Edwina Read online

  Lately they had talked a lot about Thomas Bastrup, Marie-Therese's neighbor who had been very sick for weeks, with a fever that didn't seem to go away. And so they did again on this day.

  "It's God's punishment for a sin he has committed, mother would have said," Marie-Therese told the older woman with the curious eyes that saw everything. Even though Marie-Therese really didn't believe things like that, she thought it sounded good, and Mrs. Hansen liked that kind of stuff. She had liked Marie-Therese's mother, too.

  "The good Lord's eyes see everything," Mrs. Hansen replied. "Even the inside of your heart. He knows what lurks on the inside."

  Marie-Therese nodded, but hoped she wasn't right. She didn't like the idea of God knowing what was inside of her heart, or her mind for that matter. She didn't want for him to know the impure thoughts that often kept her awake at night. Thoughts her mother always told her were from the devil, thoughts of sweaty torsos, men in different shapes and sizes, taking her, holding her down and…well the kind of thoughts that were repulsive and had to be kept under the covers in the darkness. Marie-Therese couldn't stand the thought that God should know what was really inside of her.

  "He has to repent," Mrs. Hansen said. "Repent for whatever it is he has done that is keeping his body sick. I have prayed for him, I tell you that. Can't bear to see that poor woman alone with the kids and struggling to keep the house together."

  "Well, there is nothing more you can do," Marie-Therese said before she left the store.

  As she walked down her own street and could see her house in the distance, she realized that maybe it was about time she began focusing on her own life before she was the next subject of discussion in Mrs. Hansen's store.

  In the front yard of her house, she found Edwina, sitting on the doorstep and oh, the horror. Her eyes were closed, she was grunting, and her hand was in her pants, moving inside them, masturbating. Right there outside the house, for everyone to see this…this…atrocity, this impurity.

  Marie-Therese could hardly breathe as she stormed towards the girl and slapped her across the face, then dragged her inside and beat her up with a coat hanger.

  The girl was bleeding when she sent her to her room, still panting heavily from the effort. Edwina was shrieking, almost howling, in her room all night.

  The next morning, Marie-Therese found Edwina lying on the floor where she had left her the night before. She was still whimpering. Marie-Therese kneeled beside her and put a hand on her shoulder.

  Edwina lifted her head and barked at her, startling Marie-Therese, frightening her with those glowing green eyes and breath as cold as the icy winds of winter. Marie-Therese got up and backed towards the door while the eyes of death stared at her, promising her an eternity of screaming and endless pain.

  Marie-Therese closed the door behind her with a gasp, and then locked it with the key, wondering if she would ever dare to unlock it again.

  Chapter Five

  Thomas got worse on the night they heard the girl howl from next door. He couldn't quite distinguish between reality and what was part of his dream, but he was certain he heard her shriek and whine like a dog being beaten. Then he heard her howling all night and it kept waking him up, causing him to shiver in both cold and fear.

  Minna held a cold cloth to his forehead and gave him pills to try and knock the fever down, but nothing helped. The fever kept rising as the girl's howling grew louder. Thomas looked at his wife, feeling strangely dizzy and perplexed, and then he asked her to tell him what he did for a living, since he had tried hard to remember, but simply couldn't. Minna knew then she had to call for an ambulance.

  Thomas was taken to a secluded area, where they told him he would be in no contact with other patients until they were certain he wasn't contagious. They took blood tests and injected all kinds of stuff in him. He saw it all through a haze, a blurry mass of people moving, hands touching him, and distant voices talking to him.

  The next thing he saw was light. He was being taken somewhere on a stretcher, rolling down a hallway with many lights blinding him, and he closed his eyes again, longing for water and sleep. When he opened his eyes again, he saw his wife. Minna was standing next to his bed, talking to a doctor, nodding with a serious look on her face. They didn't notice he was awake.

  "We're going through everything, but I really can't say anything till we have all the results back. I'm sorry, Mrs. Bastrup. I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this," a strange voice said.

  Thomas heard his wife sigh deeply and speak with an exhausted tone to her voice, that only he would recognize.

  "I sure hope so."

  Thomas sensed the doctor leave and fell back into the sea of stars he had been bathing in for as long as he could remember now.

  It was bright daylight when he opened his eyes again. A nurse was looking at his chart and discussing it with another nurse. They, too, didn't notice he was awake.

  "It looks just like it…" one said.

  Thomas blinked his eyes, trying to focus, but his eyes wouldn't obey him. He saw the two nurses in a distant blurry picture between his half shut eyes. He couldn't see their faces properly, but their voices he could hear loud and clear.

  "I know. It's terrible," the other nurse said.

  "I mean, he has all the symptoms of HIV. His immune system has completely crashed."

  "Sure sounds like it," the other nurse replied. "Poor guy."

  "Poor wife, I'd say."

  "Yeah. Especially poor her."

  As the voices again became distant, Thomas dozed off, wondering like he had so many times since the fever started, who he was and what he did for a living. The next time he opened his eyes for just a few seconds before he dozed off again, he wondered who that girl was, sitting next to his bed, holding his hand and crying. Then there was nothing but blackness again and Thomas began wondering what was reality, the blackness and stars or the glimpse of light and people that he saw every now and then.

