Petey all careful like, and quiet as a mouse we creep. Slow, slow, slow back to our room and soft, soft, soft I close the door. My bed is all wet still from when I had the accident, so I take Peter’s diaper and put it on him on the other one, across from mine, that’s Petey’s when Momma’s new baby comes. Again Momma screams and begs and says some words that I can’t understand 'cause they’re all mushed together, and Peter is crying, and I’m trying to make him shush but he won’t.

“Sssshhhh, Petey, sssshhhh,” I says again and again, and we can both hear the sounds of something hitting Momma and I knowed that it’s his belt 'cause I remember it from before. Slap, slap, slap and each time Petey and I jump and jump and jump, even though it’s not even in our room. Each time the slap sound comes, Momma screams, but her screams are getting less loud, and that’s the scariest parts, I think.

I put the diaper on him even though it’s sideways just a little, and then I put his jammies on, and he won’t stop squirming so it’s hard but finally, as Momma’s cries grow less and less, he’s done and I get my own self dressed in something new that I hadn’t wored that day, and I put Petey in his crib and he falls just a little 'cause I’m not big enough yet, and then I climb in with him and we curl up in a ball, and I pull the blankey up and up and over both our faces and our feets, and we just wait and listen and cry, but even Petey’s crying softly now.

“Please, Charlie,” Momma says again at some time later, and it sounds a way I’ve never hearded her sound before. Petey fell asleep from all the tears I think, and I’m happy for him to be away from this.

“Fuck you, Alix,” Daddy says again, and then I hears him spit and Momma starts to cry some more, and that makes my tears go even faster 'cause her cries sound slow and far apart and low, low, low.

My eyes feel heavy, too, and as Momma’s sounds of sad drift through the wall and to my ears and inside my mind and heart, I fall asleep. And in my dreams, the bad man chases me forever and ever and ever until I die. And in my dreams, when my body dies, the blackness finally comes and I smile 'cause it’s better in the blackness 'cause the bad man can’t reach me there.

9

It’s all bright in my room when Peter wakes me up, patting on my face with his hand and going, “Meeeeuh meeeeeeuh meeeeeeeuh,” which is how he says Mella, and it makes me smile all big. Peter smiles back, and for a second we just lay there happy, his big eyes make it so. But then I ‘member Momma and Daddy’s fight last night, and I get scared. I never sleept this late before and never ever in Petey’s bed. I can tell it’s extra late in the morning 'cause my tummy is all hungry even though my throat’s still ouchie from puking last night and also 'cause the sun is super bright in through the window above Petey’s crib.

“I’ll go check on Momma and Daddy, okay?” I say to Pete, and Petey says something all garbly back and sticks his cute little fist inside his cute little mouth, and drool comes out one side. “Momma and Daddy must just be super tired,” I say, too, but I’m all freaked out inside my heart 'cause it’s so quiet, and usually Momma’s already making breakfast early early when Daddy’s home.

I be careful when I climb out of Petey’s crib 'cause I don’t wanna fall and squish him flat, and also my shoulder is kinda ouched from where the shampoo hitted it in the shower last night when Daddy pulled Momma out. I wanna call to Momma and have her come instead of go and see myself 'cause my brain is so scared, but my heart tells me not to call in case Daddy’s sleeping. We never, ever, ever wanna wake Daddy when he’s sleeping. He doesn’t like it much. Not much at all.

I tiptoe all quiet to the kids’ room door and turn the knob all slow and slow and when it opens like a little sliver, I can see the hall and hear a noise. It’s the shower running, all like sand in a stick is what Momma says, but it’s wet, not dry, so I don’t understand why she says it. The sound means Momma or Daddy are in there, or maybe both, but I hear no words, so I decide to look and see if Momma’s chain is out inside the hall.

I open the door super slow, slow, slow, slow, just like a turtle and pretend I have a shell in case I need to hide inside it. I never seed a turtle, ‘cept for Franklin on the drive that Daddy brought, and I love Franklin 'cause he’s kind. In the hall, I don’t see Momma’s long, red wire, so I know that it must be Daddy in the shower, and that makes my heart a little easier in my chest 'cause the water means I can tell exactly where he is and if he’s coming.

I tippy-toe extra softly down the hall, like a bandit Momma says they’re called, and when I get a little out I can see their door is open, but Momma isn’t in her bed. Which is weird, 'cause the long red cable chain isn’t going out into the hall and down into the kitchen. I can always tell where Momma is 'cause all I have to do is follow the red line. So she must still be in her room. But where?

“Oh!” I say, still a whisper even though Daddy is in the shower now and he can’t hear me. “The chickens.” Momma must be in the backyard feeding the chickens, and maybe they laid an egg or each one did, and I get all ‘cited 'cause that means Momma can make us SPAM and runny yolks! Daddy loves the runny yolks, and that will make him happy happy, and for sure the bad man will go away and not come back for a long, long time!

I hurry now and rush into the room, all ‘cited to go outside and see Momma and run into her arms and tell her how much I love her with all my heart but when I get inside their room, the back door is closed and the cable isn’t going to the out there. “Momma?” I whisper-call, but Momma doesn’t answer, and now I’m even more ascared.

I look down and see where the red, rubber-coated cable is stuck into the floor, and I follow it all loopy-looped on the old rag rug and around. It’s like a maze, and I’m the crayon zooop zip zop, and I follow it to the edge of the bed. It turns the corner, but suddenly I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna see. I don’t wanna know where Momma is.

I stand there and I’m scared, and suddenly I need to pee again but now I don’t know what to do. I have to go all bad, bad, bad, but Daddy’s in the shower and Momma is in the place where I can’t see between the wall and my side of the bed when Daddy isn’t home. I’m stuck inside my mind, not knowing what I should do, but then my bladder tells me I have to go and run 'cause if I accident again Daddy will be mad, and if Daddy gets mad again, I don’t know what will happen. So I run.

I know Daddy’s in the shower so I slow down just at the very last second and put my hand up and grab the cold cold knob, all metaly and ice, but not real ice like that Daddy likes inside his drinks. I’m scared to go in in case it makes the bad man mad and come rushing back into Daddy’s eyes or nose or ears or mouth but finally I can’t take the feeling in my tummy, so I twist the knob all slow and open the door and I rush in as quiet as I can, and the lid is up and I’m sitting and going and aaahhhh, it’s so many reliefs. But something… something isn’t right.

The shower doesn’t make the sound when someone’s in it. It’s all constant raining noises all sssssssssssshhhhhhhhh instead of sssssssshhhhhhhlllllllll ssssssshhhhh like when there’s a people in there washing their body all clean. Also, the air in here is cold and not the cloudy steamy kind, and my heart begins to fill with the color of feared, which is Slimey Green the crayon says, Momma read it to me once.

“Daddy?” I say, but my voice is soft and low and nervey. “Are you in here?”

But Daddy doesn’t say, and I’m all of a suddenly totally heavy and my hands don’t wanna raise, and I finish what I’m doing but it’s hard, and then I flush and the sound all loud and whoosh makes me jump like Petey and I last night and I’m more than scaredy, but I don’t know the word, and I wash my hands all slow even though they don’t want to lift, and I keep looking at the curtain to see if it’s moving from Daddy’s elbows as he scrubs out all the soap from inside his hair.

“Daddy?” I ask again when I’m all done, and my feet don’t wanna step over there closer to the shower. My feet wanna turn around and run.

But I have to know if Daddy’s there. I have to know. I take a step, and then another, and they're baby steps like Petey makes, but I can’t make my feet go any faster or any further, and my tummy jumps up into where my heart lives. “Are you here?”

I stop and listen as hard as my ears can hear, but all there is is water splashing down, not even splishing first. Just sssshhhhhhh all solid like a wall and I reach out my hand, but it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. My fingers reach and reach and reach, and I think that maybe I’m like the bad man was, stretching on forever and ever until I feel the curtain beneath the tips.

“Daddy?” I say again, only louder, just in case, but still there is no sound ‘cept Peter call out “Muuuuuuuuhhhhh?” from down the hall, and my throat is dry, dry, dry like the sand in the stick for rain. “Please, Daddy, can you hear me?”

The tears are at the back of my eyes, and I’m so scared, and I can feel all the ocean of them pressing them out, and I know the word is bulging but I don’t know if that’s right, and I wanna turn and run and go outside and fly up to the sky and never, ever, ever come back. But I can’t. ‘Cause Petey needs me.

I pinch the curtain, and then I grab it and then I pull it to the side, but slow, in case Daddy is really in there. I pull and pull and pull, but all I see is the shelf where the shampoo usually sits, and the conditioner is there. The bottle purple with a kangaroo all bouncy, bouncy, bounce, and the razor Momma uses on her legs and underneath her arms. But there is no Daddy, so I keep pulling and it keeps sliding, and finally there is nowhere else for it to go, and I see that the only thing in the shower is the other purple bottle that fell and hit me in the shoulder. That Daddy isn’t here.

I back up away from where the water still sssssshhhhh down and down and down onto the shower floor. When I make it to the door, my one foot tangles in the other and I fall backward on my bottom, ouch, and bite my tongue, and I can taste the blood that pops up into the inside of my mouth, and I wanna cry so hard, but I can’t. Peter needs me. I have to stay brave, like Spiderman.

I get back up even though my legs don’t wanna, and I walk back to that place where the red line of Momma’s wire disappears around the bed. The blood is still all yucky in my mouth and my tongue is getting big and small and big with the same bumping of my heart, and I still don’t wanna see what’s there.

“Momma?” I ask the corner of the bed, 'cause I look there instead of around it. “Momma, can you hear me?”

For a great long time there’s nothing but sometimes Peter calling “Mmmmmmmuuuuuuuh!” from the room that’s sometimes mine and always his. So I says her name again and again, and somewhere in the middle the tears did start to come, 'cause even the chain that’s not a chain, not really, is frozen like there’s nothing there at the end. Just like the shower on the other side of the curtain was empty, I know the place beyond the corner of the bed is empty too.

“Momma?” I say only louder 'cause I’m scared and I forget that I have to be all the brave 'cause Petey’s too young to be, and I think he hears the way all the fear is in my voice, and then he starts to cry, and my tears come more just hearing his.

“Mmmm.” A sound. It’s low low and I can barely hear it through Peter’s baby screams. “Mmmmm.” And the chain! It moves, just a little, but a little is a lot more than none, and my heart gets all big, and I think it’s gonna ‘splode right out of me, and my brave comes back all at once, and my feet run around the edge of the bed without me even having to say to them to.

“Momma! Momma! Are you okay?” I ask her, but I can see she’s not. She’s not okay. Not even just a little.

Momma’s face is all swolled shut even worse than I’ve ever seed it be. Her lips are broken and bright red gashes cut them in places, and blood drips down and is dried all on her chin. Her nose is crookedy and sideways a little, and I didn’t knowed that noses could ever be that way. I didn’t know that eyes could be so big and squeezed all shut that way, and even her ears are huge and puffy. She doesn’t even look at all like Momma looks. There’s so much blood all dried to her face from her nose and lips and even down her ears. I can see her eyes are trying to open up and look at me. I can see her head trying to move toward where I say her name again and again, but I can tell how bad it hurts her just to move, and the only thing I can think to do is to go to her and sit down next to her and put a tiny gentle kiss upon her head.

