Burn Daughters Read online

  “Come on, girl.”

  The dog shifted. She was considering it. Her eyes remained steady on me, watchful. Then, finally, she came to me. When her cold nose touched my hand, I jerked away, startled by the feel of it. The dog's brown eyes took me in. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You have got to understand, I am afraid too. This is a big deal for me. Years of being afraid.”

  The Collie lifted an ear and cocked her head.

  “Okay, ready to try that again?” I breathed in a deep calming breath and reached toward the dog. The dog leaned forward. “Yeah, that’s it, see, I’m not so bad. And neither are you.”

  I released the breath I was holding and extended my fingers, gently touching the edge of the dog’s closed mouth. Then she came forward and laid her muzzle in my hand. “Do you like to have your neck scratched?” I smiled, and scratched her neck. I could not believe I was actually petting a dog. A real dog! “Okay, now let’s get these rubber bands off.”

  Finally free, the dog immediately crawled into my lap and licked my face. Her tongue was wet and warm over my skin, velvety. She had major doggie-breath but I smiled anyways, digging my fingers into her thick fur. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. The dog was starved for love. I wept—so was I.

  Chapter Twenty

  The unthinkable happened while I was stuck in that cage. I started my menstrual cycle. Bright red blood stained my pants. I felt like a butchered puppy.

  When Grace saw it, she ordered me out of the cage. The momma dog cowered in a corner at the sound of her voice, a puddle of pee spreading on the hardwood where she lay. The muscles in her hind legs jumped under the fur. She avoided eye contact, fearful Grace meant her. “I said out,” Grace repeated, looking straight at me. She set a tin bucket by the door of the cage, unlocking the latch.

  When I disobeyed, Grace grabbed hold of my arm and drug me through the opened door.

  “Now stand.” Her tone left no room for argument.

  I did as I was told, expecting Grace to clean the cage. We stood face to face. She was shorter than me, but I was weak and malnourished. Even if I could overpower Grace there were still the dogs outside to contend with. Dogs she was able to control, that I could not. Dogs that were terrified of her, but saw me as dinner. My gaze shifted to the shotgun over the mantle. Couldn’t be that hard to use. If I ever got the chance, I could use it to help me get Evie out of the farmhouse and away from the dogs.

  “Undress,” Grace ordered.

  My eyes widened. “What?”

  “Take off your clothes.” Grace jabbed my side. “Do it. Undress. Now.” I was confused and watched her waiting impatiently. “Do it, or I will do it for you,” she growled.

  I took a deep breath, slowly unbuttoning and lowering my pants. My heart raced. I remembered the cleaver, the puppies, Grace’s cold detachment from everything. What did she have planned? What was she going to do to me? Was that the reason for her muddy boots and shovel, had she dug a grave for me? No. She wouldn’t bother burying me, she’d let her dogs tear me apart and eat me.

  Keeping her gray-blue eyes cast downward Grace bent and pulled my jeans out from under my feet. When she raised her gaze to the lower half of me, she looked disgusted.

  “What are those?” she asked.

  I glanced down and quickly covered myself up with my hands. “A thong.”

  “Filthy rag. Why would you wear something so vulgar? Do you have no self-respect?”

  My throat went dry. “All girls wear them,” I said.

  “Not good girls,” she growled. “Take them off!”

  I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I was frozen in place, frightened of where this was headed, that she would send her dogs after me if I made a wrong move. All I could do was stand there and tremble.

  “You will get nowhere right dressed that way. A good girl keeps her neck, arms, and legs covered at all times. And these…” she clutched my thong and yanked it down my legs. “Sinful trash.” She grabbed my shirt and ripped it off over my head.

  Goosebumps popped up all over my naked skin. Tears welled up in my eyes. I won’t cry. I won’t cry. I won’t cry…. I stared straight ahead, fighting the urge to break and run. I would not win.

  Grace pulled at my bra. I folded my arms over my chest to keep her from ripping the bra off like she did the rest of my clothing. I unclasped it in the front and let it clatter to the floor. My nipples hardened from the cold. Behind me, the momma dog whimpered.

