Whisper Me This(3)

Mom moves between me and the suitcase, closing the lid.

“Get up. Take it off.”

I scramble to obey, only I’m tangled in fear and fabric, and in the end, her hands lift the dress over my head.

“You are not to come in my room without permission. You are never to play in this closet. Do you understand? Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

My eyes travel up to her face, the same face as in the picture, only not so soft. I can’t look her in the eye, so I find the scar on her left cheek, a thin white line, and focus on that. The face in the picture didn’t have this scar, and I find that comforting. The picture girl couldn’t have been my mother, holding two babies wrapped in pink blankets.

“Now,” Mom says. “Tell me again. Who were you talking to?”

“Marley.” The name croaks out of me like a frog. I bend my head to hide my face, but Mom catches my chin in her hand and forces me to look up at her again. Her fingers are as hard and sharp as the gingerbread witch’s. They hurt me.

“There is no Marley,” Mom says. “Do you understand me? I’ve told you before, you’re too old for an imaginary friend.”

“She’s not imaginary.” I’m shocked and frightened by my own boldness.

“Look around you,” Mom says. “Do you see any Marley?”

“She’s hiding.”

The fingers shift to my shoulders, both hands now, both shoulders, and she gives me a little shake. “She is not hiding. She is a figment”—shake—“of”—shake—“your imagination.”

My shoulders hurt, enough to bring tears smarting into the backs of my eyes, but I won’t cry. I won’t. I know better than to say anything, and I set my chin, defiant.

“Promise me you will stop this silly game,” Mom says. “Promise me. Now.”

“No.”

It’s the first time I’ve defied her. That one word hangs in the air between us.

“You will give her up. You will give her up now. This is the end of this nonsense.” Mom grabs one of Dad’s belts from a hook in the closet. With her free hand, she clamps my wrist in an iron vise and drags me out of the closet and over to the bed.

I don’t fight her. I’m too shocked to do anything but let her bend me over her knee. When the strap comes down on the backs of my legs, I start to struggle, but by then it’s too late. She’s got me pinned. The belt keeps coming, thwacking down on my butt, my thighs.

All my resolution not to cry is gone by the third hit, and I hear myself wailing, loud and sad.

“What’s going on?”

Dad’s voice stops everything: the thwack of the belt, Mom’s torturing fingers anchoring me in place, the loud sobs bursting out of my throat. Both of us freeze, heads turning to look up at him.

“I’ll take that,” he says, very quietly, and tugs the belt out of Mom’s hands.

“She was snooping in the closet,” Mom says. “Into my stuff. Playing pretend.”

“We weren’t snooping,” I whimper. “We were exploring. Marley is real. I don’t care what you say.”

“See?” Mom says. “She still hasn’t learned. Give me back that belt.”

“Leah,” he says. This time his voice is a reprimand, a reminder, the tone of voice he uses on me when I run into the house without taking off my muddy boots.

Mom’s fingers press harder into my skin. They are going to tunnel through flesh and meet each other, and then the bone will crunch in her grasp. Marley whispers in my ear that maybe Mom is an ogress and not my real mother at all.

“This is ridiculous,” the ogress says. “This Marley nonsense has got to stop.”

“Let me deal with it. Please, Leah. You’re too angry.”

Dad looks like the hero in one of my favorite fairy-tale movies, offering himself to the dragon in exchange for the princess.

The ogress’s fingers are really starting to hurt. I keep my jaw clamped, but the whimper gets out anyway.

“Leah.” Dad’s voice is very gentle now. He’s doing some sort of eye juju, his face only inches away from the ogress. He puts his hands over hers, and she lets go of my shoulders.

The Dad Magic melts something inside her. She makes a strangled noise that turns her back into Mom and hurts me more than the belt ever did. Dad sits on the bed and puts his arms around her. She hides her face against his shoulder.

“Go to your room, Maisey. I’ll be there in a bit,” Dad says. His voice is muffled, his cheek pressed against my mother’s hair.

I go.

My butt hurts and my legs hurt and the sounds my mother is making hurt me even more. I lie on my bed, my face buried in the pillow. Marley is here, but she looks thin and tattered around the edges.

“I have to leave now,” she says, and even her voice sounds thin.

“I know.”

“Don’t forget me.”

My heart is a lump in my chest when she evaporates and leaves me alone. I’m cold. My room is cold. I climb into bed with my bear and hide under the covers.

I refuse to come out of my room for dinner.

“I’m not hungry,” I tell Dad when he comes to check on me, but after he’s gone, I eat the cookies and milk he left on my dresser.

Much later, Mom comes to tuck me in. I’m already in my pajamas and under the blankets, Grimm open in my hands, the lamp shedding a circle of light on the pages.