I do it all soft and gentle like she does for me when I’m not feeling well. But even though my lips are soft, I can tell that they hurt her bad, and so I only give her one, and then I cry 'cause there’s nothing else I can do but that. I’m too little. I’m not a big girl. I’m just a me. And I’m alone.

10

I cried there for a while, and Momma slept and woke and slept. And I just watched her do that until Petey’s cries grew quiet and then came again all loud. I knew that Momma needed me to be big and strong and not the little, tiny baby that I was be’d. So, I got up and went into the living room, just long enough to peeked my head outside the door and see if Daddy’s truck was there. I knew it wouldn’t be, but I had to check, just in case.

I didn’t know if I would be happy or sad to see it gone. But when I saw the place beneath the special glass for ‘tricity was empty, I was happy. So, so, so happy. I knew that we were safe 'cause Daddy wasn’t here, and for the first time in my whole long life I knewed that for really reals, and even though that made my heart as sad as a heart could ever get, I didn’t care no more. Daddy really was the bad man. He really really was. And maybe Momma wasn’t such a liar after all.

Now that I knew that Daddy was gone away, I closed the door and went into the kitchen and pushed Petey’s little pen out and down to Momma’s room. And my room now again. And for awhile it would be Peter’s bedroom too, ‘cause I didn’t wanna leave Momma all alone, and Petey couldn’t be alone, neither, 'cause Petey was just a little baby boy. They needed me to be a big sister, and I wasn’t gonna let them down. Not now. Maybe later I could be a little Mella Moo again. But, no, I don’t think I wanna be a Mella Moo not ever, ever, ever anymore.

I pushed Petey’s pen up against the window door, and I slid the curtain open so he could see outside and watch the chickens run around and play. But then I saw the chickens were all shut in to their new house which is a coop, and I remembered Daddy say that we had to let them out every single morning and shut them in at every single night to keep them safe and keep them happy. I slid the door open after checking on Momma once again, and when I saw her breathing her chest moved up and down and up again I knew she was, and so I went and let the chickens out.

Once that was done I had to get Peter from his crib, and that was easy peasy lemon squeezy 'cause Pete was getting good at climbing up the side. ‘Specially when I helped him by putting my hands through the bars and pushing up his feets. He went to the top and felled right over, but that was okay 'cause he landed on his bed, and then I laughed and then he laughed, and it was funny. I brought him to his little pen and he didn’t wanna go 'cause he was hungry, but I couldn’t let him run around the house 'cause he was just a little dude, and he could choke and die on all the things that there was that he could put inside his mouth, Momma said.

Once Petey was inside his pen he started to wanna cry, so I had to point at the chickens who were walking around on the other side of the see-through sliding door, and that made Petey happy so I ran into the kitchen all fast like zoom to grab him something yummy to eat and to make him a sippy cup of juice. Daddy likes the orange juice so we always only get a little tiny bit, but I don’t care 'cause I hate Daddy now, even though parts of me says that’s not true. Maybe I’m the liar, but I don’t care 'cause I hate me, too. I should have knowed that Momma was telling the truth. I should have let her tell me all the truths.

I brought the juice and cookies shaped like little animals that Peter loves the most back and handed them to Pete, who took them all with a smile and sat down and ated and watched the chickens play. They pecked and scratched and sometimes fluttered their wings and made dust and tiny feathers fly up into the air, and Petey laughed each time.

Now was the part that was scary to me the most. Now was the part to check on Momma and see what I could do to make her better. When I’m not feeling well, Momma puts me off to bed and makes me drink lots and lots, so that’s what I think I need to do. I go to Momma and gently grab one of her hands, and she makes that same mmmmm sound and tries again to see me through her swollen eyes, and I can see that tears are coming out of them. They’re squeezing through from the inside and making trails through the red, dried parts of blood all over her face, and the lines remind me of her stupid collar and her stupid chain, and again I wanna cry.

I wanna cry with Momma. I wanna sit on the floor right next to her and have her hold me in her arms, and I wanna cry and cry and cry with her until she wipes away my tears and tells me, “It’s all gonna be okay, little nugget. It’s all gonna be okay.”

But what if Momma never can say those words no more? What if Momma is broken now like the toys that Daddy brings me sometimes? What if she never can open her eyes again and smile all big and sing to me at night time or on rainy, cloudy days?

So, I pull gently on Momma’s arms and try to get her to stand a little so I can put her in her bed. I wanna tuck her in and bring her lots and lots of liquids so that her body can be all better soon. But Momma doesn’t move. When I pull her arm, even gently, her eyes get even more squeezed together and she makes an ouchy noise, but different than any ouchy noise she’s ever made.

I don’t know what to do 'cause Momma hurts too many to get her in the bed, so I grab the flat pillow from my sometimes bed and gently slide it underneath her head. It’s hard for her to lift it even just enough for that, but once it’s done I think she makes a smile at me. Just a tiny little one through her giant lips but I see it, and it makes me feel a little better.

Next I take the woolen blankey that’s all scratchy from her bed and pull it over her to keep her warm. I know it’s not as comfy as the bed would be, but I don’t know what else to do to help my Momma, now. I don’t know what to do but wait.

‘Cept for one more thing! One more thing that might can help her. ‘Cause it always helps me when I’m scared and sick or tired. “Rabbit!” I say and I run to get that, too. And when I place it underneath her hand, Momma squeezes it, and I know that means she’s saying thank you.

“I love you, Momma,” I say.

“Llllllllllllllllluuu,” Momma says.

And I do. I love my Momma so much. With my whole heart and all my brain, I love her.

11

Momma sleeps for a long, long time. And sometimes I give her drinks of water from a cup with a bendy straw I find inside a drawer. But in between the drinks, she sleeps. I can tell ‘cus the way she breathes is different. Sometimes when she’s sleeping she wakes up and cries out, and that makes Petey cry out, too, like he’s playing copy cat, and I tell him, “No! Petey, No!” And that makes Peter mad and he yells at me like, “Aaaaaaa!” Silly Peter doesn’t understand.

Sometimes while Momma’s sleeping I have to change his smelly diapers, and I know I’m not doing a very good job. The first time he poops it gets all over my hands and his legs and on the bed, and I don’t know what to do so I put him in the shower and clean us both with soap from the big purple bottle that says shampoo. I can’t read the words yet, but Momma taught me to look for the one that starts with the curvy snake, and not the horseshoe, for shampoo, and that’s what I do. Plus, it makes all the bubbles when you get it wet, that’s how you know it’s the right one and not the other.

I also make me and Petey food. But mostly that’s easy 'cause there’s still chicken and cold slaw left. Petey loves the biscuits, too, even though I think they’re gross, so I’m glad 'cause he can eat them all up and I wouldn’t care. But the chicken is my favorite part. I’m really glad that Daddy brought us chicken, though, 'cause I’m too little to know how to make a fire, and so I can’t cook us food that’s hot, and the chicken tastes good cold.

We do like this for two whole nights and days, and I’m getting tired of all the things I have to do to be a good big sister to Petey, and I wish I could help Momma more. I know she had some accidents but when I tried to help her go to the shower to clean, she couldn’t move 'cause of all the pain, and so I let her sleeps. Her words kept getting better and better, though. Like when she was thirsty she could say “water” and even “thank you” sometimes. That’s how I knew it would all be okay soon. ‘Cause Momma’s words were coming back.

“Mella,” Momma finally said on the third morning time, at least I think that’s how many that it was. I’m still not the best at counting numbers and this was all spread around with lots of hours between counting time. “Help me sit up.”

“Okay, Momma,” I said, trying to sound like no worries, no big deal, but inside my heart was super happy!

Momma placed an arm around my neck, and I helped to pull her even though she was super, really heavy for me and it was extra super duper ouchie for her. She made a sound that I think is called a wince from the stories Momma says, and I was scared that I was hurting her even more than I ever did before. When Momma was all in a sitting up way, I helpeded put the pillow behind her back and gived her a drink from the glass of water with the same bendy straw as before. It was hard for her to suck and swallow; I could tell ‘cause her face made a squished up look as she did it.

“I’m so sorry this has all happened,” Momma said to me, but her voice was still a little poofy, like her lips and eyes were too. But at least she could open them and see me now, not all the way, but a little. “I’m sorry that you have had to live like this and witness all the horrible things you’ve had to see.” Momma’s voice makes a sound now when she talks, like she’s trying not to cry, and a couple tears do fall out from between her dark, purpley lids of her eyes. “But something is wrong with me. Something really bad, and it scares me. It scares me for you and it scares me for Pete.”

“What’s a matter, Momma?” I ask, but I can see her body is still all hurty and broken, and there are so many bruises on her face and arms and legs and hands. On her whole body, I think.

“He hurt me worse than he’s ever done before, Mella, and I don’t know if he’s ever coming back. Or if he is, I don’t know what he’ll do when he does.” Her voice is a little bit all hoarsey and rough, like the wood of the stairs on the porch.

“Why does Daddy hurt you?” I asks, and Momma puts her head back against the wall, but slow and soft, and lets her eyes all close.

I don’t wanna move or make a sound until she’s ready to see me again and so, I wait. I can hear Peter Peter Cookie Eater, it’s a joke we sometimes say ‘cause Petey loves the cookies most, and he’s making silly noises once again. He slept inside his playpen last night, and I slept on the floor next to Momma ‘cause I was too afraid to sleep up on the bed.      

Finally, Momma puts her head back up and looks at the camera in the corner above the door. Daddy has cameras in all the rooms so he can watch us while he’s away. To make sure we’re safe and happy while he’s not here.

“I don’t think they work,” Momma says, but I don’t think she’s talking at me ‘cause her voice is far away kind of, and she’s looking still at them. “Because he’s said stuff that doesn’t make any sense if they work. Like how he sneaks up on us to see what we’re doing. If they worked, he would know. Or asking if that’s how I talk about him when he’s not here. If he could see and hear us all the time, he would know I’m super careful about what I say, just in case. Just in case he can hear my every word.”

Momma puts her head back again, against the wall, and I wanna ask a million questions about why. Why does Daddy hurt her? Why does the bad man come inside of him and make him be so mean? The biggest meanie in the whole wide world of all the meanies that ever lived ever! But I can see that Momma needs to think and that it hurts to even breathe for her, so I wait. The chickens outside are making cute sounds like cluck cluck cluck, and Peter makes sounds back, and I know he loves them as much as me.

Finally, Momma looks at me again, as much as her eyeballs can right now, and the way her words sound maked my heart run and run inside my chest, and I’m scared of what she says. But I don’t make her stop like I always do. This time, I hear.

“He is not your Daddy, Mella. He’s not. And I know how sad that must be for you to hear. I know it must be scary and confusing and hard to understand, but try, okay? Try and hear what I’m saying and listen until I’m done.” She says these stuffs to me and I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything at all. I think my voice is gone right now, anyways. I think I don’t know how to say any words anymore. I think they’re lost.

