There is...
Square. Wood.
A Room.
A voice.
"You—are—a—bad—girl", a girl said in a sing-song voice.
Heat rushed up Lola's face.
Here, now, Lola is nine.
She did not know the girl, not yet.
Lola's universe was a newborn. All images, smells, and tastes were still taking shape. But the sounds rushed in, fully formed.
The girl's voice had writhing fingerprints deep within Lola's mind, and when she traced the markings, her gut twisted in bitter recognition.
She wanted to scream at the familiar girl: "You are worse! The worst!".
She couldn't. She hated how high and squeaky her voice became whenever her insides twisted with undignified rage, how the embarrassment would sting her eyes with hot, furious tears.
The short (no.. tall) girl with thick (blue? black?) glasses and a freckled nose danced around Lola in circles. The skirt of her un-ironed pink dress was swaying with her swift in movements.
When she suddenly stopped, she towered over Lola. Her shadow covered her head entirely. Lola cowered and fell on her butt, feeling like a helpless bug. She tried to crawl away on all fours, but the girl stomped on her back with a gentle thud.
The tall girl with black glasses, freckled nose, and curly, yellow hair (Sara, this is my sister Sara) leaned down, pressed her knee onto Lola's back, and smacked the top of her head with an open palm.
"Say sorry or I'll tell Mama you stole my pink dress. Papa looked everywhere for hours, and I found it under your bed. Say sorry!".
Lola would not apologize. Not to her. The more Sara yelled, demanding an apology, the more she drove Lola into defiantly accepting whatever punishment she inflicted on her. And like two actors rehearsing an old play with no audience, the oldest sister repeated her demand while the youngest kept on screaming, "No!".
With a huff and a final smack to the head, Sara finally released her little captive, who leaped to her feet with clumsy haste.
Lola slowly rubbed her head, glaring daggers at her oppressor. She felt small, weak, pathetic. And like a puffer fish needing to puff herself to ward off a bigger threat, she spat at her sister with childish venom: "I really, really hate you, you ugly witch".
Sara didn't emote for a few seconds, other than rubbing the bridge of her nose, all the while giving Lola a measuredly bored look.
"Maybe I should tell Papa instead. He hates thieves".
A cold shiver ran down Lola's spine.
She no longer remembered why she had stolen the dress.
Why she fought her big sister.
Why she is so angry.
Fear made her forget things.
"Papa might get really mad and hit you, too".
Sara let out an ugly giggle.
"I won't be here when Papa gets home,", she purred and shook her head, her two ponytails dancing with her, "Mama is taking me to town for my party. We're going to the park, and you're not invited."
Rage whispered in her ears, and Lola remembered everything.
Today was Sara's birthday.
She had stolen and hidden her birthday dress last night.
Why had she hidden it under her own bed?
Stupid. So stupid!
"You did a bad thing. A real bad thing. And you won't say sorry. Papa must teach you a lesson".
Her knees buckled with fear at the familiar threat. She wasn't yet old enough to cling to her pride.
"Don't. Please.. I'm sorry"
"Huh? What was that?"
Shame and regret, Lola's sworn enemy and earliest companion, twisted her insides.
"I said I'm sorry! Are you deaf?! I won't say it again!".
Sara's loud laugh was cut short when someone abruptly the door.
Lola recognized her Mama immediately.
"I heard a scream…"
Her footsteps were slow and feather-light. Her low, distant voice was sprinkled with child-like softness.
Lola suspected she was fighting back an urge to step out and knock on the door before coming in again. Mama needed to ask for permission for everything. She was really, really polite. But she sometimes forgets to be. And when she does, she looks like the stiff deer Lola once saw in the woods, staring at her Papa's rifle seconds before he shot it dead.
"Are you girls all right?"
Mama has a quiet, nervous, rabbity demeanor. She stood there, rooted in place, as if silently awaiting permission to come closer. Her white robes were as spotless as untouched snow. Straight, jet-black hair spilled like ink down her back. Her children rarely saw her without a bun, knotted tightly on the back of her egg-shaped head. She seemed almost naked without it, transparent, ghost-like. Lola had to look away.
"Why aren't you dressed, Mama?"
Lola could tell what face her Mama was making before she looked back at her.
"Oh… your birthday".
Sara's face began to twist in a pathetic expression of delayed shock and bitter sadness.
"We talked about it two days ago, Mama! You said we were all going to the town's park, and I was gonna wear my new pink dress. This one!"
She clutched the right side of her dress with a tight fist, shaking it a few times, almost waving it.
"I'm.. sorry, darling. I forgot".
Sara stared for a second, her dumbfounded expression matching Mama's. She ran out of Lola's room.
Mama didn't like to be touched. Didn't like to be stared at. Lola knew that. But she ran to her anyway.
Lola hugged her tight, face pressed to her thigh, wrapping her arms around Mama's legs like a ribbon around a present.
Mama.
