even if Grandma said Maddy wouldn’t hurt me. But what if she wasn’t the only monster in the lake?
“Where are we going?” I asked, stifling a yawn and huddling in my sweater, tossed over my nightgown.
Mom, finally out of the hospital again, had dragged me out of bed and hurried me out the door. Judging by the mad squawks in the henhouse, Grandma was getting eggs.
She’d stuffed me into the canoe beached on the pebbled shore, no life jacket. Grandma would have been so mad.
And while I’d been cocky about the fact my mother saw me as mature enough to not need one when we set out, in the middle of the lake, I kind of regretted not having it. Especially as my mother stopped rowing and tossed the oars.
“Don’t we need those to get back?” I asked, eyeing the far shore.
“We need to be here to stop it.”
“Stop what?” I asked.
“The curse. We can end it. Right here, right now.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to, baby.” Mommy cradled my face. “I know what has to be done, and I’ll be with you, every step of the way.”
With that said, she grabbed hold of me, and dumped us in the cold water!
22
The shock of it almost woke me.
My mother had tried to kill me. Her arms and legs wrapped around me as we sank. I remembered it now.
We sank into a darkness that made the tiny pinprick of light noticeable. How could there be light at the bottom of the lake?
As my lungs tightened, I snapped out of my stupor and struggled. Squirming and kicking at my mother until she released me.
But it didn’t stop my descent.
I needed to breathe. I couldn’t. I spasmed. My eyes were wide open, watching the light as it brightened, and within it, something moved.
Something came for me. I opened my mouth to scream—
And then I was over the lake, watching as the light rose to the surface. A glow churned the water. From it rose Maddy, the monster, and atop her snout? The limp form of a child.
Depositing me on the beach, the monster uttered a loud bugle before sliding below the surface. But I saw the beast watching as my father found me and cried out. My ghostly lips wobbled to see him dropping to his kneels to cradle me. Knowing what my mother tried to do, and now having had children of my own, I understood better what drove him. The nightmares that must have plagued him.
Before I could reach out a spirit hand, I was moving again, from the lake to a hospital room. Yet another impossible recollection given that the small shape in the bed, with tubes running out of her, was me. I didn’t remember being intubated. Then again, I’d not recalled my mother trying to kill me either.
My father hunched by the bed where he held my hand. Despondent. Broken. Was this where it began, the mood swings that took my happy dad and turned him into a man who alternated between sadness and anger? The doctors had diagnosed him with depression and gave him pills. I could always tell when he’d gone off his meds. The ranting. The crying. The irrationality where I was concerned.
No, you can’t leave the house. No. No. No. For a teenager who just wanted to live, I felt stifled.
When he was gone, I’d felt such guilt at the relief. Years later, I now wondered if there was more I could have done.
In the vision, my grandmother entered the hospital, clutching her bag. Expression fierce, as if ready to do battle. “Stand aside.”
My father didn’t look up as he said in a dull monotone, “This is where it ends.”
“Naomi doesn’t have to die.”
Die?
How could I have forgotten this happened? This couldn’t be real.
My mom had died in a car crash. I was never hospitalized other than for a broken arm when I fell off my bike.
“Maybe it would be better to let her go, knowing what is to come.” My father cast a bleak gaze at me in the bed.
How could he even think of letting me die?
He glanced at a machine. I’d seen enough medical shows to know what it measured. Brain waves.
In my case, a flat line. Oh. That wasn’t good.
“Is that what you want?” my grandmother asked.
His inner struggle was reflected on his face. In the end, he bowed his head and whispered, “Can you fix her?”
If I’d drowned and lost oxygen to the brain, then no amount of grandma’s