  Grace leaned over, reaching for a coil of rope on the floor. The white skin of her scalp showed through her thin hair. I wanted to puke all over her.

  “Turn and put your hands behind your back,” Grace instructed. I hesitated, bare and cold. “Turn now. Hands behind your back like I said.”

  I turned and crossed my wrists over my lower back, focusing on the shotgun over the mantel. Was it loaded? If not, where were the bullets? My gaze slid over the dimly-lit room. Sunlight showed along the cracks where the window coverings didn’t fully block out the light. It felt like mid-day outside, but I couldn’t be sure. The hours ran together, every miserable second feeling like a lifetime sentence.

  Grace looped the rope around my wrists several times. I winced as she tied the knots tightly against my skin. She turned me to face her once again. I could smell her rank breath, and tried not to breath.

  My eyes shifted to the ceiling, anywhere other than on Grace.

  Won’t cry. Won’t cry. Won’t cry.

  “Sanctification, “she muttered under her breath. “You’re filthy and unworthy.”

  She picked up a bucket near her feet and threw its contents at me--freezing water. The shock of it on my naked skin caused me to lose my breath. My teeth chattered. I shook violently.

  Grace picked up a scrub brush and began to scrub. “Worthless mutt is what you are.” The longer she pulled the stiff bristles over my skin the more painful it became; my skin raw and tender to the touch, red and blazing with heat. “NASTY. Lusting after boys. Showing everything. Tempting. Teasing. You should be ashamed.” Her jaw hardened; the movement of the brush became frantic. “A tease, that’s what you are. No one likes a tease. Vulgar, that’s what it is.”

  “Please!” Tears rolled from the corners of my eyes. “You’re hurting me.”

  “You’re hurting yourself,” Grace spit. She plunged the brush in the bucket, and scrubbed harder.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I pleaded.

  Her gaze lifted to mine. “Disobedience is not a sin?” She cocked a brow.

  “I didn’t disobey,” I told her. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do.”

  “Liar,” she spat. “You’re ungrateful.”

  Grace scrubbed me the way a guy would wash the dull hubcaps of his new car; obsessively, determined to remove all the grime and specks of dirt until they gleamed once again.

  I stood there, nude, sobbing, Grace’s words taking hold of me. I was her; standing barefoot and dirty before old man Keller. I doubted anyone had ever been gentle with Grace, and no one ever would. Pain and loneliness was all she knew.

  Releasing a long breath, I forced myself to calm down and process all the conflicted thoughts running through my mind. The hot tears that continued to roll down my cheeks were no longer for me, the tears were for Grace and all she’d endured.

  “Is this how he treated you?” I asked softly. “Did he clean you?” She stopped scrubbing. “It must have been humiliating.” It was humiliating; stripped naked and afraid. Ridiculed. Torn down. Made to feel ashamed. Made to feel unworthy. “Grace,” I said. “This is not love.” It was everything but love. “This is abuse,” I told her. “Your father lied–”

  “Silence!” she shouted. “I don’t want to hear your blasphemies and belligerence.”

  “I understand.” Maybe I could relate to her, make her understand by sharing a part of myself. I was willing to try. “I’ve felt the same way,” I said. “Your father may have told you women are bad like my momma told me men are bad, that I should
n’t trust them. But momma has no room to say anything. She’s never been a good mother. Not ever.”

  Grace gave me a hard look. I don’t think she liked that we were the same, but I wasn’t ready to give up. I kept going, believing if I could just tap into that part of her that wanted to be loved, that wanted to be accepted, I could maybe convince her to let us go.

  “You have to be lonely out here by yourself. The thing you fear…people…Grace you need people. Don’t you see that?” She had yet to explode and shut me down, maybe I could help her, maybe that was the meaning behind all of the craziness. “I have a sister. Her name is Evie. I brought her here and now she’s afraid. She’s afraid and alone out there in that house. She’s not strong…not like you. Evie depends on me.” My voice lowered to a whisper, “You can do a good thing. If you let us go, if you help us, my little sister will be okay. I can get her home where she’ll have water and food. Without those things, Evie is going to die. Do you get that, Grace? That none of this is right?”

