Surviving Eleanor: A Daughter's Rebellion

in and something vaguely sour, a scent that belo

fanatical determination. She was humming a tuneless, unsettling melody

u doing?" I asked

her focus entirely on

clear. The curse from your past life, when you were a neglected pig, is still holding

ver gone this far. Mrs. Gable, the town's resident charlatan psychic, had been poiso

id, my voice shaking with a mixture o

ed to look at me

ing. "You're ungrateful! After everything I've done for

sloshing the thick, gritty mixture. I stumble

from me!

he back of my shirt, her nails digging into my skin. We struggled, a chaotic dance of limbs and desperate grunts in the sma

the entryway table with a sickening crack. The world exploded

d in the silent abyss:

ke an electric s

My eyes flew open. I was on the floor of the kitchen, propped up against the cabinets. M

en feed was in h

trembling uncontrollably. I touched the back of my head. There was

e out automatically, a ghostly echo of a

cal to the one I'd just seen in a

Sarah," she began. "Mrs

The memory of the impact, the darkn

my skull, the cold seeping into my limbs. I started to gag, my body reacting to the memory of the gritty feed she

fanatical expression shift

"This is why you're cursed. This is

ope that this was just a nightmare vanished. This wa

e to the bone. "Mark will be here any minute. He's a good, strong man. He knows what to do with a difficult wo

g aggressive and dangerous. The thought of him, of what my own mother was planning, was more terrifying than the animal feed.

o get o

th the back of my hand. I forced my f

ng my shoulders slump in d

ph lit up her eyes

eening. "Go upstairs and make yourself

voice barely audible. "I

ook back. Every step was a calculated move, a performance of submission. I heard he

m and closed the do

I loc

ming in ragged gasps. My phone. I needed my phone. I saw it on my nightstan

. This time, I knew what was coming.