String Lights

Part II: Slaughtered (Chapter 6)

For exactly one month, Mother lived as a dementia patient.

Sometimes, her mental state appeared to be completely normal. She got up at the start of the day. She cooked our rations. She washed our laundry. She read books. She smiled, too, though rarely.

But something had changed. The person I'd known all my life as my beloved mother was beginning to slip away.

She fell into the same, nearly insane states daily, states of uncontrollable shaking and terrified, agonized screaming. She pointed out things the rest of us couldn't see. Sometimes it even felt as though she couldn't even recognize her own daughters.

We never voiced it aloud, but it was evident that we were all thinking the same thing: that Mother, too, had fallen sick to what had already taken a shocking number of our citizens.

Days passed with the Mother's same odd behavior continuing. One day I found her on her knees in the kitchen, tears dripping down her face. I stood in the doorway, hesitating, as she raised a trembling hand to the side of her face, almost as if to check that she was solid. She was breathing quickly and rapidly, whispering my father's name in between gasps.

It shamed me, but out of plain fear I backed away. I knew she wouldn't tell me what was bothering her even if I asked. It was like she couldn't; sometimes it seemed as though she was trying to, but each time she failed to get the words out and changed the subject. I didn't know what was stopping her—perhaps it was fear, too?

Only a few days into her strangeness, Mother shut herself away completely.

It was the day Lia and I came downstairs to find her usual seat in the dining room empty. Her bedroom door was locked, and even as I pounded on the wood, she refused to let me in.

"Mother." Thump. "Mother, how come you're not letting us in?" Thump. Thump. "Why are you doing this, Mother?"

I banged on the door louder, pleading, confused. Lia stood by, biting her lip, on her face the same expression she always wore after an outcome she'd privately expected turned out to be true.

"You'll understand, darling," said Mother's muffled voice. She was hiccuping and sniffling, and it struck me suddenly that she was crying. "It's all for your own good."

"Mother," I said impatiently. "I don't care. Just me let me see you . . . please."

I heard her inhale a deep, shuddering breath, collecting herself together.

"Lia, dear," she said finally, "take your sister and explain this well to her, why I'm doing this."

Lia swiped the back of her hand across her face and nodded. Mother couldn't see her from the other side of the door, but it seemed she took my sister's silence for a yes.

"Good girl. Go on, now. I'll be fine."

Lia took my hand and dragged me up the stairs, pulling me aside into her room. Her metal leg met the floor with a loud clank with each step.

"What's the matter?" I wrenched my hand from her grip, angry and confused. "What are you and Mother keeping from me?"

I was momentarily stunned at the blaze in my sister's eyes. I had never before seen her look so determined, so hard and unfeeling. But the moment passed, and her gaze softened.

"Cricket . . ." She breathed in sharply, then released it. "You're a smart kid. I know you should have figured out what the situation is like by now. And I think . . . I think Mother has, too."

An ice-cold breeze enveloped me, squeezing the air out of my lungs. This was exactly what I'd dreaded.

"No." I stepped backward. "I don't know what you're talking about."