  “I didn’t make you come here.” Grace’s words were so quiet I could barely hear them.

  “I know. You didn’t. But you’re not helping us either. Please, let us go.” I paused and tried a new angle. “What if…I stay? You let the others go, and I will stay with you. You won’t have to be lonely. You won’t have to cage me; I’ll stay willingly,” I swallowed hard, “and never leave.”

  I was certain I was winning, that Grace was considering setting them free. There was good in her after all. Somewhere deep down that young girl was still in there wanting to be loved. She was not yet hardened and changed by life’s cruelty. I wanted a happy ending. I wanted to help Grace. To save Grace. To tame her in some way. To change another person’s life.

  I was naive.

  People don’t change that easily.

  What vulnerability I saw disappeared and Grace forced my feet farther apart. I cried out as the brush dug into the meaty flesh on the inside of my thighs. I squeezed my eyes shut as the brush came closer to my core and only opened them again when Grace told me, “We got to get this filth off you.”

  I glanced down to see blood dripping down the insides of my legs. Grace plunged the brush in the bucket with new vigor, looking fearful, as if I were possessed. “It’s just a period,” I muttered.

  “No. It’s the curse,” she returned solemnly. Her eyes raked over my nakedness and then she hissed in disgust. “You can’t wear that filth. You need clean clothes.”

  I didn’t complain. I wanted to be covered. Grace dressed me in a light pink satin dress with a lace collar. One of her own. It was the type of dress you would see on a vintage doll.

  Afterward, I needed to feel as if there was something of me left, something she hadn’t stripped away. I pulled the gold chain from beneath the dress and lay it over the collar. Grace’s eyes fell upon it and her demeanor changed. I could see it, she was pleased. In her mind she had done a worthy deed. She had cleaned me of my filth.

  Chapter TwentyOne

  I’d done it again. I’d rested my head against the wires and shut my eyes. I dreamed I was with a family, a family that was cool and told funny jokes that made you laugh until you cried. They gathered around a table for dinner telling these funny jokes. They invited me to stay even though I was an outsider. They gave me good food and made me feel as if I were one of them. I was happy.

  After the meal, the children played in the den. Presents were passed out. I sat awkward and embarrassed, not so much for myself but for the nice family, knowing I would get passed over. The mother smiled and said, “Here honey, this one is for you.” My mouth fell open in shock. Not one but two gifts were placed in my lap. Then I did something that made them all angry. As I was leaving, standing in the front door, they reached for the presents I clutched in my arms. They told me the presents were no longer mine. I did not give them back. They tore at the gifts, attempting to pry them out of my arms. I grasped the pretty wrapped boxes tighter, begging to keep them. “They’re mine,” I told them. “You can’t take them away. Please, don’t. Let me keep them.”

  The front door collided with the wall and I was jarred from the dream. My immediate thought was, what now? The Collie scurried from my lap as if she knew she’d done something wrong.

  “They have King!” Grace screamed. She tore across the floor and kicked the wires of the cage. I rustled to get away even though the cage shielded me from her rage. Grace ripped at it, but the cage wouldn’t surrender me. It had become my sanctuary.

  “Good. I hope they kill him!” I yelled at her. I didn’t really mean it. I didn’t think they would really hurt the dog to get at Grace, but she didn’t know that.

  “Let us go, if you hurry there is probably still time to save your dog.”

  Grace’s tantrum came to a sudden halt. “What did you do?” she sneered. “This is your fault.”

  “Let us go. If you hurry, there is probably still time to save your Shepherd.”

  She looked at me and I saw it--the truth. A young girl in a cage, sitting Indian style, humming, scratching out something in the paint on the wall. It wasn’t the cage Grace feared, it was coming out of her cage. As long as she was inside her cage, she was out of harm’s way. In that cage, her father couldn’t get at her. Maybe, unknowingly, old man Keller put his daughter in there not to punish her so much as to protect her from what he was doing. Deep down, we all know the difference between right and wrong. Momma knows. I know. Grace knows.

