Peggy LaPonte was many things - she'd been told she was weird, and dumb, she'd been called a sweetheart by her mother before, well you know... and she'd been told she was a whisper, by, well... a whisper.
Peggy was many things, and most of those things were the opinions of others struggling to define a curious little girl like Peggy.
What she did know, and what was true, is that she was imaginative, and she was almost certain she'd imagined the whisper which hadn't been whispered but WAS a whisper.
All the same, when the home was quiet, and absolutely still, late at night, when her mother had gone to bed, and there was nothing but the sounds of her family home settling in the mud on which it had been built, more years ago than Peggy cared to learn to count to....
[scampering and scratching]
She could hear claws scampering about her house, clicking and clacking on the old wooden floor boards. She was nearly certain she was imagining them as well, the same way she'd probably imagined the whisper, it didn't help her sleep any easier.
[scampering and scratching]
That wasn't the only thing Peggy tried to convince herself was only in her mind and born of her own fear.
Peggy and her mother, who had been close, were not so these days.
After what had happened to her father, Peggy had cried through the night, loudly. And her mother had not come to comfort her.
Maybe her mother was mad at her, it was all her fault after all, she had said something, or done something, when that THING had tricked her. Problem was she wasn't even entirely sure how it had tricked her, or whether any of it was even real.
Her mother had come to her room, but she'd merely stood in the doorway looking in, watching Peggy heave, and sob. Peggy had run to her mother seeing her there, craving the sort of comfort only a mother can give, with a full bodied hug that protects your soul from that which eats at it.
Peggy stopped short. Her mother hadn't opened her arms to Peggy, or knelt down to embrace her, she'd simply stood in the doorway to Peggy's room looking in as if watching an animal in a cage, knowing that it couldn't touch you as it charged at the bars.
Mildred, Peggy's Mother, looked down at her, with a mix of whimsy, and contempt.
Peggy, Mildred's daughter, looked up at her mom, with a mixture of confusion, and soul aching hurt.
Mildred turned around, leaving Peggy, lonely and hurt standing in the middle of her room.
Peggy went to bed night after night, not being hugged, or being told she was loved.
[creaking floorboard and barefoot steps]
That night, and well every other night Peggy lay staring at the ceiling, too afraid to go to sleep, and have her mother disappear into the night again, and never return.
[creaking floorboard and barefoot steps]
Each night Peggy's mother poked and prodded at that fear, each night she would leave, and Peggy could hardly breath, holding her breath as she heard the front door open, and her mother stepping out into the wild darkness.
It was nights like those, that Peggy wished the whisper would return, and speak with her. She prayed the whisper would keep her company through the night. Wished they'd play with her, and give her riddles, and sing her soft songs to fall asleep to.
She'd even called into the black of her room at night, hello is anyone there? Hoping to hear it respond.
But the whisper never did.
She'd tried asking Tom, her older brother, to let her stay in his bed once or twice, on those particularly cold, long nights, but he never wanted anything to do with her, and when he asked her what she wanted? She wouldn't speak... the words just wouldn't come up and out of her mouth.
In her mind she wasn't sure why he'd even have to ask her that, wasn't it obvious why she'd be there? Their mother was gone, gone like she'd been that night when everything changed, and dad was just gone now as well. Tom didn't care, why the hell didn't Tom care!? Why didn't he understand how lonely she felt, how vulnerable without anyone there looking out for her. She was there because she wanted, no... she needed a hug, and to feel protected.
She didn't think she could take it any longer.
Peggy didn't know what to do, or how to fix it.
Each inch of her house no longer felt like her home. Each inch of her room felt uncomfortable and foreign as if it belonged to someone else. Peggy felt uncomfortable beneath her cover in a bed which did not feel like her own.
WHISPER: Itsy Bitsy spiderling, is coming to Peggy.
WHISPER: Whispers don't cry - not when the spiderling is coming.
[scampering and scratching]
PEGGY: Hello?
PEGGY: What did you say?
PEGGY: Hello? Are you there? Please stay with me.
The whisper was already gone.
Peggy had not heard what the whisper had said. Her heaving sobs had drowned out what she'd been listening for, for so long. Hoping she wasn't crazy, hoping she wasn't just imaginative, but that she was also right, that a whisper not whispered by something, had in fact spoken to her, and she'd missed it, only hearing the word Spiderling.
Peggy not daring to miss the whisper again, not daring to miss the whispers company and secrets, but knowing it would not return to her just because she willed it like she'd done so many times before, lay completely still under her covers, and held back her tears.
If she could handle the pain of the ache in her throat, if she could hold back the flood that threatened to wash away her eyes, if she could be strong and stay completely still, as if the whisper was a rabbit she wished would come just a little closer so that she could grab it with her hands and hold tight to it. Then maybe she'd deserve to have a friend. Then maybe she wouldn't deserve to feel so alone.
Like children do, Peggy took her pain, that night and turned it into a game, a challenge, a test which she would have to overcome in order to feel connected, to feel loved.
If she did not make a fuss, if she did not cry, if she gritted her teeth together hard enough, and clenched her fists till they threatened to burst as the white boney knuckles pressed tight against the skin that imprisoned them.
Then maybe the whisper would return.
Or better yet, maybe her mother would see what a good girl she'd been, and love her again.
[distant door opens]
[padding footsteps]
Penny could finally breath. Her mother was home. Home where she belonged.
[crying baby]
Mildred sat down in a chair that sat in the corner of the living room, cradling a bundle swaddled in the torn corner of her dress.
MILDRED: Shhhhh
MILDRED: Shhhhh. It's okay sweet thing
[crying stops, cooing, and suckling]
Peggy couldn't see its face, she could only see her mother staring down at the thing in her arms, as she held it to her bosom for it to feed.
