A New Family (A Ghost Bird Story)

Three months later

This gets DARK pretty fast. If Abuse bothers you please stop reading.

We just moved to a house in Sunnyvale Crescent, South Carolina. Marc is still working in the medical sales industry and is gone often for work. He enjoys the job and my mother enjoys the money he brings in. The new house is a grey two story on a quiet half developed road. Marie and I have the two rooms upstairs and Ryan's room and the master bedroom are on the main floor.

The business trips take Marc away for a few days a week and that is when the terror begins. We were really busy for a few weeks, packing and then unpacking with the move. But that didn't stop the punishments. I learned pretty fast that Ryan is firmly on my mother's side along with my sister. I get a few bumps and bruises on days when Marc is gone but usually my punishments are invisible. At least to the casual observer.

Ryan follows me almost everywhere. I have woken up in the middle of the night to see him sitting on the side of my bed watching me with his sparkling eyes. His eyes only sparkle when they look at me in these moments otherwise they are lifeless like my mothers. It is frightening to see his eyes light up but it is some small warning that something bad is coming for me. The few times I have been able to escape him have been in the woods behind our new house. I think he is just too lazy to hike through the woods all afternoon and sit at the base of the trees I climb. He is far too big to climb up after me. At almost six feet tall and wide in the chest, he could play football if he had the ambition to. He has that brown hair that doesn't really have a color to describe it and it waves around his ears trying to curl. His dead eyes are blue and cold. I keep hoping that he will meet some friends here, a friend, anyone who will take his attention off of me. So far I seem to be his obsession and my mother uses that to her advantage.

I had hope though. Next week we start school at Ashley Waters High. I will be a sophomore, Marie a junior and Ryan a senior. Again. He was held back at a young age and then again as a senior last year. So my big (step) brother is almost nineteen with the mentality of a twelve year old. We can't possibly be in the same classes especially with my taking AP classes so I should have a reprieve during the daytime. Monday we go in to school to register. It has been a rough week at home so I am looking forward to it.

On Thursday Marc left for one of his trips and I decided it would be wise to stay out of the way of everyone. I got up early and made sure the house was clean, the dishes done and the laundry washed dried folded and put outside each persons door. Then I went into the woods with a water bottle and a granola bar in an attempt to escape the family for a while.

When I got home in the afternoon it looked like a rave had gone on in the living room. Not like I had ever seen one or likely ever would, but there was trash and plates everywhere. I think that Marie and Ryan may have "cleaned" their rooms by empting everything dirty and unwanted into the rest of the house. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. That is when I heard the front door open. My mother was home.

She screamed, She yelled. She called me "a dirty rotten spoiled little brat! Sitting around the house all day doing nothing but making a disgusting mess everywhere" She knew it hadn't been me as well as I did, it was there in her eyes. That happy glint, that tiny smirk. I was going to get punished and someone made it possible. She was probably going to give them some kind of reward, I thought dully.

Ice cream? Maybe go out to a movie... I mused, tuning out her screaming. Then Ryan came slithering into the room. I could tell by the look on his face that it was him or at least his idea. It was probably my fault for ditching him and not letting him follow me today. What could I do to stop this? My mother stopped screaming and shared a look with him. I looked back and forth between them and my heart sank. Both of their eyes were sparkling and all I could think was "please no!"

My mother turned and dragged me to the kitchen going to a drawer and coming back with two dish towels. Ryan held me by my shoulders while she tied my elbows together behind my back yanking them tight making me whimper. Ryan looked right into my eyes with glee written all across his face. She spun me when she was done and shoved the second towel deep in my mouth, choking me.

She pushed me up against the kitchen counter and looked up and down my body. Stopping at my breasts which were thrust out because of the way she had tied my elbows together. Her face suddenly burned red with fury and she whipped her hand back and slapped one breast then the other.

My eyes bulged with the appalling pain it caused. She looked up at my face to gauge my reaction and grinned. Then she reached over and tore my thin t-shirt away from my chest. She whirled and grabbed a knife from the knife block and I paled as she came towards me. She slid the knife point up my stomach and over my chest until the point dipped between my breasts. I watched with wide terror filled eyes as she stabbed down sharply cutting apart my bra, exposing my breasts.

Again she looked me up and down and then grabbed at my shirt and bra pulling them away from my chest and partially down my shoulders. Ryan was staring on with awe and a kind of hunger I was not prepared to see or know how to deal with. I focused back on my mother just in time to see her hand fly my way again. She started viciously slapping at my exposed breasts. The pain was so excruciating! So much worse now without that small protection of the shirt and bra. My breasts were bright red and purple in some spots. I was screaming into the gag and my left nipple started to bleed.

She stopped.