  Slowly, the doctors managed to reduce the fever, and soon Thomas had more awake hours. He still couldn't remember much about himself and his life, but he managed to talk to some of the other patients and realized that they all had HIV and needed help to boost their immune system. No doctor had told him yet that he had HIV, but he was beginning to fear it.

  As the fever abated, he was overtaken by an anxiety that wouldn't leave. The girl had been back a few times since and he still didn't know who she was. One day he asked her.

  She gave him a deeply disappointed look and ran out of the room in tears. Then he wondered if she could have given him this awful disease. Had she given him this HIV?

  When his wife arrived later in the day, he asked her.

  "There was a woman here earlier. Do you know who she was?"

  Thomas might as well have punched Minna in the stomach. She was struck by such a pain it hurt him as well. Minna bit her lip. "I thought you might want to tell me?"

  "But I don't know. I don't. That's why I'm asking you."

  She searched his eyes, as if to make sure he was telling her the truth. "You really don't know, do you?" she asked, looking like every word that left her lips cut her with blades on their way out.

  "No," he answered.

  Minna sighed deeply and closed her eyes like she was embracing herself. "She's someone you've been with. You both work at the same company. Apparently, the two of you were in love, if I'm to believe what she has told me so far." Minna drew in a deep breath. "She came when she heard you were in the hospital. She was here one day when I arrived. I only had to take one look at her before I knew who she was, what she was." Minna paused and inhaled deeply. "How dare you, Thomas!"

  Minna swallowed her pride and pressed back her tears. Thomas might not have been able to remember many things, but he did remember what she looked like when she was holding back her tears. He grabbed her hand, but she pulled it away.

  "I'm sorry," he said, not remembering what he was saying sorry for. "I'm so, so sorry."

  Chapte
r Six

  Marie-Therese had no idea what to do with Edwina. She thought about her while swallowing her penicillin pill, which she had gotten at the doctor's earlier in the day to fight an infection in her toenail, with a glass of water.

  Ever since the incident on the front step of the house and the following day when Edwina growled at her like a rabid dog, she had kept the girl locked up in her room, not daring to let her out. They had called from the school and asked where she was and Marie-Therese had told them she was ill, which in her eyes wasn’t far from the truth. She had Ida bring her food and water, but didn't dare to walk in alone again. She considered calling the social worker, but dropped the idea again, since she would only lose the money and have to go back to work again. She really didn't want to have to do that.

  Now she was standing outside Edwina's door and putting her ear carefully to it, in order to hear if she was making any sounds. After the growling, she had been so quiet in there for days, almost two weeks, in fact, and Marie-Therese had started wondering if Edwina might be sick. She could hardly ask her, since she couldn't answer and she didn't dare to go in there and check on her.

  Ida, who saw the girl on a daily basis, had told her Edwina seemed fine, that she had given her some paper and crayons and, ever since, Edwina had been busy drawing and coloring. It filled Marie-Therese with some sort of relief, but she was still a little uneasy. You're overreacting, she thought to herself, afraid of turning into her mother, believing all kinds of foolish things, especially superstitious things. It had made Marie-Therese's childhood a living hell, and she was not going down that path.

  As she stood with her ear against the door, she suddenly heard a scraping on the other side of it. It sounded like nails being dragged across the wood. Marie-Therese gasped and pulled her head away from the door. Did Edwina somehow know she was standing on the other side? Did she know she was there?

  Marie-Therese gasped again and pulled away from the door when she suddenly heard a moaning coming from inside the room. A moaning sounding like…oh, God, no, not inside of the house!

  Marie-Therese picked up a broom leaning against the wall, fumbled with the key, and then blew the door open. Inside the room, she saw Edwina, sitting on the floor, grinning from ear to ear, her hand in her pants while staring mockingly at Marie-Therese.

  "Not in this house," Marie-Therese yelled, and swung the broom at Edwina. She hit her several times in the head, but the girl didn't move, nor did she stop what she was doing.

  "Stop! Stop! Stop!" she yelled frantically, while swinging the broom again and again. "You disgusting little bastard, you monster, you…you…Filthy…"

  Marie-Therese had to stop for breath. The girl didn't seem affected by the punishment at all. Marie-Therese felt like crying. She stared at the broom lying next to her.

  "Oh, Lord," she mumbled, thinking of all the times she herself had been beaten by the very same broom by her own mother. "I am about to become her. This is turning me into her."

  The realization felt worse than expected. But since everything else she had done so far seemed to be useless, Marie-Therese felt she had no choice but to turn to the only thing she had left. The only thing she would have thought she would never have to do again, not after her mother was gone.

  Slowly, she sank to her knees and began to pray.

  "Oh, Holy Spirit, I ask of you to forgive this girl. Please, help us all," she muttered, while grabbing the cross hanging around her neck that her mother had given her to protect her. She pulled it out so it became visible and, as she did, she heard the girl hiss, sounding just like a cat. Edwina pulled away, as if a strong force had punched her backwards. She was staring at the cross with her strangely glowing eyes.