“A long time ago, on the day I found out that Peter was growing inside my tummy, I came home after picking you and your twin sister, Megs, Megan, we called her Megs, just like your real name is Melanie.” Momma starts to shake her head like it’s all full of thoughts and she needs just one, but it hurts her so she makes that sound, that wince, again. “A long time ago, while your real Daddy was at work… Oh, Mella, how you would love him. He loved you so much. So much…” Momma looks at the camera again and her eyes, somehow even inside all the puffy purple of the lids, get more hard, and she looks at me and I can feel the hardness somehow even though it makes no sense. They’re just eyes.

“This is difficult for me to talk about, 'cause I know how much you love him, even though you shouldn’t. But I also understand 'cause it’s all you really know. He came and took us away from our real home. Our real family. He stole us and brought us here, and he didn’t know that Peter was already in my belly. He thinks he’s his, and I let him think that so he wouldn’t hurt me. So he wouldn’t hurt Peter, and I’m always so afraid of what he’ll do to you. He likes to pretend that you're his family 'cause he likes the way you love him, so I haven’t tried too hard to take that from you. It keeps you safe. And I need you to be safe. But it’s hard for me to watch. It’s hard for me to see you love him. To hear you call him Daddy, 'cause he’s not. And more 'cause your true Daddy, we called him Papa, he’s such a good man. So kind and funny and loving and he would never, ever hurt you. Or me. He was safe, Mella, can you understand?”

I couldn’t. I can’t understand all these words that she’s saying all puffy and strange. What does she meaned when she says Daddy’s not my Daddy? It’s crazy sauce. It’s hard to know if she’s lying or being true but I want to believe her, but I don’t know if I can.

“Daddies aren’t supposed to be scary, Mella. They’re not. Can you at least see that?” she asks, but Daddy’s always been scary and it’s the bad man, right? Not him. But then I remember that he is the bad man. He is, and I start to cry and nod my head.

“Uh-huh,” I say, but only ‘cause she’s waiting for me to say something and I don’t know what else there is to.

“He took us and he brought us here, and I’ve tried as hard as I can to keep us safe, but I don’t know if I can anymore.” Momma’s eyes go closed for a long, long, many seconds and she swallows, and it hurts her, I can see. So I help her get another drink, and finally she goes on. Saying more words that are scarier than the last.

“He wants me to have as many babies as I can so that he can build a commune here. He has friends online that he talks to who are doing the same thing, and their plan is to trade you kids off to each other when you get to be a certain age. To trade the girls off to be wives for their sons and vice versa, and build houses and start crops and trade those off for others too. They believe that the end of the world is coming, that something bad is gonna happen, and when it does, they’ll have these communities where there will be enough goods and people to make them so that they’ll survive. They’ll have everything they need, and they’ll control their worlds, instead of banks and politicians. It’s all crazy and sad and scary because I’m not needed beyond creating babies. He’s already got someone picked out to send you to, in time. And I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about it. How to save you. Because Mella, he’s crazy. They’re all crazy. And I don’t want you to end up like me, tied to some crazy man’s floor, your only purpose to meet his every whim and give him babies that can grow up to be bartered with and used as a tool. You’re so much more than that, and so am I, and so is Pete, and so is this baby growing inside me, even though it really is his child.” Momma needs another drink, and I can hear the pain all inside her words, and I know they hurt her in her heart to say.

“I don’t wanna leave you, Momma. Or Peter. I don’t wanna go live with someone else,” I says, and Momma smiles at me, and the smile stretches out her lips too much, and it makes one of the slices that’s all scabbed up break and start to bleed again, but Momma doesn’t know and she keeps talking.

“I don’t want that either, Mella. It’s the last thing I want in the whole wide world. But you have to leave.” Momma leans forward, just a little, and she grabs me on the arm, and her fingers are just a little bit too tight, and I wanna tell her that it hurts, but I can’t. It’s like when I had the dream that I know was not a dream of the bad man and I couldn’t move. I’m stuck. Her words have made me all freezed up. “I need you to help me up and into the shower and then while I’m in there, I need you to pack a bag.”

“What kind of bag?” I ask, but I didn’t needs to ‘cause I knowed Momma was gonna tell me, and she did.

“The backpack he brought you that you keep inside your closet. Take out all the crayons and notebooks that are inside, but bring me one of them and a pencil so I can write you a note before you go. And then I want you to grab one of Peter’s baby blankets. The warmest one. Fold it as small as you can and shove it inside. Then rinse out that orange juice bottle over there and fill it up with water and put it in the backpack along with as many snacks as you can, okay?” Momma stopped and reached for her cup but I can see that it was hard for her to do, so I helped her and she smiled a little, and the blood came to her lips a tiny bit more, and all the words she said were swirling around in my mind but all out of order, and I didn’t know what to think. “But make sure it’s not too heavy. I don’t know how long it’s going to take you out there. I don’t know how far it is to the main road.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying, Momma, I don’t know what it means.” I start to cry now even though I wished I wasn’t, ‘cause I don’t wanna make Momma sadder than her face already says she is. Momma pulls me into a big, giant hug, and I can feel her get stiff a little when I hug her back, and I know it’s gotta hurt in her back where I put my hands, and I drop my arms so they’re not pressing her no more.

“I need you to go, Mella. I need you to leave this place and follow the road through the forest to the place where it meets a bigger road with cars and trucks and people.” Momma pushes me back and looks inside my eyes, and I can hear the exclamation points all inside her words and I know she needs me to understand and hear, but I don’t wanna. I wanna put my hands over my ears and scream and scream and scream until my face is all purply. I’m scared. I’m scared by what she says.

“I can’t, Momma. I’m too little.”

“Mella,” a tear falls from between her poofy, swollened eyes. “If you don’t go, we’re all going to die. I can feel it inside of me. Something isn’t right.” Momma puts her hand, which is too hot, against my cheek, all soft but hard at the same time, which makes no sense at all. “And even if he does come back to save the two of you after I’m gone, what happens to you, maybe not to Peter because he thinks he’s his, but what happens to you will be a nightmare.”

12

I do all the things that Momma asks, but slowly. It’s like my body is all frozen up, and it’s hard to make it go. Momma has a hard time getting up and taking a shower, and I help as much as I can, but I can see how much pain she’s in as she goes. I think she’s maybe gonna fall so many times but she doesn’t, and so I hope she’ll be okay when I’m gone. I wished I could stay to help her and baby Peter. I really, really do.

I bring Momma the notebook and the pencil after my bag is all filled up with everything she said and after she’s all cleaned and dry. She’s in the living room now, her and Peter too. I moved his playpen back into there so that she could make it to the kitchen easier for stuff that they would need, and I brought her his diapers and wipeys to make it easier for her to reach while I’m away. She writes a long, long note that I can’t read and don’t know what it says, and then she puts it in the zipper pocket on the front and tells me to only take it out once I meet a stranger.

Momma makes me put on the thickest sweater that I have over top my shirt that I was already wearing and also my sweatpants on over my tight tight jammie pants I got last Christmas. I miss Christmas. I wished it were Christmas now. Then there would be snow and special movies and Daddy couldn’t come for a long, long time ‘cause the snow was so deep and he had to get a special front part for his truck to push the snow away, and when he came he brought so many good things to eat and this backpack full of crayons and notebooks and a coloring book with some of the pages already colored in but I loved it anyway. I knewed they were colored by my brother and sister who don’t know I’m alive, but now I don’t knowed if they’re even my brother or sister for realsies or not.

Momma even made me shoes with cardboard, and socks that were her size, and the shiny, silver tape that’s made from ducks. She has me put them on over my own smaller socks, and then she puts more tape to make them tight against my ankles, but underneath the sweatpants in case they get too warm and I need to take them off and put them in the backpack. I don’t wanna go. I wanna stay.

“Please, Momma, please, don’t make me go.” I’m crying and I’m begging and I’m sitting on the floor with my knees all up underneath my chin. “I’m scared.”

“Follow the road all the way and don’t go off it into the forest. Don’t go off of it unless you hear his truck. Do you understand?” Momma says, and I don’t think she cares at all that I don’t wanna leave.

“Please, Momma, let me stay! Let me stay!” I yell all loud and Petey starts to cry, and I wished I hadn’t yelled at her ‘cause her face is all full of ouchies and her lips are bleeding again and shivering like she’s cold, but I know she’s way too hot.

“If you hear his truck, run and hide as fast as you can, but don’t go into the trees. Don’t go where you can’t get back to the road. That’s the most important thing. You have to stay on the road until you make it to the bigger road and once you do, keep walking until someone stops you or you make it to a store.”

“I don’t know what a store is, Momma. I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna meet strangers or hide from Daddy’s truck.”

“But you must.” Momma’s words are hard, hard, hard like orange, and I stop crying when I heard them. I stopped crying 'cause I knowed she’s right. I can heared her truthness in her voice, and I knowed that I have to go. I knowed I do. ‘Cause Momma’s very sick and she needs a hobspital.

“What if I can’t find a store or a stranger?” I asked her.

“Any building you see that looks like people are inside, you go to. You go inside and you look for anyone and as soon as you find someone, you give them the note and they’ll help you,” Momma says and she opens the door and holds it open wide wide, and I know she wants me to leave. “I love you, Mella.”

“I love you, too,” I say and I run to her, one last time before I leave, and I hug her tight, tight, tight, and I knowed it hurts her but I don’t care, 'cause my brain can’t think of all the things right now and she hugs me back as tight as I think she can and we stand there, and Petey is crying now saying my name in the way he says and I know I have to turn and run and go or I’ll never be able to, but I’m scared.

I let Momma go after a long, long time and I turn and step out onto the porch, and I look out to where my not Daddy threwed that block that time. All the times I’ve seened that place before I’ve always been sad I couldn’t go, but now that I’m out here with the whole wide forest before me I don’t wanna be. “What if it gets dark, Momma? And the shadows come?”

“If the shadows come, you find a place nearby the road and you curl up in a little ball and you go to sleep underneath the blanket in your bag,” Momma says. “And then you wake up when the light comes up and you keep going. The blanket will keep you safe, okay?” Her voice is sad and scared, and so am I.

“Okay,” I says to Momma, but I don’t turn around to see her anymore.

I just start to walk. I just start to go. And as my feet go plat, plat, plat in my brand new shoes across the wooden boards and then down the wooden steps, I feel the fear turned all into something different. Something excited and bright and warm. I’m on a ‘venture like a real life superhero. Magnificent Mella, that’s who I am now. And I’m going to save my family, 'cause that’s what heroes do. Just like Captain America says. As I walk, I pretend he’s with me, and I can almost see his shield twinkling in the light that kisses the ground through the trees. That’s what Momma told me it’s called once. I love kisses from the sun.

