NINE TIME MACHINES: Do you want to undo your entire life on planet earth?

CHAPTER 166

The serpent's words make the black room fall flat just like the black box had in my dream. And that is the trigger that makes all the memories burst the dam. Ebony once said those exact words to me, during one of our few conversations. It was after she confirmed all her money was gone. She had been drinking all day long. I was seventeen. And as it unfurls now, the memory is so real that I feel as if it is happening all over again.

"Mother, why'd you treat me so horribly all my life?"

"How'd I treat you?" she snaps. "You ungrateful wretch! I did my best to give you everything. Even now, the last of my money's tied up in making you look presentable."

I flinch at the bitterness in her tone. Knowing she's ashamed of me always tears me to shreds.

"I meant leaving me alone with those strangers."

"Oh, that! I had to work. You know. Get the money to pay for your camouflage, your food."

"I would've preferred to starve to death if it meant having my mother around."

"Well, your wish will come through soon enough."

"All those birthdays you spent away with your friends," I continue undeterred. "I think you did it because you wanted to hurt me, because you hate me so much for not being smooth, like you."

"Your condition stole all my money." She looks around the weathered room. "Stars aren't supposed to live like this, Mary."

"How are they supposed to live?"

She hesitates for a while then toughens up. "We're supposed to get a life that befits the mask."

"What mask?"

"The one we wear to give you magical moments; to become someone greater."

"How come everyone else got those magical moments except me? All I saw was ugliness."

"I don't know, Mary. Maybe I left it on too long. You're not supposed to leave it on for long."

"What happens when you leave it on too long?"

"Instead of being its master, you become the slave, and get eaten alive."

"Mother, you could've stopped any time you wanted. But you loved the fame."

"They couldn't stop! All those people hungry for my talent!" she shouts. "They loved me."

"It wasn't you they loved, Mother. They loved your music. If only they knew the real you."

"The one you hate? The one you eyed with scorn every time I came back?"

"Is that what you thought? You thought I hated you? All this time?"

"Don't lie to yourself, Mary. You know you want me dead. Admit it!"

"Ebony-the-Great, maybe," I say after a long pause. "Not Ebony Pethiel. She's my mother."

"Don't you understand what I've been saying all along? There's no more Ebony Pethiel!"

"Mother, that's impossible! You're standing right here. You and I; we're both real."

"You're real. I'm just the illusion hiding behind the mask. I let it inhale too much of my glory. Now it wants more of what it breathed. Mary, the longer you wear it, the less it wants to hide."