  Marie-Therese lifted the cross even higher and held it in front of her face to protect her while she backed out of the room and locked the door behind her. Then she stormed towards the attic and found her mother's old chest and dragged it down to her living room. She pulled out every cross, every holy relic that her mother used to have hanging all over the house and that Marie-Therese had pulled down as soon as she died, happy to finally be able to live without them staring at her or constantly reminding her that she was a wrongful person, that she was bad and that God was seeing it.

  Now, for the first time, she understood her mother's obsession with these things, and finally she understood how they weren't there to condemn her, but to protect her.

  She made her bedroom dresser into an altar, with a statue of Virgin Mary in the middle, surrounded by crosses and candle lights and then she kneeled in front of it, praying all night for the Holy Spirit to protect her from the evil she had let into her own house.

  Chapter Seven

  Linda missed her father terribly. With him in the hospital, she was left to the mercy of her mother, who ran around the house stressed out and exhausted, moaning and complaining about how she had to do everything around here.

  So Linda decided to stay as far away from the house as possible during the afternoons when she came home from school. In order to avoid her mother's bad moods and temper tantrums (and all the sighing and crying when she thought she was alone, asking why, why and saying, Thomas, you bastard out loud) Linda spent more and more time in her tree house that her dad had built for her and her brother in the yard. Her older brother Dan was too big and too old (and way too cool) to come up there anymore, so now only Linda played in it, which suited her fine, since her teenage brother always seemed so mad lately and bossed her around just like her mother. Maybe it was just what happened to people when they grew up, Linda thought to herself, when she was sitting in the tree house, playing with her Monster High doll, putting a new dress on the doll. She stared out the window of the tree house, while thinking that if that was the case, she certainly wasn't gonna grow up anytime soon, if at all.

  Linda grabbed her backpack and found the pastry she bought at the bakery on her way home from school. Now was as good a time as any, she thought, and let her teeth sink into the crisp, yet creamy delicacy. Her mother didn't like that Linda spent all of her weekly allowance on cakes and candy, so Linda made sure to eat it in secret. Linda closed her eyes and tasted it with guilty pleasure. At only ten years old, Linda was too aware of exactly how many calories she was consuming at that moment. She had spent her summer in fat camp, and her mother was constantly teaching her about how many calories were in this and how many in that. Linda was very well aware that she was now adding five hundred twenty calories to her diet today that she didn't need. But she didn't care. It was her mother who did. And since her father became strangely ill, Linda's appetite for unhealthy food had increased. But it didn't feel as good to eat the pastry as it used to. If it was the secrecy or the guilty feeling she was left with afterwards, Linda didn't know. Maybe it was a little of both. It just didn't feel as comforting as it used to. It actually seemed to fill her with even more sadness afterwards than before she consumed it. Linda swallowed the last bite, and then looked out the window to the side that faced the neighbor's house. While chewing, she wondered about the girl…Edwina, was it? Yes, she believed it was. Where had she been for the last few weeks? Linda hadn't seen her at school or in the yard of the house. She wondered if she too had become sick. Linda sighed, feeling sad in her heart for her daddy. Was he ever going to become well again? Was he ever coming home? Everything had changed so drastically ever since he had been sick, and Linda didn't like any of it. She wasn't used to hearing her mother cry; she was used to laughter in the house, and whistling…oh, how she missed her father's whistling in the morning.

  Linda licked the white sugar off her fingers one by one, and then paused. She had seen something. What was that? In the window of the house next door. Was that the girl? Was that Edwina? Well, yes it was, Linda thought to herself. She recognized the lump on her forehead and the green eyes. But, what was she doing? She seemed to be looking at Linda through the window and pointing at her. Was she laughing? Were those small pointy things her teeth?

  Lind
a suddenly felt her heart racing rapidly in her chest. It felt like her throat was closing somehow, and she couldn't breathe properly; she was choking.

  Oh, my God, she thought, panicking. I have something stuck in my throat. A piece of the pastry had to have stopped on its way down and somehow gotten stuck.

  Linda gasped for air, then tried to cough, but couldn't. She grabbed her neck, as if she could somehow pull the piece out from the outside. She felt her face was turning red, how the blood stopped circulating in her veins. Frantically, Linda tried to run towards the door of the tree house. She saw her mother in the kitchen doing the dishes. Then it felt like her heart stopped. The tree house started spinning; the yard beneath her looked like a sea with waves of grass rolling across it. Then she saw the sky above, the deep blue sky, then the treetop, then the yard again, and soon Linda realized she was flying.

  Chapter Eight

  Minna knew right away when she heard the thump. She couldn't explain how, if it was a mother's instinct or just experience, but she knew. She knew her daughter had fallen from that wretched tree house that she had hated ever since Thomas built it for the kids. Back then, she had known that one day one of her kids would fall from it and end up in the hospital.

  As soon as she heard the sound, it felt like she stopped breathing. She dropped the dish she was cleaning back in the sink and didn't care that it cracked. With her heart pounding in her chest and an anxious feeling, she ran into the yard, not caring that she was still wearing Latex gloves and an apron saying: Be good to me or I'll poison your food that Thomas had given her for Christmas.