Devil's Daughter

Chapter One

I had always known I was different. But the fact I wasn't actually my parent's child and that I could shoot lazers out of my eyes did come as a shock, I admit.

Picture the scene. It's a family reunion. Everyone's sitting around a posh table in some big fancy house looking bored and picking at strange food that clearly none of them wants. The room has already been trashed by two toddlers who have scribbled nonsense all over the fleur de lis wallpaper. A grandfather clock chimes every few minutes, the pendulum swinging eerily. Mahogany tables and red velvet chairs. Lace curtains looking like a patchwork of rotting dead doilies. At the head of the table there's an old woman oblivious to the fact that this is probably the most awkward situation that everyone else in the room has had to face since high school. Underneath the table, the old woman's daughter-in-law holds a gun and strokes the trigger almost fondly. Today, she thinks, today it's over. Today, I win.

 Aunt Frances turns towards me. "So, Roza," she says to me. She's wearing old lady perfume and the powder keeping her wig in place keeps rubbing away, falling like a mist of fine snow. Fine snow that smells of wig. "How's school?"

When I first hear the voice, I think I am going mad. It appears out of nowhere and speaks with an iciness so cold that I shiver. Roza, you are to tell her that school is good. "No!" I blurt out at it stupidly. Roza, you are to do it now. Or there may be consequences. Consequences that you would not like. I submit to my own craziness. "Sorry," I say slowly. "What I meant to say was, school is good." Aunt Frances gives me a smile and the tiniest nod. She knows about the voice. Good. I'm not mad. Now, Roza, you are to pick up what is by your feet. I look down underneath my chair and look at it.

It's a gun. Oh god, I think. A gun. There is a gun underneath my chair. Pick it up! it urges. Pick it up. I battle Aunt Frances and the creepy voice. I shall not pick the gun up, I think. You can't command me. You don't own me. Pick up the gun yourself. 

Sorry, Roza. I didn't think we'd have to resort to such dreadful measures. I really don't want to do this, but...

The world goes black. I can't see, I think. Why can't I see? But I can feel someone else moving my bones for me, I can feel myself standing up and pointing something that fits snugly in my hand at someone. I can't tell who it is. People grapple me, trying to bring me to the ground but I seem untouchable. NO, roars my brain. STOP. THIS ISN'T YOU AND YOU'RE ABOUT TO - 

A boom bounces off the walls. A gasp. A cry. A scream. And my world goes back into focus.

Granny is lying on the floor in a pool of sticky mahogany liquid. It takes me a while to realize it it is blood and that she is dead and that I have just shot my own Grandmother. This is bad. Roza, this is very bad.

I stare at the helpless faces for one last time and then bolt out of the door.