13

I walk along the road for days and days and days, ‘cept it’s just been hours or lots and lots of minutes, but it feels like forever. It feels like the road is never gonna end. I wonder if I’m ever gonna make it to the place where Daddy carried me to, where his truck was parked on the bridge and all the water ran underneath all whooooossshhhh! But I think I may be magic ‘cause as soon as I think about the water, I can hear it, just a little bit at first but the more I walk all flap, flap, flap, the louder the whooshing gets, and I start to run.

The backpack is kinda heavy, and my shoes are all slippery on the hard, dirt road and the lots and lots of pine needles that lay on top. I wonder if that’s what real shoes are like, ‘cause when Daddy carried me that day he didn’t slip at all, and I’ve almost fallened down so many times already. A hundred thousand times! I know I should stop running, but I’m so ‘cited to see the bridge again that I can’t, and my heart is all bambambam ‘cause I’ve never really ranned like this before, and then the world is suddenly all sideways and I go all over on my back. It feels like it did that day in Daddy’s truck, like I was pushed by imvisible hands, and I get all scared ‘cause what if the bad man is here? Here in the shadows?

It’s hard to breathe at first as I lay there on the backpack all squished underneath me. But I’m glad it’s there ‘cause I think without it my back would have banged all smash against the road. It’s hard to breathe for a lots of time, so I just lay there and watch the clouds between the trees as they go by all lazy like a Sunday morning Momma used to say. And I hope Momma is alright. And Peter. I’m sad all of a sudden now ‘cause I never told Pete goodbye. What if I get lost in the woods like Hansel and Gretel, ‘cept I never make it back? What if I never ever get to see them ever, ever again? What if Petey doesn’t know I loved him?

Then I hear a noise a little bit into the trees, and I look that way and think I’m gonna see the shadow man again, all tall with his long, long pointy black fingers all pressed up against a tree and his shiny black teeth glinting in the kisses from the sun. I actually think he’s there for a second, but it’s just a tiny, black bird pecking at the bark and not long fingers and I laugh only so I don’t cry. I roll over on my side and sit there, staring at that spot, just in case, until my heart stops thump thump thumping in my chest and then I think how thirsty my throat is.

I think I’ll have a picnic when I get to the bridge, and I knowed I’m super close ‘cause it looks familiar here, and so I stand up and keep on going. It’s what Captain America would do. I smile at that thought. And I’m glad I have all these friends inside my head. 'Cause that means you can take them with you wherever you go. Even on extra scary ‘ventures where the trees grow tall and tall.

I’m really super thirsty by the time I make it to the bridge. When I camed here last time with Daddy, well, with him, I didn’t really get a chance to look around and see. I’m scared of the edge ‘cause Momma was scared and Da- he said he could see why she was, so that must mean that it’s important to be askared right here. Plus, I ‘member how easy I felled on the way, and I don’t wanna fall into a place where the water is all loud and fast and zoom away and drowned somewhere I’ve never seened before. So, I’m super, extra careful by the edge but stay a far ways back and just look and see why it’s so loud, almost like it’s yelling.

The water rushes fast fast right on by, over rocks and trees and branches. It’s moving and crashing and white and bubbly and that’s the parts that makes it loud, I think. The crashing into isn’t like a bang or cracking sound like it is when Daddy hi-, when he hits Momma or when I run into the wall. It’s the whooshing sound I hear. And I’m glad. I’m happy it makes a different noise, ‘cause it’s kinda pretty and I like that. I like it when pretty things don’t make the sounds that remind me of the scary stuff. The stuff with the bad man.

My tummy rumbles and I can’t hear it over the loud loud sound, but I can feel it and I knowed it’s there, so I look for a nice place to sit to make a picnic. I knowed I’m in a hurry, but I need to eat and drink some water, so I might as well pretend a little. Momma says pretending makes the hard things easier, like cleaning your room or when the bad man would take her in their room and close the door and she would cry and beg. Then I would pretend sometimes to be in a far away palace with a princess named Penelope, and we would dance and whisper-sing pretty songs. Or I would be in New York City with Spider Man, and he would tell me all about how much he liked that we named little baby Petey after him.

On the other side of the bridge there’s a place where the sun is shining in through the trees, and there’s all green grass and tiny purple flowers, and I know that’s the perfect place for a picnic! It looks like where they have them in the special night time book Momma reads me sometimes. It’s full of stories of kids like me going on ‘ventures, like I’m on right now!

I walk as fast as I can without it being too slippery to go, and once I get there I think that this is the farthest away from home I’ve ever been! ‘Cept for the time before this place. Where we used to live. And that makes me ‘member that I have a real daddy we called Papa. And that he loved me and only ever was kind and nice, like the daddies in most the stories Momma reads. And I pretend he’s with me now.

Papa is tall and handsome, like a prince, and very, very kind. He has dark dark hair, like mine, and dimples when he smiles. His eyes are kinda brown and kinda green, just like mine when Momma holds me up to see in the bathroom mirror, and it makes me smile to see him here, even though I know he’s just pretend.

“Hello, Papa!” I say as I take off the backpack and let it drop to the ground behind my feet.

“Hello, Melanie. How are you, today?” he asks in a voice that’s mine, but I pretend it’s his and make it deeper like a men’s.

“I’m very fine, thank you,” I tell him back in my normal, regular Mella voice and we both smile, and I wonder if wherever he really is, out there in the big wide world, if he’s thinking of me right now too. What if he’s having a picnic and pretending I’m with him, there? That would be so cool!

I decide to lay the blanket out and set the giant orange juice bottle filled with water on one edge in case the wind starts to blow it away. Then I think of what kind of snack Papa would like, and I bet he would love granola bars the most, so I grab out two and put one on his side and one on mine, and then we sit together and I take a big giant drink of water. I forgotted how thirsty I was so I drink and drink, and water spills all down my chin and cheeks, and Papa laughs and says that I’m a silly goose, and his voice is so happy and full of love and its the color blue.

We talk for hours and hours and I eated my granola bar, and then he gives me his and I eated that all, too, and we laugh and he tells funny jokes. I know I need to hurry and find a growed up, but I feel so happy when I’m playing make believe with Papa that I forget for just a little about why I’m here. And then I heard the sound that I’ve been waiting for without even knowing I was. It’s hard to hear at first ‘cause the water is so loud, but I hearded it anyways ‘cause my brain has listened for it for my whole life that I can remember.

It’s Daddy’s truck I hear. He’s coming. The bad man’s almost here.

14

“Hurry! Run!” Papa’s voice says through my lips, and I put the orange juice-tasting water back inside the bag and zip it up and put it on as fast as I can go. Daddy’s truck is getting louder now, and I’m so scared that he will find me and throw me in the river that’s right there, like I hearded him tell Momma he would do.

I almost forgeted to grab the blankey before I run toward the trees, and I don’t wanna go inside the forest ‘cause Momma told me not to, but there’s nowhere else to hide. I get inside the trees and the air gets a little coldy, and I shiver and I keep running ‘cause I’m scared for him to see me. I don’t want him to stop his truck and come for me. I can’t run that fast ‘cause I don’t ever get to do it much, ‘specially not outside, and my shoes aren’t like real shoes and the rocks and sticks underneath my feet sometimes bite into me through them, and I don’t know what to do. My brain takes over and I just keep going, even though a part of it that sounds like Momma says to stop, to wait, to listen.

I run far and far, and the water noise is behind me now, growing smaller and less loudy, and I keep going until I can’t go no more ‘cause my air is coming in and out too fast and my head feels funny and I think my lungs are gonna burst. When I stop, I sit behind a tree and hope that he can’t see me from the truck driving on the road, and then I realized two things all at once on top of each other. I can’t hear Daddy’s truck or the water anymore and the blankey is gone, too. I must have dropped it at some time when I was running but I can’t ‘member when, and that makes me think of Rabbit back at the house on Momma’s bed, all alone.

What happens when Daddy gets there and sees that I ranned away? What will he do to Momma and to Petey then? And will he come and look for me? And if he does, what will I do?

I know I have to find a people that’s a stranger and give them my note. I know that it’s the only way to save us now. I hope Daddy isn’t mean to Momma ‘cause I’m gone. I hope he doesn’t have the bad man inside him now, even though I know he is the bad man always and why do thoughts and knowings have to be so hard inside my mind? Why can’t everything just make sense all the time instead of hardly ever?

“You’re okay, nugget,” I hear Momma’s voice, and I whisper it out loud, but soft soft so my Daddy who’s not my Daddy can’t hear, not even a little bit, even though I know he’s far back at the house by now.

I sit there, with my back pressed against the pokey bark of one of the tall tall pine trees, and I let my heart get all slower in my chest. Bum bum bum bum goes slow slow into budum… budum… budum… and soon I realize that I can still hear the water noise, but far far and low, so that makes me feel a little safer. ‘Cause even though the road is away, I know which way I have to walk. I have to keep the water sound behind me. Momma woulda told me that if she were here. Maybe that’s how I knowed. 'Cause Momma is here. Inside my heart and in my brain.

I listen hard for Daddy’s truck, and I can’t hear it, which is good. My legs both feel like jello that Momma sometimes makes, all wibbly wobbly like the Doctor says. I wanna stand and keep going ‘cause part of me feels like time is running out so fast, but I can’t on accounta my legs are’t ready yet.

“That’s okay,” I say in my Pretend Papa voice, and that makes me smile. 'Cause at least I do have a Daddy out there in the whole big widest world, on the other side of these huge tall trees, who loves me and would always keep me safe and never, ever hurt me. And so having pretend him here right now is most wonderful. 'Cause I’m scared of being all by myself.

I wait and wait and just when I’m about to go, I heard him. Daddy’s voice. The bad man’s voice. From far, far away. Screaming for me all a sudden. “Mella!” he yells. “Mella!” Again. And now I don’t know what to do.

Should I run and run and try to make it to the people before he can find me? Or should I stay and hide and hope he goes away? I feel frozen like a popsicle that Momma makes sometimes in this little plastic tray. ‘Cept the plastic tray is Daddy’s voice, and it keeps me all bunched up inside it.

“Just keep going,” Papa says from my lips, and I agree. I stand and think again about what way I should go. I knowed I can’t go back to the road, and I have to keep going forwards, but I’m little and I don’t know how to do these things. “You do,” Papa says, and I can hear he loves me with his whole, kind heart, and I smile ‘cause he’s right. I’ve seen all the movies on Daddy’s drive. All the ones full of ‘venture’s just like this, where bad mens chase the good guys and the good guys always win. And right now, that’s me! I’m the good guy, even though I’m a girl. I’m the good girl! And I will save Momma and Petey.

“Mella, goddammit!” I hear Daddy’s voice again, a tiny little bit more louder which I know means he’s closer than he was, and my blood wants to turn to ice again and freezed me up, but then I see my Pretend Papa standing ahead, and I know I gotta try! I gotta go!

So I put the sound of the water to my back, and that’s also where the sound of Daddy is, which is good 'cause the more I go away from him, the safer I’ll be. And if I’m not by the fast fast river when he finds me, maybe he won’t be able to throwed me in! The backpack is a little lighter now without the blankey and I feel bad ‘cause it’s gone, but it does make it easier to walk.

