Page 8 of Beautiful Madness

And there was something sohopeless, dark, and agonized in her eyes that I wanted to turn and run away. “Whatis it?” I whispered.

“Before I tell you,” she said,“I need to tell you something else, and I…” She pressed her trembling hand toher chest. “I can only pray you won’t hate me forever.”

I clenched my teeth to keepthem from banging together. “You killed her,” I realized, and suddenly I wasseeing her through new eyes, and I did not recognize her.

She stood but made no attemptto draw closer to me. “I killed her. I killed her and I stole you and—”

But then, I remembered. Iremembered, and I didn’t know if the spell was broken, or even why. Maybebecause all it had taken was someone telling me the truth.

For whatever reason, Iremembered. I was thrust back to that time, into that room…the kitchen. Ididn’t like the smell of that kitchen. It smelled like raw meat and blood andwet fur.

My mother had tied ropes aroundme and hung me from a hook in the ceiling, hours earlier. “If you can’tescape,” she’d told me, making herself breakfast, “then you won’t get down. Youwill hang there until you die.”

Ashamed, I’d hung there andtried to figure out how to get free from the rough ropes. No matter what I didor how I struggled, I couldn’t break them, loosen them, or slip free and fallto a floor that seemed so far below me.

“That’s it,” she said, once.“Grunt like the little wild piggy you are. Weak little fucker. How somethinglike you came out of me I will never know.”

I was ashamed but I didn’t havethe word for that feeling. I wasn’t…sane. I was like a feral cat, and my mindwas bent. Twisted. Broken. I was what she’d finally succeeded in making me.

She left after a while, and Ihung in the silent kitchen, a mad little animal.

It was growing dark out whenthe stranger came. I could smell her sneaking soundlessly through the house,but then suddenly I could only smell blood and meat, just like in the kitchen.

I was hungry.

I growled and grunted andtwisted in my bonds, because whoever was in the house had only come to hurt me.No one came into the house for reasons other than that, except for my daddy. Helooked at me with frowns, something in his eyes I didn’t understand because Ionly ever saw it from him. He never hurt me.

But it wasn’t him, though for amoment before the stranger managed to cover up her scent, I thought I’d smelledhim. I knew it was a woman. I didn’t question how I knew.

I tilted my head, listening tothe strange sounds. Something hard hit the floor, chains rattled, and once, Iheard a whisper. I forced myself to stop struggling. Maybe she wouldn’t comeinto the kitchen. Maybe she would never know I was there.

But then, she did come into thekitchen, sliding in like a dark, nearly silent shadow, and she saw me. “God,”she cried. “No.”

She said other things, but Icouldn’t hear her over my own voice. I growled ferociously, hoping to scare heraway. I grunted, because mommy had taken my words as punishment, forbidding meto speak, and I was incapable of disobeying her.

And finally, she only stood inthe doorway with her hands up, crying, and when she turned and left the room, Iknew I had succeeded. I’d scared her away.

Abruptly mommy came home, and Isaw everything else in flashes. She was just there, and then she was screamingin pain, and then there was fire. She fell into the kitchen, something withteeth attached to her ankle, and she was on fire.

She threw herself at me,screaming for me to help her, but Icouldn’thelp her. I couldn’t. Thestranger came in after her, and she was terrifying because she was so…sad andscared. Her eyes were wide, her teeth bared, her face like death.

She had something in her hand,a silver blade, and she began stabbing my mother, both of them screaming,screaming and burning, and then my mother looked at me, and there was onlyaccusation in her eyes.

I didn’t know why she didn’tchange into an animal and attack the stranger, but she did not. It was thestranger who changed.

The stranger bore her to thefloor, only now she was a huge wolf. And maybe I passed out then, because thenext thing I remembered was the stranger, dressed in one of my mother’s shirts,cutting the ropes that held me.

I fell into blood. Pools andpuddles of blood. The scent of charred flesh hung in the room, and I knew mymother was dead. The stranger had killed her, though she’d told me no one couldkill her because everyone was scared and stupid and she was smart and so verystrong.

I remembered screaming andstruggling as the stranger carried me through the bloody kitchen. I rememberedthe house burning, exploding behind us, and I knew I would never see the onlymother I knew ever again.

I remembered falling intodarkness.

“Was I born mad?” I wonderedaloud, “or did she create that mad child? Did the three of you create that madchild?” At least I now knew where my psycho had come from. She’d been bornthere, in that house, that blood, that fire, that death, whether the day I wastaken or when I’d been made in my mother’s womb, I didn’t know.

“You see why we had to protectyour mind,” she said, and I just that moment realized I was sitting on thecouch, Joe on one side and my mother on the other. Lucy knelt in front of me,crying, and I wondered if she’d dreamed some of the things that had happened tome. I was nearly certain she had.

“You’re not that childanymore,” my mother said, squeezing my arm. “You’re not your past, and you’renot what happened to you. It’s behind you. You have only to look at it and thenlet it go. Please, Kait. Please. You’re not that madness.”