Soft. Still. Hers.
Hating Sarah for forcing an apology out of Mama felt good, righteous. But hugging Mama felt better.
Her warmth was fleeting and unreturned, like hugging a ghost looking past her. But on the rare occasions Mama looked at her and hugged her back, Lola felt dizzy with the love rushing through her heart, feeling hurt when it pierced her soft core.
It took a minute before the door to her room flew wide open. Sara came back. Of course she did. Shame distorted her face. Her eyes gleamed, humiliated, like she expected Mama to run after her.
Lola didn't waste her energy on laughter this time. She held her Mama's legs tighter. Her bonny fingers dug into her smooth, cool flesh. Her sharp gaze fell on Sara, daring her to make a move. Her whole body shook in anticipation.
Sara took the challenge and dashed towards her. She tugged her arms. Pulled her hair. Bit her ear. Screamed until her round face turned tomato-red. She tried everything she could to free her Mama from the possessive hold of her devilish baby sister.
But Lola, out of spite, held on to her Mama as if her life depended on it—and here, now, it felt like it.
Turning her head to scream, Lola hoped her voice would devour Sarah's voice, hands, face, and her whole being.
(Why can't you stay dead?)
Sarah's mouth hung open, frozen. Her bulging eyes were unblinking, every muscle still. A static picture.
Lola slowly looked away, her limbs going numb and falling to her sides. She forced herself to look up.
Her Mama was gone, vanished. Like she never existed.
Lola stared and stared.
Her broken skull foggy and heavy, filled with thick mud and dried blood.
She blinked. Closed her eyes for one heartbeat. And all was blinding white.
***********************
The farm reek filled her lungs.
The stench—blood, shit, and charred wood—coated her from the inside out, dragging her limbs into stillness, dulling her every nerve.
Watching farm animals bleed out had taught her that numbness always comes before the slaughter.
She licked the aftertaste of dread. Sour, clotted, foul. It sank in her gut and settled like swallowed bile.
Her heavy lids sank. Long lashes brushed her sunken cheeks. Two drops of blood welled in her sockets; one clung to her left lash. A tear slipped free, cooling her feverish skin like Mama's cloth—pressed firm, always silent, close to comfort.
It hurt to think.
It hurt to be.
Good.
Fear and anger held hands like long-lost twins, promising her relief.
Her nostrils welcomed the barn's fresh scent.
The musk of old summer, animal sweat, spoiled grains, and crushed stalks.
Once upon a time, she would sneak into the barn beside their house—Papa's house—and curl atop the thick sack of hay. The bales shifted slightly beneath her tiny weight, just enough to cradle her spine. She'd ignore the sharp straw scratching her elbows and the backs of her knees, and let the heat wrap around her like a blanket. She'd lie there, snoring softly, her skin dust-flecked and golden, gone in a dream-long nap.
She dreamt of giant hands cradling her.
A monster's hands.
Human ones were never big enough.
She needed to be engulfed, crushed, loved so hard that nothing of her remained.
Here, now, she pictured the same hands massaging her skull. Ever so slowly.
The palms, soft and cold. The backs, rough and flaky. The fingers, spidery and small.
They moved like mist and silk, slipping through scalp and thought alike.
They pressed past the membrane, each stroke loosening something nameless - a knot behind her eyes, a feeling without a name.
Her breath slowed to match their rhythm.
Time bent. Reality thinned.
And in that strange lull, she felt gently erased, as if loved by something that didn't care whether she was real or not.
The hands began to tremble.
Small, spidery fingers twitched - then pierced.
They sank into her brain, digging deep through skin, flesh, and bone.
Hungry, wild hands. Soaked in blood by the time they split her skull open, invading and ravaging everything inside. Their touch slid through her with brutal elegance.
They pawed at her memories - frantic, erratic, fleeing - trying to catch another one. Another, another, another. To pin it down. To anchor her whole existence to it.
One memory was finally caught, mounted by the needy hands, but they recoiled.
The blazing-hot memory was thrown away, yet the burn marks remained.
Little Lola… with her tiny fists clenched around two coals.
She hurled them at Uncle Jo.
Too focused on revenge to notice they weren't black rocks, and too furious to care yet about the heat blistering her palms.
The pain came later. And with it, laughter. His laughter.
Uncle Jo had tried to stop her. Had spoken - maybe even shouted - before she ever reached for the coals.
But her mind had narrowed into a single, red-hot line: hurt him back.
For what?
She couldn't say.
Uncle Jo could be mean, but he never intended to. And he always made sure to soothe her pitiful cries afterward and rock her in his arms and lap until the 'tiny monster' transformed back into his darling little Lola.
This habit took as much effort for him as popping a balloon, but Lola liked to play it up and pretend she was still mad at him.
She liked hugs, back rubs, and pats on her head. Craved them, even. Silently. She had to be sneaky and clever to get them. Sometimes she hoped that being a good girl was enough to win herself any gentle touch, and part of her kept on hoping even when she could no longer be good.