One step and then the other and then another and another, and pretty soon I’m almost running again, but just a little so I don’t run out of breath. Still Daddy’s voice is coming, and he keeps calling for me. “Mella! Come here right now!” and “Mella, I’ll give you candy if you come!” and “Mella, you’re scaring me, baby! Please come back to Daddy!” and “Mella Moo! I love you! Just come out!” But I don’t listen to anything he says ‘cause I know he’s a monster, just like Momma always tolded me he was.

On and on and on I go, and closer and closer Daddy’s voice gets. It sounds like he’s been running, but he can’t know where I am ‘cause the woods are too big and the tall trees are too many all around us. On and on and on, and I have to stop sometimes and take a rest and breathe as ssssshhhh quietly as I can, but it’s hard and my throat is all burney.

“I found your blanket, Mella!” Daddy yells, and it sounds like he’s not too far away now. I look around to see if I can see him, but I can’t and I’m all reliefed at that. “I know you’re out here, Mella. For fuck’s sake, let’s go back to your mommy! She needs you, she’s sick.”

That makes me wanna stop and go to him for just a second and my brain is trying to know what I should do, but it can’t and I’m scared. I know Momma is sick ‘cause Daddy made her and hurt her, and that’s why I have to keep going. That’s why I need to find a stranger to give the note to. Daddy is a liar. He really is. And I can’t trust him anymore. And I never, ever could, I just didn’t knowed it yet back then.

I keep going and going and it hurts sometimes to step ‘cause the shoes aren’t real, only a little good, and my feet hurt and my chest hurts and my breathing is loud and hard and I can’t go any more. I look around for a place to hide and hope that Daddy goes away, but there are only trees and trees and trees, and I think maybe I can see the road and I know that way is a bad way to go. Suddenly the tears are pushing hard against my eyes and I think I may start to cry, but I know if I do he’ll find me and throw me in the river and I’ll get drowned all up.

“Over here,” Pretend Papa says. His voice is mine but different, and I see where he is and my heart gets happy and reliefed. He’s standing in a place where the trees grow tight tight together and there are bushes all around, and at the bottom of the trees and bushes there’s a tiny little hole. Perfect for Mella-sized people to crawl through, but not for big, old, bad mens.

“Thank you,” I whisper to Pretend Papa as I squeeze down low, and he just winks and disappears with a handsome smile on his face, and my heart is warm ‘cause I know that in there, I’ll be safe.

15

“Mella!!!!” This time it’s a scream so loud it makes me jump, and that gets the backpack I’m wearing all stuck up in the bushes. The bushes have great big leaves and lots and lots of ouchy, pokey parts that I keep crawling on in accident and I know my knees are bleeding and my hands, but I don’t care. I need to get through. I need to hide. Daddy’s voice is so close now, and I can hear his steps sometimes as he goes, trying to find me.

I start to have a panic and I pull hard and hard and yank myself forward, and I don’t think the bush is gonna give me up. I think it’s a bad bush and it’s saving me for Daddy and the bad man inside of him, and I get all scared and start to pull even more and more. “It’s okay,” Pretend Papa says again and again and again, and I pretend he’s there with me, and I try and try to calm down a little bit. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

I stop and breathe and then I start to go again, and somehow the bushes let me pass. They have these purpley-black fruits on them every once in awhile and thick spiderwebs other places and I’m scared about what’s inside, but I can’t stop now. One time Momma read me a book that was long and long, and inside it a hobbit friend named Samwise went inside a cave with a spider. He had to to save his friend. So I pretend now that I’m a hobbitses and I keep going to save my Momma and my little brother Pete.

My hands sting and hurt and bleed and I knowed my knees do, too, but I don’t care. I can hear Daddy screaming my name, all angry and mad, and I know for sure if he finds me he’ll hurt me, too, like he did Momma. So I go and go and finally I break through to the other side, and what I see is beautiful.

The sun is shining down only not in all the places, just in some. The light in here is green and golden, and my breath gets all caught inside my throat. The trees all bunched together are some pine and some maple, I can tell ‘cause Momma taught me the difference in their leaves, and even I can see birdies hopping around their branches. The bushes with the purpley fruits and pokey bits make a whole big circle around all of me and this place, but the inside is covered with the leaves and pine needles of the tree,s and I feel like I’m on an island like where King Kong lives, only ‘stead of water it’s bushes.

There aren’t no more spiderwebs once I’m in the middle, and that makes me so happy ‘cause spiders are scary even though Momma says they’re really friends. One time Petey got bited by a spider and his hand got all swolley and red, and Momma told Daddy to take him to the ‘mergency room, but Daddy wouldn’t. Momma was so scared and so was I! Peter cried and cried until finally Daddy left and didn’t come back for days and days ‘til after Pete’s hand was all better. I heard Momma telling herself that he was a coward for leaving us behind so he didn’t have to see Peter all sad and in pain. I never asked Momma what a coward meant, but I think it’s something bad, and I think that Momma’s right.

Now that I’m in the middle of the bushes, I wedge myself into the middle of the trees and it’s a perfect place to get. It’s all softy from all the leaves, and there’s three big trunks where I can lay against and not see out and so if Daddy somehow could make it through the tunnel, he still couldn’t see me here. But he’s too big big for the tunnel, so I know he won’t. But still, it’s nice to be extra safe!

“Mella! Fucking come out here right now!” Daddy’s voice is louder. So loud I knowed he’s almost to the bushes, and it makes me wanna not move not even a single tiny inch! Momma told me that inches are smaller than feet and that’s true, even though my feet are still smaller than hers and Daddy’s but bigger than Petey’s. “We gotta get your mommy to a doctor or she could die! So come out right now so we can, otherwise it’ll be your fault if we don’t make it in time! Do you want that, Mella? Do you want your mommy to die?” Daddy yelled, and the birdies in the bushes around me flewed away all at once, and I think that means that Daddy’s right outside.

I don’t want Momma to die, but I know that Daddy’s lying now for sure for sure ‘cause he would never take us to the hobspital. He told Momma that and I hearded him say. It was that time that Petey got a spider bite. He said that Momma needed to shut the fuck up and deal with it herself ‘cause if it ever got that bad he would just put us out our misery and bury us in the woods. I knew that had been the bad man talking when he said it, but I didn’t know back then who the bad man really was. I was so dumb when I was littler. Not like now. Now that I’m a little bigger.

“Ouch, shit!” Daddy says but not a yell, and tiny pieces of ice race through my whole skeleton ‘cause I know he’s standing right outside the bush-circle-island place. I wish I had the blankey now to cover myself all up and hide far, far away from where he could see. I hope he doesn’t find me, and I look up into the sky that I can’t see, only leaves glowing different colors of green and yellow in the light from the sun somewhere up there, above them. “Fucking blackberry bush, what the fuck?”

“Ooooohhhh,” I say, but in a gush of outward breathing. I say it too loud, maybe, and I put my hands all up over my mouth so no more sounds come out, and I listen as I wait and see if Daddy heard. I shouldn’t had ever made a sound at all, but I was so ‘cited to learn they were blackberries! I love blackberries so so much! Daddy brought us blackberry jam one time, and we had it on toast and in PB&J sammies, and it was the best jelly I ever did eated. My tummy grumbles at the idea of all the fruits I can eat right here, and I can’t wait for Daddy to go away so I can. But that’s only if he didn’t hearded me. ‘Cause if he did, I’m doomed.

I sitted there and listened with my hands still over top my mouth for a million, billion years, and I can hear Daddy standing out there listening too. I don’t know if he hearded me yet ‘cause he’s being so quiet, and I can feel sweat drops dripping down my neck and legs. I’m not even hot, it’s just ‘cause I’m so scared.

“Mella goddamn you!” Daddy screams so loud it hurts my heart and I jump again, but still my hands are over my mouth so I can’t make any little sound at all, and that’s a good thing. “Fucking Alix,” Daddy says, and he sounds so mean. Like the bad guy in Jessica Jones. The one that plays my favorite Doctor, too. I know it’s all just make believe, t.v. shows and movies, but what if Daddy’s like him? What if Daddy could make anyone do anything he wanted? I shiver at the thought and stay as quiet as a little mouse and smile ‘cause sometimes Momma calls me that. Her little mouse. “I’m gonna murder that bitch,” he says, and I can hear him finally start to walk away. But his words make my spine feel like melting into the leaves and pokey, pine thingies Daddy calls needles but they aren’t. Needles are for sewing and made of metal and silver, and these are green. I hope Daddy doesn’t really killed Momma. I love her.

He’s still looking. Out there, calling my name over and over, and I’m scared that he’ll come back, so I waited. As I waited, my eyes growed heavy, and sleep came and took me into it. Like a warm hug. And I let it take me. ‘Cause at least in my dreams, I’d be far, far away from here. Far away and safe.

16

I dream I’m deep, deep, deep in the darkest part of the forest. Momma told me stories about this place. I knowed she said them to me 'cause she was always afraid I’d wander into them. The shadows in the darkest part are so thick that you can almost feel them against your skin and face and feets. I’m not wearing shoes or socksies or anything in this dream, and I can feel the deep, green, mossy stuff like that grows in parts of our backyard, and it’s soft and tickly against my toesies.

I’m scared in my dream, and my breathing is all fast ‘cause I knowed I’ve been running and running before the dream started and I knowed, too, that something is chasing me here. Something tall and dark and made all of shadows too. With shiny, lava rock teeths and sparkly, black eyes. It’s him, I already knowed. It’s the bad man.

But in my dream I’m stopped like I just stopped, and I’m looking all around, trying to catch my dream breath and calm my dream heart that’s racing, is what Momma calls it when it goes boom boom boom boom all fast in a row. I miss Momma. I wished I was with her now. Even if it was just here in my dream.

“Meeelllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaa Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmoooooooooooooo!” The bad man’s voice is loud and comes from everywhere here. All the shadows has his voice, and I don’t know which way to go ‘cause I don’t know which way he is. “Commmmmme ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuut Mmmmmmmmmmmmmeeelllllllllllla Mmmmmmmmmmmoooooooooooooo! I want to eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat yooooooouuuuuuuuuu alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll up.” It’s a warbly garbly voice, like Daddy’s is when he brings a lot of rum and drinks it all up, and I’m scared ‘cause I don’t wanna be eated up.

“No!” I screamed at the shadows which are everywhere all at once, and my voice is too little to break throughed any of them. It makes my tummy hurty to knowed that I’m too small to make a yell ‘cause if I can’t even do that, how am I s’posed to get away? How am I s’posed to fight back? How am I s’posed to not die inside his giant mouth of sharp rock teeth, all getting chewed up and swallowed like fried chickens?

“Therrrrrrrrrrre yoooooooooooooouuuuuu aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrre liiiiiiiitle mouse! I caaaaaaaan heeeeeeeeeeeeear yooooooooooouuuuuuuu!” the bad man’s voice says from all over the place, and my blood is trying to be all freezy again. It wants me to stay and die, it must. And the bad man chuckles all loud like a laugh but less. It’s a creepy sound. A scary, creepy sound.

