Consumed

Prologue:

I was only a child but I vividly remembered the sadness in the woman's eye. What she said was total nonsense but my heart still cried out for her. She was my father's niece but for reasons I did not understand at the time, she rarely visited our house. After a bit of chit chat, she became deathly quiet so I took her outside to show her the climbing frame and the swing my father built. I came over to her holding my favourite football. She took it from me, stared at it thoughtfully before bursting into tears and running inside. Later, I tugged at my father's sleeve telling him that Tracey, my cousin, wasn't happy so we should help her. I suggested we bake her cupcakes but my father just smiled and told me she'll be okay in a little while. He was right, before she left she was laughing.

Tracey's unsettling behaviour sparked some curiosity in me but was soon dismissed when I turned back to my almost perfect life. As a junior I believed I lived in a mansion with my best friends and it took me a while to realise we lived in two separate houses. Our mothers were the best of friends, always there for one another. There were 6 children in total, Lilly Stevenson, Jack Stevenson and Michael Stevenson, James Logan, Wayne Logan and I, Mary Logan. There were no walls dividing our back yards so we had a nice big playground to grow up in. We played many games, cricket, basketball, tennis and we even made obstacles to get through. Susan was older than us so she never really joined in but was supportive of our activities. Our favourite game was Football. Regardless of the weather we had to have a set match every Sunday. We put ourselves in teams; James, Lilly and I against Michael and Jack. When Wayne was old enough, he joined their team. The scores were recorded in my father's old phone book from 1986.