Free Cursed Be the Child by Mort Castle

looked so strange. Sometimes on Sunday mornings, Dad slept late and Mom sent her to wake him for breakfast. When she saw him asleep, it was hard to believe he was Dad at all. His face was all changed. He looked like a stranger. And even after his eyes opened, it seemed to take a few seconds before his face would get right.
    No, this was not Dad. She knew that.
    “I know what you want,” he said, and it wasn’t Dad’s voice.
    Love me.
    “Whore! I’ll give you just what you want. Yes, I will, whore!”
    He was right by her now.
    Not Dad!
    He was touching her.
    It made her feel crawly. It made her feel sick.
    Be nice. Must be nice. Let him…
    It was wrong. Last year, at her old school, a policewoman came to talk to the first grade. Joey Douglas asked her if she knew Cagney and Lacey. She laughed. Then she told them about adults who wanted to touch you in ways they shouldn’t. They were bad to do that.
    Kiss him and touch him and he will love…
    And if someone touched you the wrong way—it didn’t matter who it was—you had to tell.
    No, I won’t tell. I promise. I’ll never tell anyone! Don’t…
    He raised his fist. “You filthy whore. You see what you make me do? And now you’ll tell the whole world.”
    And he hit her and she screamed and he hit her and she screamed and screamed and screamed.
     
    ««—»»
     
    They lay, tired and content, not saying anything. Then they heard the shriek.
    “Jesus.”
    “Missy, oh God, Missy!”
    Jumping out of bed, Vicki wriggled into her pajama tops. Warren nearly toppled over, awkwardly yanking on his shorts.
    The screaming went on and on, so loud it seemed to fill all the house and their minds. In the hall, Vicki shook her head. She was disoriented and felt almost disembodied.
    Then she knew. “Downstairs!” she shouted as the screaming stopped.
    They found Missy in the rec room. She was huddled in the corner, arms around her knees, eyes huge and unfocused. She was naked. Her mouth was shaped around a gigantic silent scream.
     
    “Sleep walking, that’s all,” Warren said the next morning as he and Vicki sat drinking coffee in the kitchen. It was 8:30, and Missy was still asleep. “It happens. I don’t think we have any reason to be worried.”
    “I hope so,” Vicki said. When they’d discovered Missy in the rec room, Vicki had an instant of paralysis. “It’s okay,” Warren whispered, as he gently shook Missy, calling her name. In a moment, Missy came around. She was bewildered and frightened. “This isn’t my room. This isn’t my bed.” She didn’t know how she got downstairs, didn’t remember taking off her clothes, didn’t recall anything except a “bad dream, a real scary one,” the kind of fright that needed to be assuaged by sleeping with Mom and Dad. Once she was dressed for sleep, Missy spent the remainder of a restless night sometimes moaning or sniffling and once kicking out so hard that Vicki was guaranteed what would be an ugly bruise on the thigh.
    “She’s never walked in her sleep before,” Vicki said. “I just wonder if…”
    “It doesn’t mean she’s neurotic, psychotic, or autistic,” Warren interrupted. “She doesn’t have epilepsy or a brain tumor or any other awful thing you’ve learned the symptoms of from Reader’s Digest. She walked in her sleep, that’s all, and there’s a first time for everything, right?” Warren grinned. “And how’s that for Reader’s Digest wisdom?”
    “I guess, but…”
    “Lot of excitement in her life, Vicki,” Warren went on. “New home, new school, new people, all kinds of things. So she’s off on a nocturnal stroll.” He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t turn nothing much into a big deal, okay?”
    “I do that sometimes,” Vicki admitted. “You do, too.”
    “I guess neither one of us is perfect. We’ll just have to live with it.”
    Warren pushed back the chair and stood up, a tacit way of telling her that, as far as he was concerned, the discussion was finished.