Free The Eye Unseen by Cynthia Tottleben Page B

bottle and let you gulp down the cold sweetness, mesmerized by what I had never noticed. Your left eye, an iris within an iris. The birthmark of the girl yet to come.
    The light hit it exactly, lit it up like the beginning of a solar eclipse, the second iris the moon just edging across the sun. My body trembled, paralyzed with fear. And you just tilted your head. Smiled. Handed me back your water.
    “Thank you,” you’d said, pretending your veins didn’t hold all the horror of the world to come. “I love you, Mom.”
    Aunt Evelyn was right. I did not have the courage.
    That night I sat in your room, my pillow in my hands. I wanted to smother you. Visions of my mother entered my head. She would never have hesitated. Her stride would have been swift, her actions to the point, her decision made twenty years before in that kitchen with the women in our family.
    But that was not me. It took me three hours to put the pillow over your head. Three long hours during which I argued with everyone from Alex to God and back to Aunt Evelyn, who wagged her finger in judgment at me.
    “Mommy? I just threw up in my bed.” Brandy stopped me. I’d not heard so much as a floorboard creak, and there she was, standing in the doorway, watching me as I hovered over you.
    I moved to help her when she vomited again.
    I forgot you. Laying in your bed, tucked in for the night, your mother’s pillow over your face. When I fell asleep the next night I realized you had put it back on my bed for me.
    I didn’t buy the ax until you were nearly twelve. I saw it in the hardware store, the head smooth yet deadly. As I walked past I heard the weapon call my name. Joan , it whispered, I am here. You’re going to need me soon. It’s almost time.
    And that’s when I finally woke up. The stupid sloughed off me as I put the wooden handle in my hand, felt how well it molded into my grip.
    My dreams that first night were of chickens, thousands of headless chickens and my arm the blade that destroyed them.
     

 
     
     
     
Chapter 9
     
     
     
    Lucy
     
    I did a very bad thing when the snow first hit.
    Tippy actually demanded I do it. Just looking at the determination on her face, I couldn’t deny her. She stood guard while I quietly pulled open my window and stole the snow that piled outside it. Following her instruction I gathered several containers, then brushed over the bare spot I had created.
    We had a glorious night. Tippy and I had spent so much time together we no longer needed to speak. I could hear her voice loud and clear in my head, and from her expression knew that she shared my thoughts as well. We hunkered down at the end of the bed and watched the moon grace the falling snow, our bellies chilled with the flakes I had gathered.
    We discussed Brandy and where she might be right now. How convenient it was, finding our old Easter baskets in my closet to use as bowls for the snow. How fun Mom had always made holidays, never having to work since the bank was closed, the three girls and Tippy always going for a picnic or to a church gathering, sometimes even the water park during the summer months.
    Then Tippy got down to business. The snow went from dandruff flakes to avalanche conditions in just a few hours. She reminded me how important our water supply was becoming, especially since Mom didn’t let us out every day anymore.
    I refilled the baskets—a couple of times. Neither of us had realized how thirsty we were and relished the moisture. Tippy instructed me to fill every shoe and bag that could hold water, all of my plastic pencil boxes, my backpack, our stash of empty bottles under the bed. Even though I was freezing, she had me strip down to my skivvies and wash myself.
    How alive that made me feel! The moon kept her eyes on me, my pale skin beaming back to her. Goose bumps climbed my arms as I washed, the snow not enough to relieve my stench but pleasant all the same. I turned from Tippy and dropped my bra to the floor, ran my wet