  The cage represented safety to Grace. Her land was her sanctuary, the trees a tall fence keeping others out. Isn’t that what we all do, build walls to keep others out? To protect ourselves from the pain of loving too deeply? To protect us from getting hurt? “You can change,” I called out. “There’s still time. You can still do the right thing, you have to let us go, Grace.”

  With her eyes fixed on me, she wiped spit from her mouth. Her eyes never looked away. Neither did mine. Just like her damn precious dog, King, Grace was challenging me, testing me. Instinct told me to withdraw, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t give. Not with Evie still outside needing me. Instead, I firmly told Grace, “You will not bully me anymore. I am not scared of you.”

  She stormed up to the cage and looked down on me, never once blinking. Her bony fingers curled around the wires. “I am your elder, you will respect me.”

  “The Reverend would release us,” I returned.

  “No,” she sputtered and spit. Her eyes narrowed on me. “The Reverend would take you out, strip you down, and teach you respect.”

  “Is that what he did to you?”

  “That’s what he’d do to you.”

  I made a disbelieving sound in hopes of getting a reaction. Grace let go of the cage and lowered herself eye level to me. “What do you know about the Reverend?”

  “I know plenty about the Reverend,” I lied. I had the journal, but I wished I’d never read it. “The whole town knows,” I told Grace. “Everyone knows.”

  “It is all her fault,” she said bitterly. She straightened up and looked at me coldly. “Don’t matter now though, she is burning in hell.”

  “Your mother left because of you,” I replied just as coldly. It was the cruelest thing I’d ever said, to anyone. But I knew it would get underneath her skin. I held empty eyes with my own, “Just like my mother wanted nothing to do with you. I don’t blame her for never wanting to know her mother…what ugliness gave her life.”

  “You tell horrible lies,” retorted Grace, clamping hands over her ears. My heart and soul kicked because it wasn’t lies, none of it. Momma had been abandoned long ago. Abandoned by Old man Keller and his need to keep his nasty secrets hidden. I had caught Momma crying over it many times. Evie was the only one that didn’t know the truth.

  Grace looked me over, head to toe, as if truly seeing me for the first time. She said, “You are an abomination, child. A demon.”

  “I am not the one that ripped an infant from your arms.”

  “My baby died. My baby is burie
d in the yard.”

  All I could manage was the slight shake of my head. My chest rose and fell in quick, over-worked breaths. I screamed at Grace, near hysterical, “Open your eyes! Your father was a wicked man! He was the liar! Self-serving!”

  I didn’t want to understand Grace. I didn’t want her genetics. I didn’t want her blood coursing through my veins.

  But it was.

  The legacy of Grace was within me. Buried. Hidden. Deep. I held gazes with a grandmother that had never rocked Evie or me as infants. Never sang lullabies. The puzzle piece that had been missing from our history.

  A woman abused that had become the abuser.

  A woman oppressed that had become the oppressor.

  A woman that couldn’t, a never would, understand all that she had surrendered in to her cage. All she had surrendered to that dark lying voice that called for her sanity. Grace had a daughter she would never know. A family. A true family. Not King. Not the pack. Us. Evie and I.

  My breathing quieted. I waited for the woman’s next move. Somewhere deep down, I suppose I wanted her to embrace it. To embrace me. Grace fumbled with the lock and opened the door to the cage.

  Chapter TwentyTwo

  “Turn!” She picked up the Reverends Rod.

  “Not again,” I pleaded. Tears stung my eyes. “I’m already clean. I’m not dirty. I promise I’m clean! I take it back. All of it. It was a lie meant to get a response.”

  “Give me your hands.” Grace commanded.

  “Please, don’t. You don’t have to do whatever you’re about to do,” I sobbed. “I didn’t mean it. It was cruel. I’m sorry.”

  Her hand shot through the door and yanked me out of the cage. This time she tied my hands in front, and pulled me along using a leash, forcing me outside the house. She led me down the steps. I stumbled and fell, the long dress clinging to my legs, getting tangled in them, making it impossible to keep up with her angry strides. “Please,” I kept repeating. My feet were bare, the soles tender. I resisted by pulling against the leash.