Mae paced back and forth in the room as she tried to process the reality of her situation. It hadn't quite sunk in, where she was or the weight of what had happened to her family. Nothing felt... right.
Her little girl wasn't at all the one Mae remembered her to be. Every time she spoke to Penny, she couldn't help but feel threatened by her own child. There was a ferality in Penny's eyes that scared Mae. The woman did her best not to dwell on it.
There wasn't much to do in the room except write on the papers and walk about. Penny spent her time drawing images that sent chills down Mae's spine. Mae paced the room as she thought to herself.
Out in the city, things had seemed different. The stress loomed over her. Her fear for her son's mental health weighed her down with the weight of a car.
It seemed that ever since she signed the divorce papers, her life had been wrong. There was an uncomfortable weight in her stomach that gave her a stable unhappiness and an urge to be free.
Under the close watch of her boss and lazy coworkers, Mae had longed to escape the reality of her situation.
After looking down over the seven acres of farmland the Winter estate possessed, Mae wanted nothing more than to cry. She had given up a life of freedom of homeschooling her beautiful children and watching the sunset with her husband.
It had seemed like a lot of work at the time, but it was peaceful and fulfilling work. Devlin's secrets had torn them apart. She had many questions that were still left unanswered. Some days Mae wished she had never signed her marriage away while other days, she was grateful she'd gotten out of that situation.
When Mae had left, Penny was her innocent angel who'd been curious and sweet. She was a listener even from a young age. Mae had known from the first time she laid eyes on her baby girl, she was different.
In fact, she had known ever since she married Devlin that her life would be different. Although she had no concrete evidence or real clue that anything would truly be different, Mae simply had remembered feeling it deep down.
Her family wasn't ordinary and that was okay. Their relationships were filled with love and trust. She had always blamed their familial oddities on Devlin's strange interactions with the children. The truth was, she had no way of knowing if that was the case. Their children were gifted with bright minds. Even though the children appeared to dislike each other, they were the most successful when they worked together as one.
When Ody was suffering, Penny knew how to cheer him up. When Penny was lost, Ody knew what to do.
Picking up the drawings, Mae thumbed through the pages. They were all strange images. The first was what Penny believed Mr. Aldrich's eyes to be, the second of strange figures in a dim light, and the third an image of a plant Mae didn't recognize.
"What is this?" Mae asked. She hoped to engage her daughter in a conversation that didn't confront the grimness of their current predicament.
"Oh, it's just a plant Pa liked."
"What was it called?"
"Cassava."
"I recognize that name."
"Yeah, it's what they blamed his death on. Everyone said it was a suicide where the poison caused him to go crazy, but I knew from the start that was wrong."
"Well, where did all the plants come from then?"
"Oh, Pa was lookin' at them. I asked him once and he told me that the Cassava leaves caused 'partial paralysis.' He said that paralysis caused people's muscles to stop workin'. He said it affected a lot of people and that they were dyin' because of it. It was his job to understand how to reverse this strange type of mental paralysis."
"Do you know who was dying from it?"
"He didn't say, but this was not the first plant he looked into. He told me that the plants were not what was hurting people, instead he said it was the opposite whatever that means. He told me that there was somethin' that hurt people's minds the way cassava hurt people's bodies. He said it was powerful and that he needed to figure out the similarities so he could find the differences. Ya know, it's just all comin' back to me now. I had forgotten about all this," smiled Penny.
"Penny, what else did he tell you?"
"That was about it. It was bedtime then. He asked me to try not to think about it. It was what was best. He told me that someday they would need me, but it wasn't my time just yet. I asked him how I would know when they needed me and he said, 'Don't worry, my little firefly, they will find ya.'"
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The Post Sunday Experiment | COMPLETED 2020
AdventureAfter his parent's divorce, Ody Winter moves to New York City with his mother, leaving behind the rolling hills he and his sister grew up on. Two years later, they learn that Ody's father, scientist Devlin Jax Winter, died from a peculiar suicide...
