Secrets, Lies and Dragonflies

Chapter 40

Suspended thirty feet above the water, my heart races at what might be on the other side of this door. Could it really be her? I reach for the handle, my limbs weak with lightheaded nerves barely capable of turning the knob.

When I step into the stilted restaurant, my knees weaken instantly. Expecting to find walls covered with photos of fishermen or old buoy markers and crab traps, the restaurant has instead transformed into the most haunting of places. Standing in the foyer of the home I once shared with mom, Spencer and Rob, a voice calls from the top of the stairs, "Mackenzie, you've come."

Her face finds mine. Her smile. The dimple on her cheek. How can this be?

"Mom?" My quivering voice questions what I know cannot be real. "Is it actually you?"

"Come. Come to me," she says, waving from the landing. Her voice, it's different. But that face. That beautiful face. It's unmistakable.

I race up to meet her, my eyes lock onto ones as black as coal. She immediately reaches for my hands, her cold grasp sends a chill up my arm. "Why, Mackenzie? Why, Mackenzie? Why did you do it?"

"Mom?" I say. "Please..." My vision begins to blur from tears welling. "Is this really you?"

A black abyss stares back at me, only to keep repeating the same mantra, "Why? Why, Mackenzie?"

A door slams from behind. Flush with fear, I spin to find my old bedroom door shut. "Who's there?" I shout. In those seconds, my mother's cold grip fades from my arm and she disappears from sight. Frantic that I've lost her again, my fears shift as her faint chanting restarts.

"Mackenzie. Why?"

Leaning over the guardrail, I find her laying on the floor of the foyer below.

Racing down, this moment is one I've lived before. It's the one I buried the day we buried her. Sprawled across the tile, I gently lift her head and sweep dark brown strands of hair away from her face. A crimson liquid pool has already saturated the ground. "Mom. No. Stay with me. I'm here. I'm so sorry mommy. Please mommy. Don't leave me."

"Mackenzie!" someone shouts.

The taste of salt tinges my tongue as I pick my wet face up and find Isabella standing over me, her ice making stick drawn.

"Now what do we have here?" she says, coyly, her darted stare moving away from my mother's limp body to the top of the stairwell.

"All alone are you? Or do you have the rest of your band of misfits hiding?" a menacing voice replies.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Isabella shoots back, not relinquishing her gaze. She bends down, blindly feels for my arm and yanks me to my feet. "Mackenzie, get behind me."

"Wait. What?"

"Now!" she commands, bulldozing her way in front of me without apology.

"No. You don't understand. This is my mo—" But before I can finish, my mother is gone. "Mom?" I whimper, the pangs of sudden loss wrench inside my chest. Again.

I follow the focus of Isabella's unyielding scowl to find the most terrifying figure leaning over the rail above.

"Oh poor little Mackenzie. What's the matter? Did you think dear old mommy here would ever forgive you?" My stepfather says, eyes the color of charred wood shift from Isabella to me then back to her. His tone is off, but his distinct smirk sends shivers through me just the same.

Miraculously recovered from her deadly fall, my mother stands beside him, hair dripping with blood. "Do you know why you did what you did? You hurt me."