The Fallen Queen (Winner of the Write Way Award 2013) #Wattys2015 #MyWattysChoice #Featured

Chapter 10: The Unforgivable

I have been told people had a hard time reading this chapter. It does not show up. So here it is again in the hope there won't be any problems again. - Love xxx

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Mother was home alone. Daddy was at work and we were at school. I always wondered what Mother did when she was home alone. Most of the time when we came home from school she was asleep in her bedroom, the heavy, dark curtains drawn to cover the windows. She did not want to have anything to do with the sunlight.

She said she was taking her afternoon nap. She always wore earplugs so that she would not hear anything, like the neighbors mowing their lawn, the screams of the kids coming home from school, the wind blowing, the branches scratching on the roof.

That was how she usually spent her afternoons, from what I understood.

But something was different. She thought she heard something and she woke up. She opened her eyes, rolled over, pulled up the blankets, and tried to fall asleep again when she saw, from the corner of her eye, a dark figure standing between her closet and my dad’s armoire.

She blinked. The ghostly figure was still there. Her eyes opened wider. Was she dreaming? She sat up in the bed and stared at the silhouette that had grown clearer.

It was a child. She was dressed all in white, had mysterious red hair, and chalky skin. She was standing, looking at her. Her lips were sealed, serious. Her eyes were emotionless. The thought of a doll quickly crossed her mind while she examined her. She could not explain why, but the girl made her remember a doll. And for some reason, she did not seem to be bothered about being caught in someone else’s house.

My mother looked around her, trying to find an object that she should grab and hit the intruder with. But since she was at a relatively safe distance from her, and since she would only manage to hit her by walking towards her, she thought it would be better to try a less offensive way of dealing with the suspicious-looking individual.

“Who are you?” she asked hesitantly.

The girl did not answer her and continued to stare at her.

“This is my house. You have no right to be here. You should go away before I call the cops!” she said, sounding more defensive.

“No,” said the mysterious little girl softly, as if she was whispering. “This is my house.”

My mother took a moment to try to understand what the girl was saying but, before she could answer, she had vanished.

My mother's heart was pounding hard and fast behind her rib cage. She felt like she might suffocate as she tried breathing in deeply to oxygenate her body. She stood up quickly and the blood rushed from her head and made her dizzy.

She ran out of her bedroom and heard a frightening laugh. It echoed and sounded evil. She turned her head repeatedly looking for the girl. She saw the girl at the bottom of the stairs but she vanished when she looked at her with more attention. Then she saw her in the bathroom, but the girl had vanished again.

She reached the front door; she saw her fingers trembling while she reached for the doorknob.

As she opened the door, the view of the town’s old cemetery emerged in front of her. She would not feel safe there either, she thought. She had just seen a ghost. Even to my mother, who thought any paranormal activity was implausible and purely the fruit of the imagination, the cemetery was the last place in the world she would go to take refuge. A cemetery is the most likely place to see the dead.

She sat down on the stairs of the veranda, crossed her arms, and shoved her hands into her armpits to keep them warm.

It was fall and it was cold. The trees were colored in yellow, red, and brown with only a little green surviving here and there.