The Maid's Diary(101)

It Never Happened.

And the world moves on.

Unless we take a stand. Unless we show them how a victim feels.

“Hey,” says a guy with an Australian accent.

Kat spins around.

“You look just like her—that maid in the news.”

She smiles. “I get that a lot.”

Kat slides off the bamboo barstool and gathers up her straw bag. She steps out into the sunshine and walks a little way down the beach. Orchids scent the air. The ocean, a deep aqua, stretches to the hazy horizon. Behind her, inland, mist circles brooding volcanoes in the distance. She stops, takes a selfie.

Kat checks it, then loads it to her @foxandcrow profile. She types:

#karmaissublime #waterswarm #comeonin #nextstoppopsvillage

She hits “Share.”

Kat grins as she slips her phone back into her bag. Boon will see it. He’ll know what she means.

The words from the TV show echo in her heart as she walks down the beach.

I’d call that ironic justice.

Or karma.

It never happened.

And it also did happen. Kit murdered her Monster that night. The Trauma Monster that made her hide. That made her become invisible. A ghost.

Now she is seen.

And so are Jon and Daisy.

Karma really is sublime, baby, she thinks as she peels open a red lollipop. She sucks it as she wanders into the low-angled rays of the setting Indonesian sun.





MAL


Mal sips a coffee as she reads the final scanned pages from Kit Darling’s diary. Benoit is across the bullpen, also reading. It’s late afternoon, quiet, and snowing softly outside.

When I first tried to write the HOW IT ENDS part, I had only snatches of a memory. Strands that would come to me in nightmares, wake me in a sweat. They seemed to come from afar, from some hidden interior place that was not really part of me. Almost as though the memories belonged to another person. I wondered if the act of writing it down might coax out the missing parts, the context.

So I started in third person. From a distance. I jotted down snippets. But the more I dug into Daisy and Jon’s life, the deeper I went, and after I found that footage and heard the voices and music and saw again the faces from that night—all the pieces slammed together. I saw the whole picture. It became fleshed. It surfaced in full color.

So now I am going back to the beginning again. It’s not HOW IT ENDS. It’s HOW IT BEGAN. I’m redrafting it and putting it into first person. Me. Immediate. Personal. Mine. Real. Seen. Not a dream. Not hiding. Not “she.” But “I.”





HOW IT STARTS


Slowly, I slide in and out of sleep and consciousness. A sharp shard of cognition slices through me—not sleep. Not in my bed. Not safe. Panic stirs. Where am I? I try to swallow. But my mouth is dry. There’s an unfamiliar taste at the back of my throat. A sharper jolt of awareness cracks through my mind. Blood—it’s the taste of blood. My breathing quickens. I try to move my head, but can’t. There’s a rough, wet fabric covering my face. I’m trapped, arms strapped to my sides. Something covers my head. I become aware of pain. Overwhelming pain. In my shoulders. Ribs. Belly. Between my thighs. The pain pounds inside my skull. Adrenaline surges into my veins, and my eyes flare open. But I can’t see. Panic licks through my brain. I open my mouth to scream, but it comes out muffled. What is this? Where am I?

Focus, focus. Panic kills. You have to think. You must try to remember.

But my brain is foggy. I strain for a thread of clarity, try to focus on sensations. Cold—my feet are very cold. I wiggle my toes. I feel air. Bare feet? No, just the one foot. I’ve got a shoe on the other one. I’m injured. Badly wounded, I think. A thick memory stirs into my sluggish brain—fighting people off, being held down. I’ve been violently attacked—I have a sense of that, of being hurt, overwhelmed, rendered powerless. Now I’m wrapped in something, and I’m in motion. Bumping. I can feel vibrations. Is that the noise of an engine? A car? Yes, I’m in a vehicle of some sort. I become aware of voices. In the front seat. I’m lying on the back seat. The voices . . . they sound urgent—arguing. Underlying the voices is soft music. A car radio. I’m definitely in a car . . . They’re taking me somewhere.

I hear words. “Dump . . . her fault . . . asked for it. Can’t blame—”

I slide toward the blackness again. I listen to the voices, and it strikes me. Daisy. It’s Daisy Wentworth and her friend, whose name I don’t know. The friend is arguing with Daisy. I think it’s Daisy who is driving.

“You can’t just dump her, Daisy. It’s below freezing. It’s going to snow tonight. She could die.”

“It’s her fault. She asked for it.”

“She was drugged. You saw him—”

“Shut it. Just shut it, okay? We’ll leave her at the door of her house. Her parents will find her. She won’t remember anything, and if she does, it’s all lies. Got it?”

Silence. Just soft music from the car radio. Tires squeaking on snow and ice as the car turns. I know where we are now. Near my house.

“You do understand Jon and all those guys, they will be kicked off the team. The coaches will get in trouble for not chaperoning the lodge party. They could go to prison. No more ski racing. No more chance at gold. This bitch will destroy them. Do you want that?”