“Don’t call me that!” I scream again and stand up all straight like as if I’m a big girl, even though I’m not. Only to Petey, but not to me. “Only Momma can call me that!”

“Yourrrrrrrrrr mmmmmmmommmmmmmma’s nooooot heeeeeere, though, liiiiiiiiiiittle mmmmmmmmmmouse!” The bad man laughs and laughs, now it’s more than just a chuckle and instead of being scared, I get so angry. So mad that he is such a meanie. A dick! Which is a word I’m not s’posed to say, but it’s the one that I can think of ‘cause the wasp guy that turns into a giant head says that’s what he is in the Ant Man movie Daddy brought last, and I know that’s what the bad man is too. A giant dick! “I’mmmmmmmmmmm going tooooooooooooo eeeeeeat youuuuuuuu alllllllllll up and thhhhhhhhhhhhhen eeeeeat heeeeeeeeer allllll uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup tooooooooooooo!” The bad man sounds all closer now, and part of me is still scared. Part of me wants to curl up in a teeny, tiny ball and cry. A Mella Mouse ball. But part of me is even more angered than before.

“Shut up!” I screamed so loud, and my fists are all biting hard hard into my fists, and I can feel the hurty part like it’s not a dream at all. “You can’t eat me! And you can’t eat my Momma! ‘Cause I am a big girl and I’m gonna save us both.”

“I’mmmmmmmmmm geeeeeeeeeeting cloooooooooooossssssser little mmmmmmmmmmmmmouse.” And he is! He is getting closer ‘cause the words are bigger, and I feeled like I’m all stuck in the middle of a trap and he’s all around me, coming and coming and there’s nowhere for me to run! “Aaaaannnnnnnnnnd wheeeeeeeeen I’mmmmmmmm done eeeeeeating yourrrr mmmmmmmmMomma, I’ll eeeeeat liiiiiiiiiiittle Petey, toooooooooo!”

The bad man chuckles again like Daddy does when he’s reading me the scariest book I have about the troll that lives under the bridge and the brave goats who have to cross it. The troll has a meanie voice, too, and Daddy always makes it chuckle just like the bad man is chuckling now. I can’t believe I never really sawed that the bad man is Daddy, but it makes all the senses now.

“Iiiiiiii’lllllllll crunch hisssssss teeeeeeeeeeeny boooooooooooones inside my shaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrp, sharrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp teeeeeeeeeth.” Now the bad man is almost here, and I still don’t know what to do. Where to run. I’m all the panic inside my mind, and my legs and arms ‘feel like ‘lectricity!

“You can’t eat any of us! ‘Cause I’m a super hero and I have super powers and I’m gonna get help like Momma said, and I’m gonna save the day like Peter Parker always does!” I say and stand as tall as I can, and I scream my words as brave as I can make them sound, even though I’m not all the way brave inside me.

“Boo!” the bad man screams, and all a suddenly his face is right there in front of me, his eyes right where my eyes are looking, and I could touch them with my fingers if I wanted to, but I don’t. I don’t wanna know what they would feel like. They’re so dark and black and dotted with tiny spots of red that I never did see before ‘cause he’s never been so close. His teeth are like the arrowhead Daddy showed me, and they fill up his whole mouth and as he laughs and laughs and laughs, his stinky breath like old, died leaves, all hot like lava on my face, I can seed the teeth go in circles around and around all the way downed his throat. If he eated us, we would always feel him tearing us to pieces forever and ever, I knowed it. So, I run.

I turn and run and run, and my feet are all slippy against the mossy ground, and the shadows seem like they are thicker now, like syrup kinda, and it’s so hard to get away, and still the bad man laughes. He laughs and laughs and laughs. “You caaaaaaaaaaan’t esssssssssscape meeeeeeeeee, little mmmmmmmmmmouse!”

But I need to. I have to. I must.

That’s when I heard him start to come. His feets make giant slapping sounds against the ground, and I can feel the stomp they make through my own naked feet upon the moss. I’m still running. Still trying to escape, but I know he’s faster than me ‘cause the shadows are his friends, and all around us there is no moon sinking in. No light breaking the shadows. Just darkness and trees and trees and trees. It’s a sea of shadows in the tall trees, and I’m just a little mouse, and the big bad wolf is gonna eated me all up.

I can hear him getting closer and closer and closer and I know that any second he’s gonna grabbed me and pulled me in. Any second I’m gonna feel the sharp bite on my shoulder or on my cheek or on my eye, which is really soft and squishy ‘cause I felt it through my lid one time. Just to see. Just to knowed.

“No!” I screamed one last time as I feel the bad man’s hand close around my neck, and still he laughs and laughs and laughs.

His hand is so cold and so tight that I can barely breathes at all and I start to cough and try to pull his fingers away, but he’s lifting me up, up, and up into the sky and he stands tall and tall, taller than the trees and as he holds me up and up, I see a whole world of stars in the black black sky. We’re above the shadows now and I can see the road way down below, not far, and I can see where it ends a little far away, onto another road, and my eyes grow as wide as they can be’d. Not just 'cause I can’t get no air, but 'cause I knowed how close I am. How close the strangers are.

There are lights of red and yellow and white on the road, and I knowed they’re cars and trucks all driving by ‘cause I’ve seen the roads at night in movies from the drive that Daddy bringed, and I knowed that means that strangers are driving them. But, also, I can see’d a house that’s all lit up and square and I knowed that it’s a store. The store that Daddy talked about. I know it’s still a far, far walk away, but maybe not as far as I had feared it was before, and I knowed that I can make it there if I can just escaped this dream.

“That’s the place you need to go,” I hear Pretend Papa’s voice whisper inside my mind. I knowed that he’s pretend but sometimes pretend can seem so real, and I try to smile as a thank you for the words ‘cause none can come out my mouth with the bad man’s hand blocking all my breath. “You just need to wake up now, Little Mouse. You just need to wake up, and then you need to run.”

The bad man begins to lower me all into his mouth as my Pretend Papa’s words fill up my mind. “You need to run back to the road and down it and don’t stop. If Daddy comes, you can hide. Then you keep on running as soon as he’s gone. But first you need to wake up, Little Mouse.” I can feeled the cold cold of the bad man’s squishy tongue as it slurps around me like a snake in that movie from when my Momma was a kid but my mind is far away now, my eyes still looking at the where I need to go. “Wake up!” Pretend Papa yells, but in a kind hearty way, and as the teeth begin to close around my feet, he yells it one more time, “Wake up!”

And so’s I do.

17

It’s all the way dark when I waked up, still on my little bed of leaves and pine thingies that aren’t needles even though Daddy says they are. I listen all the hards that I can, but I can’t hear Daddy no more and that makes my heart super happy. “Run!” Pretend Papa’s voice comes out my mouth, and so I do. I run.

I crawl out of my spot inside the trees and hurry to the cave of thorny bushes. I want to eat the blackberries, but I can’t. I knowed that I’m running out of time. That Momma and Petey are running out of time. What if Momma’s getting eated up right now? Or little Peter? What if the bad man is there? What if Daddy is eating them like the monster that he really, really is?

The backpack is still on my back ‘cause I never tooked it off before I slept ‘cause I never really meant to sleep at all. It still gets stuck as I crawl through the tunnel and it’s hard to see inside at night, but the shadows are just normal shadows, and I tug the pokey’s easily away this time. And all the while I can hear Pretend Papa’s voice coming out of my mouth, but I knowed it’s really him. I do.

As soon as I make it to the other side, I looked around and make sure that Daddy isn’t here and when I feel safe that he isn’t, I do what Papa told me to. I run as fast and fast as I can back the way I knowed the road is ‘cause I sawed it in my dream. The roots and rocks on the floor that’s a ground are pokey and try and hurts my feet, but the shoes Momma made are just enough to keep them safe and even when they hurt, that’s okay ‘cause I’m in a race and I knowed it. I knowed that Daddy is back with Momma and with Pete and that I need to find a stranger to help them, and me, and us. I need to give the note as fast as I can.

The moonlight makes it through the shadows in the trees and I can see the road up ahead, and I’m so happy. I’m so happy ‘cause once I make it there, it will be easy. It’s not too far. Not too far at all. When I make it to the last tree I stop and listen ‘cause I need to see if Daddy’s hiding anywhere around. I need to see if it’s a trap and if he’s gonna jump out and say “Gotcha!” and grab me up and throwed me in the river. But there’s nobody there to see me, so I race up onto the hard dirt of the driveway and I put my back to the way I knowed that Momma is, and I runned again.

My throat is burning and on fire and my lungs are, too, as I go and go, but I can’t stop, no matter what. I need to keep going. The trees are close close to the edge of the road now on both the sides and I don’t knowed how far I’ve made it, but I knowed there’s still a ways to go and that’s okay. I’ll make it. I have to.

Finally I have to stop. I have no choice. My body makes me and it screams at me for water. Probly ‘cause there really is a fire down inside where my breathing goes, so I stop and hurry and drink as much as I can and I try and make my breaths all normal again. “Ssssshhhhhh, Mella, ssssshhhhh.” It’s Momma’s voice now in my mind, and it helps me to be all calm ‘cause if I can hear her in my heart that must mean that she’s still safe. Or at least I hope it does.

I listen again to hear for Daddy, just in case, but I don’t heared him, and that’s good. I heared an owl go hoot hoot hoot off somewhere in some tree, and I smile ‘cause I think it must be Steve, the owl Momma and I named. He must be following me to knowed I’m safe, and maybe he’ll tell Momma even though she can’t understand what he says in his funny owl words. But then I realize I can heared something else. And it scares me.

I can hear the sound of a truck and I think it must be Daddy’s. ‘Cause Daddy’s is the only one I’ve ever heard before. But then I realize that I’m wrong. It’s not Daddy’s. And it’s not just one. It’s many and many, and it could be cars and trucks and vans. It sounds like a lot of them, not all the time, but every second or more one makes a noise, grows louder and then softer and fades away. But then another comes, and sometimes more than one all at the same time.

“It’s close!” I say, and I don’t knowed if it’s my voice of Pretend Papa’s voice coming from my lips, but I don’t care ‘cause I knowed I’m almost there, and so I run again. I put the orange juice bottle back inside the backpack and I wiggle my arms inside it and I run!

The trees are thick above the road, but still the moon finds a way inside to light my path. It shines down white and bright and so perdiful and my heart is so happy as I go. Flap, flap, flap my feet say against the driveway Momma says it’s called, and my heart grows more and more happy with every single step forward that the flap, flap, flap sound brings me.

“You’re almost there!” Pretend Papa says, but inside my mind ‘cause my throat is on fire again with how much running I’ve done, which is way more than I’ve ever done in my whole whole little life. I’m gonna be a real life hero! I knowed I am! I’m gonna make it!

And then, there it is! In front of me, and my eyes grow wide cause I see red and yellow and white lights flash by in front of me all zoom and I’m so happy I’m gonna ‘splode! Even thoughed my body wants me to stop and rest again, I can’t. My heart won’t let me. I’m gonna save the day like Black Widow, and Momma and baby Pete are gonna be okay.

