A loving father desperate for power. A mother trying to save her family. A girl named Violet trying to find out what went wrong in her life and why her father is desperate for her to sacrifice her soul to an evil book.
The next day, Mom broke the news that she found a job. My father and I were both surprised when she told us she would start today. Dad made a little argument about that, but she only ignored him and told him that someone needed to keep a roof over my head. She later went to work at 4 PM, leaving me alone with Daddy.
So, there I was, sitting on the floor playing and drooling all over some toys when my father walked in, carrying that dusty old book. He put on a pair of reading glasses, sat on the couch, crossed his legs, and began reading. The first pages I could see that something confused him, but a few pages in, I swear I saw his eyes twinkle before locking onto the book.
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I don't know how I was able to keep quiet for so long on that floor. I was usually bored after twenty minutes. I began to cry and crawl to Daddy's feet but as I did, he stood up and moved to another chair. No, no, no Daddy. That's not how it goes. You pick me up and give me something else to do, I thought.
Not once did he take his eyes off of that book. The book had a lot of pages and he read each one faster and faster. I walked over to him many times, but he only moved. Crying didn't help, so I ended up going back to the toys.
***
Two hours passed and he was still reading that same book. By now, I was hungry and needed something to eat or a bottle of warm milk. Since I was still in my early twos and my speech was limited, Daddy couldn't understand when I said, "Deet deet." I meant to say, "eat eat."
His eyes wandered over to me for a second then back to the book. I started crying and practically screaming because I was hungry. To my surprise, he got up... but with the book still in his hand. He picked me up with one hand, still reading that book. I was able to get a glance of it. One side was full of various words that I couldn't understand, but when I think about it today, I know it wasn't English. The other side was a drawing of an eye.
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Daddy picked up my bottle and placed it in the microwave. "Menk," I said, meaning milk. He forgot to put it in the bottle. I watched as my bottle melted and made popping noises inside the microwave, it wasn't until daddy started smelling smoke that he noticed what happened.
He sat me down on the floor, still reading. I cried for my bottle, and you know what he did? He grabbed it. I will never understand how he didn't feel one pinch of pain while holding it. He sat the bottle in my hand but I dropped it between my legs because it was still sizzling hot. The bottle burned me between my legs and I screamed so loud. Daddy kept reading.
I screamed nonstop until the neighbors had to call the police.
***
The police had to knock down the door to get my father's attention. I sat in the same spot with bruised legs and forming blisters on my hands. A police office quickly picked me up and my Dad stared at him wide eyed.
"What happened?" my father asked.
The police looked at him like, "You're asking me that?" The officer carried me away and told someone else to attend to my wounds while another police officer questioned Daddy. However, Dad claimed he didn't know what happened.