Peggy young as she was, wasn't entirely sure exactly what was happening, but instinctually she felt betrayed.
Peggy stepped back from the bottom of the stairs which led into the living room where her mother was feeding the thing that gnawed at her chest, Peggy shut her eyes to the betrayal, and ran up the stairs.
Mildred looked up only slightly, barely regarding her only daughter running away from her and back to her room.
Peggy knew it, she'd cried, she shouldn't have cried. She'd been said, and angry, when she shouldn't have been sad and angry, and because of that she lost, she lost whatever game the universe was playing with her. She'd let whatever ugly thing had cursed her, and her family win, and now her mother cradled, and cared for what Peggy could only assume was a baby.
Peggy sat on the edge of her bed with eyes too tired to cry, and a mind too pulled and poked at by the absolute isolation she'd been feeling, to think.
Peggy LaPonte could only stare at the moon.
It hung in the night sky, with a gossamer shimmer to its edges as the wet night are infused the moonlight with texture.
THE MAN: If you stare at the moon long enough, it'll blink.
Peggy turned around, both startled by the voice of a strange man in her room, and completely apathetic to the fact that there was a strange man in her room.
A man stood in the dark back corner of the room, where the moons light couldn't quite reach try as it may, Peggy couldn't exactly see him, she could only see the shadow in the darkness, that was somehow blacker, and dense in the shape of a man. She could see his eyes which felt empty and yellowed, and she could see his smile which felt too wide, stretching from ear to ear.
THE MAN: She doesn't like to be stared at. She's shy.
THE MAN: You wouldn't know it because she is the moon, and she is ghastly beauty, but she'll start to blink being as shy as she is. It isn't our right to watch the moon, Little Peggy LaPonte, it's her job to watch, not ours.
THE MAN: And When she blinks, it gets so dark Peggy, a dark you've never seen. A darkness which holds bad, terrible little presents. We don't want that.
THE MAN: You know, For one who wishes not to be watched, for one who is so beautiful, the moon is also lonely. She chases the sun, but never do they meet. The sun's light merely shines on her, but the light is cold and distant. Still the moon shines, and still she captivates, and each night she continues to watch us go about, just us silly little ants on a rock."
THE MAN: I am sorry your soul hurts, I am sorry it aches so much for being so young."
Peggy said nothing - it was the first time anyone had spoken to her, not through her or at her, in what felt like an awfully long time for a child. If she opened her mouth, even to whisper, even to take a deep breath, she would cry, and she wouldn't stop.
THE MAN: Now Peggy, now you must sleep.
And she did, she slept a long deep sleep.
The next morning arrived, Peggy awoke. There was no spring in her step, but she felt better for having slept uninterrupted. She didn't think of the man who had spoken from the dark corner of her room to her, in fact she simply didn't think about it at all. She didn't really remember how she'd fallen asleep either.
The LaPonte family home, still, and mute.
Peggy rose from her bed, as her back arched, and her arms contorted tight and outstretched, letting out a deep yawn.
Peggy walked down the stairs, eyes still full of sleep, and straight towards the kitchen.
She grabbed a cup, and filled it full of water, sipping it, quenching her dry mouth, before grabbing a piece of some sort of meaty jerky that sat in a tall jar on the counter, and returning back to bed.
She rubbed her eyes as she made her way back to her room, passing by the living room.
Peggy could feel the weight of someone's gaze on her.
Mildred sat in the chair Peggy had seen her sitting the night before, with the swaddled child she'd held to her bosom. Her eyes hung heavy and hooded. Large dark circles ballooned out from beneath her eyes, as her head was tilted back, and to the side resting on the back of chair.
She eyed Peggy, with the same mixture of whimsy, and contempt, as if she was merely an interloper, as if she was a cockroach that she'd come to expect that scuttled from corner to corner, eating what whatever small decay it can find on the floor.
Her night dress was muddied around the hem, and the corner had been ripped high enough for Peggy to see her mother's legs covered in muck and grim.
Peggy was an imaginative child, this was certain, no matter what anyone else told her she was, or who she thought she was. She was imaginative, and that was an undeniable fact, but she hadn't imagined what she had witnessed the previous night.
But Peggy wouldn't cry, she wouldn't reach out for her mother. She wouldn't whine, or cry out for what she needed and craved.
No, Peggy had decided.
She would be like the moon.
She would be like the moon who hung in the empty black swirling above, she would be beautiful and bright..... And she'd shoulder her loneliness.
Uncomfortable and perturbed as she was at the sight of her mother, she would not break.
Her face was as placid, and as unchanging as the face of a full moon, and she'd be stronger then the moon too, she told herself.
The moon was shy, the moon would blink if you stared too long, the moon didn't liked to be watched.
As Mildred stared at Peggy, Peggy didn't blink, she didn't look away like she had so many times before, she stared at her mother, challengingly, she stared, and she didn't blink not once.
As she felt her point was made, Peggy turned away from her mother, and walked up the stairs.
MILDRED: No Peggy - I love you the most.
Mildred whispered the words, as she watched Peggy walk up the stairs, and away from her.
Mildred closed her eyes, feeling the pain in her chest - not her heart. Her heart did not beat the way it had. Her night dress was spotted with blood, where it had soaked through, from where the child had bitten her, where it had fed from her.
Mildred LaPonte felt drained, and light headed, but once Peggy was out of sight, Mildred rose from her chair, and walked unsteadily to the pantry.
She knelt upon the ground, and pulled back the long nails from a loose floor board, pulled back the floor board, and stared at a swaddled child nestled beneath the floor.
Spider crawled along the cloth it was wrapped in but the thing - the child didn't mind, it was too busy gnawing and teeth on a bone that Mildred had given her after feeding.
...
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