I make it to the road and a bright, white light passes right by and a loud loud noise that I know is a honk fills my ears and head and it makes me have ouchie feels, but I don’t care 'cause I know it’s all gonna be okay. But that’s when I hear something else, as well. Something from behind me, and I knowed. It’s Daddy’s truck. He’s coming. The bad man is almost here.

18

I look behind me and can see the bright, white lights on the front of Daddy’s truck, still a little bit far, but as I look I heared his engine roar and I think the lights are getting bigger, and that must mean he’s going faster so he must have seened me too. I look to the way that I thinked the house that’s a store is and I can see it down there a bit of far away, and I don’t even think, I just go. It’s bright and all lit up with lights, and I can see more cars there, parked but all lit up from lights above on sticks like trees but with no leaves. Just like in the movies!

It hurts more to run here, with rocks and metal bits of things I don’t know what they are, so I move onto the smooth, black, hard stuff that’s the road and I keep running and running. Daddy’s truck is almost to the big road now, I can heared it, and my little shoes keep flap, flap, flapping against the ground, and I’m so askared I’ll fall like in the movies when the bad guy is chasing the good guy and the good guy falls when he’s trying to get away. I feel like that’s gonna happen now, ‘cause I’m the good guy and the bad man is in Daddy and that means he’s the bad guy.

“Mella!”I heared Daddy screamed my name as his truck goes screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech and his door slams closed, and I can hear him running now. After me, but I’m almost there!

The store is just ahead now. Its lights are like an island, and I think I’m gonna make it out of the ocean of dark. I think I can. I do! But Daddy’s feets are wearing real shoes, and I can hear them clap, clap, clapping against the road as he runs, and another car comes and is pulling into the store, underneath the big white lights, and I start to scream ‘cause a stranger is getting out and I need her. It’s a woman, I can see.

My feet just make it into the bright, white circle as I’m screaming “Help! Help! Help!” and the woman who’s a stranger looks around. She sees me just as Daddy’s hand grabs my arm and yanks me back.

“Shut up!” he yells, but he’s out of breathing, too, and so it comes out all hard to understand, but I do.

“Help me, please, Momma’s gonna die!” I screamed at the lady stranger ‘cause she’s looking at me now and as she does, the other door on her car opens up and a man climbs out to see. “He’s gonna kill her! He’s gonna eat her up!” I screamed, and I’m kicking and hitting out at Daddy, hoping he’ll let me go, but he holds me tight and starts to turn away, back toward the driveway, and I can see his truck lights still there. Still all lit up bright.

“Hey! Yo! Guy!” the stranger man with the stranger lady calls, and Daddy starts to run!

“He’s gonna throw me in the river!” I screamed back at the stranger people, and I’m scared 'cause Daddy’s running faster now, and I didn’t make it. I didn’t get to give the note to the strangers, and now me and Momma and Pete are gonna die for realsies and not just in my dreams.

“Yo! Drop that kid!” the stranger man yells

“Goddamit, Mella, stop fighting,” Daddy says, but I don’t. I keep kicking and hitting and screaming out for help, help, help!

“I’m calling 911!” the woman screams at us, and the man is running running after us, and maybe Daddy won’t make it to the truck in time. Maybe the stranger man will save us. Maybe he’s a superhero, and I’m just a damsel in distresses like Momma says they’re called, and that’s okay. I wanted to be the hero, but I don’t even care anymore if I’m just saved and not the one saving.

“Fucking stop!” the man says loud, loud, loud and I reach my arms out to him, ‘cause he’s getting closer and closer and I want him to grabs me up and carry me away and I’ll give him the note, but Daddy doesn’t stop and I can heared his breathing now, all heavy and hard, and he’s holding me so tight it hurts. The stranger man sees my little hands reaching and reaching. Little compared to his, and he gets so close that our fingertips barely touch, but then he stumbles and falls and says another curse, and Daddy runs even faster.

“No!” I scream and start pulling Daddy’s hair, and then I bited his ear super hard! Harder than I ever knewed I could bite, and Daddy throwed me then and I hit his truck all against my back, and it hurts so bad so I scream as I falled to the ground, and I feel something break into my skin on the part of my hands that are underneath my fingers that Momma told me what they were called but I forgetted.

“Fine! Fuck you, Mella, you little fucking bitch,” Daddy screams at me, and his hand is over his ear, and I can see bright red of the blood that is seeping through his fingers and at least I made Daddy bleed.

I made the bad man bleed, and that makes me so proud ‘cause all the times that he made Momma bleed, and never did I thought I could ever ever hurted him like he hurted Momma. But then that thought makes me feel sad again. And scared. Does that make me like him? Does that make me like the bad man? Is the bad man in me too?

Daddy pulls opened his door and it hits me in the head but just a little, and I start to cry, and he kicks me out of the way so he can climb in and my face falls down onto the rocky part on the side of the hard smooth road, and I can feel little, sharp things cutting my skin and I can feel the blood bleeding down my cheeks, and I start to cry even more and harder, and then suddenly new arms are pulling me up and the stranger woman has me in her hold and the stranger man is fighting Daddy for to not close the door. I’m so scared, and the woman is backing away with me, and we’re both just watching the stranger man and Daddy tugging and grunting.

“The cops are on the way, man, just let it go. You’re fucked!” the stranger man says, but then Daddy hits the man’s fingers with something hard and the man makes a little yell in surprise and jumps back.

“Fuck you!” Daddy says to the stranger man as he slams his door shut super loud loud, and then the truck is vroom driving backward, and it swerves and turns around all roaring, like a monster.

“Momma!” I yell and look at the lady, with tears making my eyes all blurry. “He’s gonna kill my Momma and little Peter!” I cry, and I can feel the tears running down my face and they’re making the ouchies the road put into me burn and sting, but I don’t even care. It’s like another me is feeling them and not the me that’s in my mind right now. A pretend me, almost, like Pretend Papa.

“It’s okay, honey, the cops are coming. It shouldn’t be long now,” the stranger woman says, and the stranger man looks at me and says about my ouchies on my face and hands, and they start to walk me back to the bright circle of light, but I don’t wanna go ‘cause I’m so scared for Daddy to get back to where Momma is and his truck is already gone gone down the drive.

19

The cops camed out super fast fast with loud loud cars that went weeee oooooooo weeeeeee ooooooo like in the movies, all lighted up with red and blue. The nice stranger man inside the store, who looked all tired, gave me a hot chocolate in a paper cup with white, steamy clouds poofing out the top. The stranger lady told me to blow on it and to be very careful ‘cause it’s super hot, and I already knowed that about hot chocolate. Momma told me. Plus, that’s why they called it that.

Before the police people came in their black shirts and pants with silver badges on their chests, I had gived the note to the nice stranger lady, and she had read it and handed it around to the other two stranger mens. They all talked about what my Momma had writted and asked me a million questions and gave each other weird looks after I answered them as much as I could.

“Should we call the number or wait for the cops?” she asked the stranger man who had ranned after Daddy, but he just looked at the other stranger man who was still reading the note that Momma had writted.

“I don’t know, man, what do you think?” he asked the guy who still had the note, and the guy finally looked at me and smiled all kind and nice and good. I really liked these stranger people, and I wondered if all the strangers in the world were nice like them.

“What do you think?” the stranger man who held the note asked me, and his voice was just as full of love as was his eyes. “Should we call your dad?”

“Do you mean Daddy?” I asked, all ascared all a suddenly and the tears were back where they always liked to be, right behind my eyes.

“Not the man in the truck,” the stranger lady said, and I looked at her to maked sure what she was saying. “Not the man we took you from. Your real dad.”

“Do you mean my Papa? My real Papa and not my pretend one?” I saids and there was so much hope inside my heart, but also scarediness ‘cause what if he had a bad man inside him, too. But Momma said he didn’t. Momma said he was all the good things a daddy should really be.

“That’s right,” the stranger lady smiled at me, and all my words were stuck inside my tummy and it made it feel all jumbled up inside. So instead of use my words I just nodded and blew on my hot chocolate ‘cause I didn’t want them to know that I was ascared.

“That settles it then, I guess.” The man who helded the note handed it to the nice lady, and she took out her phone. It was like the one Daddy sometimes showed me pictures of my sister and my brother, on who now I knowed aren’t really my sister and my brother even a little bit at all.

The lady tapped the screen a bit and looked all close up at the stuff my Momma wroted with squinty eyes and said a thing about not having her glasses on, but then she putted the phone up to her ear and it rang and rang, and I could barely hear it as I stood there pretending not to listen as I blew and blew and blew. “Uh, hi, is this George?” the lady asked after awhile, and I could hear a voice of a man saying a thing, but not what it was that he was said. “Uhm, yeah, well, my husband and I, we went to this gas station near our house up in Springvale, Oregon, and we found this little girl who was being chased by this man. Anyway, she was screaming for help, so my husband ran towards her and the man grabbed her up and my husband chased them down and was able to get the girl from him and we’re waiting for the cops now and I’m so sorry, this must be so weird.” The woman said all those words all in a rush, and her voice was a little shaky like how mine is when I don’t know how to say a thing, ‘specially when talking to Daddy, and I could telled that she was a nervous nelly.

“What’s he saying?” The man who chased after me was standing super close to the lady now, and I could seed that he wanted to hear, too, so the lady put the phone away from her and tapped her screen again, and then we could all heared and my eyes got big and round. I could feel them.

“-lanie? You found Melanie? Is that what you’re saying? You found my baby?” We could all heared that the man’s voice on the phone was shaky, too, and I thinked that he was about to start crying, and then the sound of the sirens started and we all looked in the direction as the blue and red lights began to come. “What about her mother? What about Alix?”

“Uhm, we don’t know anything else than your number and that they were taken two years ago by this guy Charles McCollier, who she used to go to school with when she was a kid. But the cops are almost here now and we’ll send them in the direction he went, and I’m sure they’ll find her. But we don’t know anything else than that.” The lady looked at her hubsband when she said those words and he nodded at her as if to let her know that she was doing a super great job, and I just kept blowing and blowing on my cup.

“Oh, thank god. Thank god!” My real Papa said and he was crying, and my heart was all a ball of mixed up feels and I didn’t know why but I was crying, too, but without any sound. ‘Cept for the sound of the blowing on the hot chocolate. “Where are you exactly? Your address? I’m gonna come right now. I’ll drive all night if I have to.”

So the lady said to my really real Papa where we were, and then the cops were rushing in, and another thing called an ambulance came and the ambulance people cleaned my owies and put stuff that stinged on them and gave me a new blankey that was warmer than Peter’s had been and felt softer, and I thought that maybe Pete would forgive me for losing his if I could give him this one. Lots more cops came and asked me a million, billion questions, and the nice stranger lady held me and I asked her if she would never leave ‘til Momma came, and she said she would stay as long as they would letted her and that was good. I was so scared. I’ve never seen so many stranger people in my whole long life!

