“Mom?” I say it again, waiting for it to sink in. Waiting for her to remember me, like I remember her. But her cloudy eyes show no warmth. No love. They are empty, and her voice is hard.

“You whine. You don’t listen. You refuse to really live. You don’t take risks, you don’t make gains, and you’re never going to grow up.”

Terror and revulsion burn within me now, roasting me alive from the inside. Her words bruise like blows. Denial is the only reason I’m still conscious. I hate what she is, because I know it should be me. But I love her, because she’s my mother. She gave me life. Twice.

“Mom?” It’s a question this time, because my mother never spoke to me like this. My mom was kind and gentle, encouraging. I don’t remember much, but I remember that.

“That would be fine, if you had at least one redeeming quality.” She takes an awkward step forward, and I cringe, tears forming in my eyes. “One extraordinary trait, to prove you were worth my sacrifice.” Another step, and I blink. Tears scald my cheeks, but still she comes. Still she speaks, shredding my soul with every hateful word. “Beauty. Brains. Talent. But you have none of that. You’re mediocrity personified. You don’t shine like I did.”

Another step, and she’s at the foot of the bed now. She leans forward, both hands on my blanket. Her fingers split like sausage casings beneath the pressure of her weight. Fluid oozes to stain the purple material, and I suck air in so fast I’m choking on it.

“I was the light in your father’s life, shining to show him the way. But you don’t shine. He gave you away because he couldn’t stand to be with you. Because he knows what I know. What you know. That you’re not worth it, Kaylee. You’re not worth my life, and I want it back.”

“Mom, no.” Tears slide silently down my face, and I swipe at them. She crawls onto the bed. Her knees smear the stains her fingers left, and the stench is unbearable now.

Up close, I can see the details. Her skin is damp and gray and flaccid. Her eyelashes and eyebrows are long gone. Clumps of her hair are missing, but that’s a mercy, because what’s left is thin, brittle, and tangled, caked with dirt and stiff with dried bodily fluids.

“I just need your breath. That’s all it takes….” she whispers. Her dress has holes, but I recognize it. She was buried in it. It used to be blue, the same shade as her eyes, but now it’s faded, and stained, and almost as rotten as she is.

“Mom, you don’t mean it.” I’m scooting to the side now, finally in motion, but in my heart, I know it will do no good. If she can find me here, she can find me anywhere. I haven’t lived up to her gift, and now she wants it back.

And she will get it. We both know that.

“You let my life rot, along with my body. If you ever loved me, give me back what I gave so foolishly….”

I pull my kneesup to my chest and push myself away from her. The corner of my nightstand pokes into my back. She reaches for my leg. Her fingers squish against my kneecap. More skin splits. Viscous liquid runs over my leg, and the smell is overwhelming.

My stomach revolts. Vomit rises in my throat. Tears blur my vision. Terror squeezes my heart with fists of iron.

Finally I scream, but it’s too late. It is much, much too late.

14

THAT TIME, I DIDN’T sit up in bed. I pulled the covers over my head like a child, half convinced I was still dreaming. That if I peeked into the room, she would be there waiting for me, that half-rotted perversion of my mother, demanding her life back before I could squander the rest of it.

I stayed like that until I got dizzy from breathing my own used oxygen, and when nothing crawled toward me, when the air never putrefied in my nostrils, I finally pushed back the covers and sat up.

My room looked normal. The door was still closed, but unlocked in spite of paranoid warnings from both Nash and Tod. My comforter was spotless, my knee still clean.

My mother had never stood in this room. She hadn’t stood anywhere in more than thirteen years, and deep down I knew that even if she could come see me, she would never demand my life for the privilege.

My mother didn’t want me dead. But I was afraid I’d wasted her gift. And Sabine obviously knew that.

With that realization came the blazing fury I needed to thaw my icy fear. But there would be no more sleep for me that night. Sabine had done her job very, very well.

“ANOTHER BAD DREAM?” Alec asked, as I tiptoed past the couch on my way to the kitchen. “That’s the second one this week.”

Third, but who’s counting?

“Don’t you ever sleep?” I demanded, without slowing.

He tossed back the blanket and sat up. “I was gonna ask you the same thing.”

“I slept,” I insisted, heading straight for the coffeepot. “Now I’m done. Just getting an early start.”

The couch springs creaked behind me. “It’s four-thirty in the morning.”

I knew that, with every exhausted bone in my body. “Thus the word early.”

“You couldn’t have slept more than two hours.”

The kitchen floor was cold on my bare feet, and I wished I’d remembered my slippers. “What are you now, a math major?” Or my dad?

“You’re doing one hell of a Sophie impersonation this morning.” Alec had only met my cousin once, and that was more than enough. “What’s wrong?”

After staring at the remnants of the previous day’s coffee, I decided making a fresh pot would be too much trouble and opted for a soda from the fridge instead. I popped the tab as I sank into my dad’s chair across from the couch, where Alec now sat watching me in nothing but the gym shorts he slept in.