Here, now, she's six.
She was playing catch with Uncle Jo. Just the two of them.
He didn't let her win this time, and she got angry.
She remembered.
Her anger could change things, small things, without asking. It had a will of its own.
(Or did she say something?).
It was so stupidly easy to get on her nerves, and lashing out was her first instinct. But time had taught her to be careful in how she wields her anger. Her double-edged sword.
Even when she aims it right, she always gets cut too. Lola had to decide which cuts were worth it and which ones were too painful to bear. No one taught her how to deal with the long-infected wounds of her rage. They reek and ooze blood, sometimes they sting to the touch, and other times they only need to be exposed to hurt. Other wounds are old enough to feel like dried scabs, only bleeding when scratched.
(Did she say something?)
----------------
The intimidating experience of love never came to her without the uncertainty of deserving it.
Perhaps because love never came to her on its own without unwanted company.
She's still six when Uncle Jo squeezed her in his arms. She shrieked, and he tightened his hold on her. Her tiny hands - still covered with bandages - were uncomfortably squished to her chest.
Try as she might, she couldn't free herself from his crushing hug. She asked to be free, demanded, begged, negotiated, laughing her lungs out.
The back of his hands were rough and flaky, but his palms felt warm and so, so gentle.
When he dared to tickle her, she was no longer laughing. Her anxious, almond-shaped eyes crinkled at the corners. A familiar taste of annoyance was tickling her throat. She dug her shiny, uneven teeth into his flesh, making sure to hurt, but not enough to cut the skin. He winced, pretending she was a ferocious beast, and gently set her free. She hopped from his lap like a puppy and reached over to the far right of the log they were both sitting on, but her effort was blocked. He snatched away her favorite weapon of choice before she could grab it and strike. She pouted. Her chubby fingers felt declawed without her little wooden knife.
"Give it back"
"No"
He giggled and poked her with her own wooden knife.
"Don't do that.."
"You mean.. that?"
He poked her again.
"No touch!"
She spat out the words so quickly, in a squeaky, shrill voice, that he couldn't stop himself from bellowing with laughter.
"You're a silly little girl, aren't you?"
He seemed compelled by a childish impulse, urging him to tease her more.
"No! No touch!"
"But I'm not touching you, sweetie. I'm poking you. See?"
Her nerves were burning raw with intense irritation.
"Don't be bad! You are being bad!"
He snort-laughed, her own knife in his hands poking her some more.
He still wanted her to laugh and play along. But their moods seldom matched, and today was no exception.
He never took her bad moods seriously.
"I don't like you right now."
He let out an affectionate, condescending awww and kept on poking her on each body part. Legs. Arms. Tummy. Neck. Forehead.
Rage boiled inside her gut.
Her rage always had an impact, even on Papa, but never on him. She never could figure out if the source of his firm unaffectedness and infinite patience was genuine kindness or a dismissive lack of regard.
Respect was a commodity that adults reserved for themselves. The unfairness of it all stung like a thousand wooden knives.
She didn't realize she had been screaming at the top of her lungs until Uncle Jo shook her by her bony shoulders, urging her to look at him. A look of frantic confusion shone in his eyes.
A puny, grotesque thing at the bottom of her heart grinned.
"Lola! Calm down, baby girl. Let's-"
The booming voice that erupted from her mouth didn't sound anything like her to her own ears:
"Papa says bad men touch little girls!"
Uncle Jo froze at once, staring down at Lola. Blue eyes - as clear as the sky of the deepest summer - glued to Lola's face.
There was a primal, unreadable emotion behind those sharp, sea-cold eyes.
A memory glossed over them, lighting them up in flames of naked terror for only a second, before his face became a pale mask of cool detachment.
She shuddered.
She was gazing at a familiar stranger who was barely restraining himself from… What? She didn't understand.
What did she do wrong? Wasn't she just repeating what Papa said? What Papa says is law. No one is allowed to be bad once Papa is home. She was simply reminding Uncle Jo - who wasn't really an uncle at all - of his place in the family.
There was nothing at the bottom of her heart.
Her delicate teeth chattered, with a fear so bone-deep it threatened to erase her, and an old thought resurfaced like a bloated corpse floating on the shore of her mind:
You made Uncle Jo transform. Just like Papa and Sara when they stop loving you.
She held her breath like she was deep underwater, praying for Uncle Jo to shift back, to see the thin line of his lips perk up in a warm smile, reserved just for his little monster, who loves him dearly and earnestly, who never ever means to offend him (but does it anyway). Only then could she breathe again.
The corners of his mouth stretched, ever so slowly, splitting his hard face in an empty grin.
"Your daddy doesn't need to know about this, promise?".
A voice hummed in the farthest corner of her mind, the faintest audible trace of their words reaching her ears like waves of radio static:
(Why can't you stay dead?)