There was a tall tall man in a jacket with a tie and he looked like all the detectives always looked in the movies on Daddy’s drive, and I told him all about our little house and the long, long road, and he nodded and said they would go there right away to rescue Momma and little Peter and that everything was gonna be okay. They said that my really real Papa was on his way and would be here by morning time, and that made me scaredy and nervous, and I hoped that Momma would be with me by then ‘cause I didn’t wanna meeted him on my onesie. That’s a thing that Captain Jack Sparrow says and so I say it, too.

20

The stranger lady who was very nice said her name was Anna, and her hubsband’s name was Frank. He was very funny and called her Anna Banana, and that made me laugh, but only for a little. She sat me on a picnic bench outside the store, and Frank brought me a square, paper tray of something I had never ever tried before. It was called nachos, with ooey, gooey, orangey cheese and brown chili with chunks of meat and beans in it. It looked so gross but tasted so yummy, and they both laughed as I ated it all super fast. It was the best thing I’ve ever had! Ever!

But I didn’t really eated it all. Only some, 'cause my tummy was still all wobbly from hearing my real Papa’s voice and with worry for if Momma and baby Peter were okay. They had wanted me to go to the hobspital, but I didn’t wanna go. Not without Momma. They tried to make me leave, not Anna and Frank but a person called an EMT, and a lady in jacket like the ‘tective wore, but pinkish like baby Peter’s cheeks. I screamed and screamed and reached for Anna and she grabbed me up and said that she and Frank would wait right there with me all night if they needed to, and Frank said, “Yeah lady, let the kid be, she’s been through enough. My wife and I will wait right here.”

“You can’t wait there without someone from the State watching over her. You have to be cleared first,” the mean scary lady said.

“I’ll put an officer on it, Theresa. They’re right, the kid’s been through enough already. Let her wait here for her mom,” the ‘tective guy said. He camed over when I started raisin’ a fuss, is what Momma woulda called it, and I really like him. He’s scary, but in a nice way and that’s not a bad kinda scary. Not like Daddy is.

So we sitted at the picnic table, Anna Banana on one side and Frank the Tank (Anna said I could called him that if I wanted to, and it’s too funny to say out loud but I keep saying it in my brain) on the other side, and we stared at the place where Daddy’s truck had backed up and turned around and went back to where Momma was. The cops went down there too. Lots and lots of them. All sirens going weeeeee oooooooooooooo weeeeeeeeeeee ooooooooooooo and their lights bright and bright. I hope Momma’s okay.

“Are you excited to see your real Daddy again?” Frank asked, and I knowed he doesn’t mean to make me feel icky by saying Daddy instead of Papa, but it does.

“You mean my Papa?” I say and he smiles and nods, but I can see he also feels bad. “Do you think he’s nice? Or do you think he has a bad man in him, too?”

“He sounded very nice on the phone,” Anna Banana tells me, and Frank just nods his head all in agreenment, but I think it’s ‘cause his words are gone now like mine do sometimes.

“Momma said he’s very kind and would never hurt me ever ever,” I telled them, and they both just smile and Anna squeezes my shoulder, and then we just sit and wait and I eated my nachos but they’re all cold now, so I stop.

It feels like a million, billion, gazillion years go by as we wait and wait, and the cop that the ‘tective has stand near us is mostly tap, tap, tapping on his phone the whole time, but in a boredy pants way like I would do with the blocks sometimes just 'cause there wasn’t anything more fun to do. I feel bad for the cop guy. He probably would rather be chasing down bad guys than standing there.

Then Anna turns to me and starts to say something, but all of a sudden the big squarey ambulance starts making a weeee wooooo sound that’s a little different than the police cars do and its lights go on, and I jump ‘cause it’s scary all of a suddenly like that. And it turns onto the dirt road and goes fast fast, and I can see a big huge cloud of dusty dirt all up in the air from the lights all blue and red and blue again, and I know that something’s happened.

“Is it Momma? Are the doctor guys gonna help my Momma now?” I say, ‘cause Frank the Tank had ‘splained to me that EMT’s are like doctors that drive around and help people when they get hurt or are really sick and can’t get to the hobspital all on their onesie.

“I bet they are!” Anna Banana says, and her voice is so excited just like mine, and Frank stands up and goes to talk to the ‘tective who was making his hand go in a “come here” way and it seems so weird, all these strangers. I’ve only seened this many in the movies. I hope Momma brings the drive with us so I can still watched them when we go to wherever place they’ll take us. I miss Black Widow and Captain America and Spider Man. I miss Spider Man the mostest ever.

“It’ll all be over soon now, I promise,” the officer guy says and smiles at me all big with many teeth, and somehow it makes me have a creeped out feeling ‘cause it remindeds me of the bad man from my dreams. His teeth were all big and shiny too. ‘Cept this man has white white teeth, but I wonder if the bad man camed inside him. And that’s why his teeth are so big. I don’t say any word at all to the officer guy and think maybe some strangers aren’t that nice, even though he hadn’t done a bad thing, I just felted like there was bad inside him. Like with Daddy. You could maybe not always see the bad, but you could feel it.

I climb into Anna’s arms and she wraps the blankey all tight around my shoulders and then wraps her arms around me, and we both sit there looking at the place where the dirt driveway disappears all far away and sometimes at Frank talking to the ‘tective. Waiting for him to come and say what happened. If Momma is okay. If Peter is, too.

“Can we go to where Frank is, Anna?” I asked her, but she says we have to stay. That the officer standing next to us won’t let us leave ‘cause that’s how they know I’ll be safe and sound. I take a peek at the officer again, and he’s staring at me with eyes that are all very shiny, and there are shadows on his face from where the lights aren’t touching, not even the red and blue ones that are going around and around and around. And, for just a tiny teensy second, I think I can see it. Sliding up his face inside the shadows on his cheek and nose. The bad man.

“Are you okay, Melanie?” Anna asks, that’s what she calls me since she heard my Papa say it, and I shaked my head yes but I can’t say the word, so she holds me even tighter. I feeled safe here in Anna’s arms, even with the creepy police man standing so close and the shadows on his face all dancing around. I knowed she won’t let him take me away. Never ever.

“Okay so, they got him!” Frank comes back all happy like, and his voice sounding so full of smiles makes my heart feel like it’s full of smiles, too, and Anna says, “Hooray!” so I say, “Hooray,” and Frank says it also and we all laugh.

“Is Momma okay? Is she dead?” I ask then, and the question makes us all stop smiling and I knowed I didn’t mean to ask it, but I need to knowed so I’m glad I did.

“The detective said that she’s responsive, and the ambulance is going to get she and your baby brother now and they’ll come back here, and Anna Banana is gonna ride with you in the ambulance with your Momma and baby brother and the EMT. Then I’ll follow along in our car, and once we know you’re gonna be okay, we’ll head home.” Frank was talking and saying all these words, but all I could think about was the fact that Momma was alive! Daddy didn’t killed her and baby Peter like I thought he would. And they were gonna come here and get me to be with Momma again, and everything really would be okay.

I can see the ambulance coming back to pick me up and I knowed that Momma is inside, waiting to hold me. I’m so happy. I’m so, so, so, so happy. Tomorrow Pete and I are gonna meet our real Papa. And maybe even my twin sister too! Wow! A real sister to play princess with and make believe and tag! I can finally play tag and not with someone who is chained up to the floor. And that makes me realize that Momma isn’t chained up no more. She can’t be, ‘cause her cable can’t reach outside the door.

I’m so happy! But I’m scared too. What if Papa doesn’t love me and my sister thinks I’m dumb? And what if what Daddy said was true and that Papa doesn’t want us anymore? But as these mean thoughts filled up my head, the ambulance is stopping, and Anna is kissing Frank goodbye and then carrying me to the big doors on the back, and the nice EMT who cleaned my face and put the ouchie medicine on opens the door and then there she is! Momma!

“Mella, you did it! You saved us!” Momma says, but soft and ouchie sounding, and I see more bruises on her face and bandages all over and blood is seeping through. I squirm down from Anna’s arms and run to Momma. She can’t hold me cause she’s holding Pete, who’s saying my name over and over in his own Petey way, and I climb up on her lap and she puts one arm around me and one around Peter, and I put all my arms around her back.

“What’s gonna happen now, Momma?” I ask her, ‘cause I’m scared about all the wide world there is outside.

“I don’t know, love,” Momma says, and her voice is so happy and laughy, even though it’s hurty, too. “But it’s okay because you and Petey and the new baby get to be free now.”

“And you!” I tells her.

“Yes, Mella. And me. And that’s all that matters. We get to be free. And no matter what happens, we’ll be together. And that’s how I know that it’s all gonna be okay.” And then momma kisses me right on the forehead like she does, and all the happy tears fall out from my eyes.

It really is, I know it. It really is gonna be okay. It’s like the ending of all the superhero movies I ever seened. Well, most of them, anyways.

The EMT person climbs in and shuts the doors, and Anna sits down on the place where they showed her to sit. “We’re good back here, Raph,” the EMT person says and then, “Hold on tight, folks!” And we do. We hold on tight, and I think I never ever wanna let Momma go.

Thank you, Dear Reader, for your constant love and support and for your willingness to go on yet another adventure with me. I hope this one found you well and you found it so, too.

It was a somewhat hard one to write because when I was little my own father, my daddy, was my bad man. Very much so. And not just mine. My mother left him shortly after they were married and I was still a very little girl. When she got sick with cancer, he stole me away and she was so distraught at the possibilities of what was happening to me, because she knew by then that he was a very bad man and in what ways he was, that she finally had to stop her treatment. It was just too hard on her body that was so consumed by cancer and with fear and sadness to such extents that perhaps only a mother could ever really know. For our children are born from us, and when they’re taken by monsters it consumes our hearts and minds and very souls, or so it seems it did for her. I can only imagine the pure terror she went through as the cancer ate away at her while her broken heart did the same.

They found me. Eventually they did. I remember the nice FBI guy who held me and took me from the double wide he had me in and told me it was going to be okay. I remember the nice couple whose home they sent me to until my grandparents were able to come for me and take me to their own little girl, my mother.

I like to believe that everything worked out for Mella and her mom and little baby brother and unborn sibling. I like to believe that her happy ending was also a beginning of a long and happy life. And I really think it was.

I would like to say a very special thank you to a very special person, Heather Ann Larson. Not only are you an incredible editor and protector of my words, but one of the best friends a person could ever ask for. I appreciate you in a professional capacity, but more so, I appreciate you as a friend. Thank you.

And a very warm thank you to all of my ARC readers (and readers in general), who help to give my words a strong beginning. I appreciate each and every one of you for the time you sacrifice for my tales. Every review you post on Amazon and Goodreads and all around the interwebs and different Facebook groups help my words reach others and for that, I owe you everything.

Thank you. With all of my love, I say it. Thank you.

Yours always and truly,

A Housewife With A Pen

Also by Angel Van Atta

The Children And The Gods Series:

The Child

The House At The End Of The Lane

The Paintings That Hung

Leviathan Rising

The End Of Things As They Knew Them

The End Of Things As She Knew Them

The End Of Things As He Knew Them

Children’s Books by Angel Van Atta

There Was A Little Monster

There Was A Little Kitty Cat

Thank you.