Forever Changed

chapter 1



I hid in the shoe and coat closet in the front room. It smelled of musk, sweat, leather, and dirty socks. I wanted to gag or find somewhere else to hide, but I was too terrified to open the brass doorknob. I was safe here. If I squeezed really close to the back wall, I would be concealed from anyone who opened the door, searching for me, in the vicinity of all the coats.

The luxury of having a big house is that there are so many different closets and rooms to choose from. I was really wishing at this moment to be on the third floor hidden in the little room, I found by mistake.

The door was hidden behind a huge old painting-of a man and woman sitting on a little boat in the middle of a lake. He is paddling and she is sitting in the back holding an umbrella, to keep the sun off of her.

The hidden door led to a hidden room where I keep all my things. Things, I didn’t want anyone to know about. It made a great hiding place. I wished I was hiding there instead of this smelly coat closet.

I could hear them screaming at each other and the smacks my father handed out so easily. I heard footsteps and heard running. I knew without a doubt my mother was running to keep from enduring another painful blow from my father.

My father screamed, “Put it down!” He was angrier then I have ever heard him.

I knew this was not going to be pretty and out of curiosity I had to see. I eased my way out of the arms of the coats and looked through the keyhole. They were in front of the door; I could see my father and the look on his face. I couldn’t tell if he was angry, scared, or if a mixture of both.

“You don’t want to do this Maggie,” he said.

“Oh, but yes, I do,” my mother spat out at him. “I loved you and have been with you for all these years. I have been by your side through everything. I have taken your abuse for one too many years. You have turned me against my daughter for what you are and what she is going to become. She will be just like you and I will not take another one. If I would have known all of this before I had lain with you beneath that willow, I would have NEVER married you. I would have NEVER been by your side or took your abuse.” Even though she was screaming, my mother screamed ‘never’ even louder.

I didn’t know what she was talking about. It angered me that my mother would say these things to my father.

“And I would have NEVER created a child with you. I NEVER will be able to love her, not like I would have been if she were, normal. Seventeen years of living in fear, taking your abuse, and hiding your secret from the world and our daughter, ends now.”

“You are waiting to tell me this now! Don’t you dare bring Elizabeth into this, you pathetic excuse for a mother, wife, or a woman for that matter.”

“How dare you! She will be the one to change this world, with my help. She needs me and needs practice, so that we can perfect what we have. She is the last of our kind. She needs protection and I am not about to let you take that away!” He screamed this at my mother.

I was so lost and confused. I looked at his face. He was so dead serious that he could squash my mother, like a cock roach, with just his eyes and not think twice about it.

I looked up at my mother through the key hole. She was standing two feet away from the door. She was holding a double-barrel shot gun and pointing it straight at my father’s chest. This must be why she was running, to seek the protection of a gun. I am assuming it was to keep my father from hitting her.

Her face was pale and as white as a ghost, except for the bruises that my father had dealt out so easily. Her nose and lip were trickling blood down the front of her white sundress. Her hair was matted to her forehead from the cut that was still gushing blood. My father must have punched or pushed her so hard, that she hit something.

“I intend to shoot you where you stand, so that I never have to look at you, ever again. I also plan to hunt down your precious daughter and do the same. I will find her and I will kill her!” My mother screamed this with so much hatred in her voice. I was terrified! Why would my own mother want to kill me?

My father looked at the door; he must have known I was hiding in that closet. I looked into his eyes and I could have sworn that his eyes turned a pale red. He winked at me, assuring me that I was going to be okay, but I was not so sure. A tear rolled down my cheek, as I looked at my father with remorse and fear. I didn’t want him to die!

My father would not give my mother the satisfaction of looking at her. He watched me, smiling, as my mother raised the shot gun a little higher.

She screamed, “You have hit me for the last time, you demon!” She pulled the trigger.

From there, it was like slow motion. My father’s eyes bored into mine, he opened

his arms wide, as if he were embracing the pellets, all the while continuing to smile at me.

The sound of the shot-gun was deafening, the kick threw my mother into the wall, and I watched in horror as the slug made contact with my father’s face! It took most of his head off, blood and brains splattered on the walls and the main entry door.

I kept hearing the same sound of the pellets coming from the shot-gun,-until I realized it was me making the sound. I was screaming louder than I have ever screamed in my life. I clamped a hand over my mouth, from fear that my mother meant what she said.

My head was spinning with so many questions. Why didn’t my father try to take the gun? He could have easily missed the pellets with his speed. Why does my mother want to kill us? What did he mean about, I needed protection? My most important question was why was he smiling at me? It

was like he knew something was going to happen, but what?

Looking down at my father’s dead body, I saw my mother standing over him. She pointed the shot-gun at his chest and pulled the trigger. This time the kick of the gun didn’t throw her back into the wall, she had braced herself.

Blood splattered her white sundress, “One for good measure,” she said while spitting on him.

She put her slender shoulders back and stood a little straighter. She repositioned the gun; slowly she brought her head up and looked straight at the door I was hiding behind. I started easing away from the door into the arms of the waiting coats. I saw nothing, but hate in her eyes. I knew then that she really was going to kill me!