Her Royal Madness

Her Royal Madness Part 5

So how did a nice girl like me end up in a place like this? It's a long story, so sit down if you have time and I'll explain everything. At least as much as I can figure out. It all started about two or three months earlier when - no, on second thought it started much earlier than that. I just didn't realize it at the time. It goes back to my earliest memories. Back when Momma was still alive. I remember the way she used to tuck me in at night and tell me bedtime stories. Stories about battling monsters in some far off land or navigating a spaceship through an asteroid field. Her stories were full of fantasy, yet she made them come alive, as if she had really experienced them. After a story she always gave me a big hug and kiss. 

The happy times with Momma ended when I was almost five. Three men tried to break into our house. Daddy wasn't home so Momma told my brother and me to hide in the bedroom closet and stay there until she came and got us. She went downstairs to investigate. There was a lot of yelling and crashing. Screams of pain from one of the intruders. Gunshots. Momma didn't have a gun. All she had was a kitchen knife. More screams. A final gunshot. Silence at last. 

Henry said, "Wait here Maddie. I'm going downstairs." 

"No, Henry," I said, "Momma said we gotta stay here!" 

"It's okay Maddie. I'm just gonna go see if Momma needs help." 

"No Henry. Please stay. Momma said." 

I started crying and Henry, who was seven and a half at the time, sat down beside me and put his arm around me. He was trying to be brave, but tears were trickling down his face too. 

We stayed in the closet for about an hour until Daddy got home. He ran upstairs, frantically calling our names. When he opened the door and I saw him, I thought everything would be all better. Daddy sat us down and explained that Momma wouldn't be with us ever again. Henry sat there in silence, unable to move. I screamed. Loudly. Momma couldn't possibly be gone. She was Momma. Momma was always there to look after me. How could she do this to me? All that night, and for several days after, our house was full of police officers and men in suits, asking questions and examining everything. I couldn't sleep for a long time. When I finally cried myself to sleep, I had terrible nightmares. They didn't go away for weeks later. Slowly, with Daddy's help, I was able to deal with it. I missed Momma terribly, and still do, but life returned to normal. 

Fast forward to this spring when the strange voices started. The first time I heard them, I was in a deep sleep. I heard several disembodied voices calling my name. I couldn't tell if they were male or female, young or old. They kept repeating "Maddie. Maddie. Where are you?" I woke up drenched in sweat. My blankets were twisted in knots and my pillow was somewhere on the floor. After a while, I got up and went to the bathroom to wash my face and get some water. 

Still shaken, I put my mind to work on an explanation. I came up with three possibilities. Either I was dreaming, I was crazy, or I was psychic. 

If I was crazy, then I was headed for a vacation at the funny farm in a private room with padded walls. I couldn't think of anything that I could do about this, so I stopped worrying about it. 

Dreaming would have been the most logical, but it was too real to be a dream. Call it intuition, or a hunch, or whatever. I couldn't explain it but I knew that it wasn't a dream. 

That left psychic. I thought back to what I had read about telepathy and other psychic research. Most of the studies had been inconclusive, not really proving or disproving anything. Did that mean it could be real? That's crazy. I believe in science, not some fake science mumbo-jumbo. But a little part of my logical, scientific brain told me that when you've eliminated all the other possibilities, whatever remains, no matter how absurd, must be the answer.