The Black Craft

I don’t remember the smell of my room or what color the walls were painted, but I do remember the dark. I remember waking up, alert and wide-eyed, to the sound of a woman screaming in the middle of the night. It was so shrill that it felt like pins were piercing my eardrum. I folded back the covers and placed my tiny bare feet on the cold wood floor. Winter was always so unforgiving to my naked skin. I quietly ran to my door and slowly pulled it open, revealing the soft light that floated up from downstairs. The woman was talking now. No, not the woman. My mother. My mother was talking, pleading. I don’t recall exactly what she said but I’m sure it was along the lines of please don’t and don’t do this and I love you.

I opened my door wider, letting the light flood my room. I gingerly made my way down the hallway to the steps and down into the living room. There was no one there. I turned to my right and peered around the corner into the kitchen. That’s when I saw the horror. It was everywhere. Glass was shattered on the white tile floor from our fancy glass cups, sprinkled around like fallen leaves. The wicker barstools were laying on their sides with broken legs. I never liked those chairs. I was too small to sit on them.

My mom was standing wedged in between where the counter from the left and right merged together. Her face was red from the screaming and pleading and crying. I could see where her black mascara ran down her soft, round cheeks and pooled on her chin before dripping to the floor. My eyes shifted from my mom’s face to the person who was causing her to stand in fear.

His back was to me but I knew who it was. My 5-year-old brain couldn’t comprehend it, though. Why was my dad standing and staring at my mom with a knife in his hand? He shouted something at her. Harpy. I didn’t understand what a harpy was but the way he said it, like there was bile in his mouth and he needed to get it out, made me think it wasn’t anything nice.

I debated on whether or not to run up to him and scream at him to not say anything bad to my mom. I wanted to slap the knife out of his hand and hug my mom’s thigh to make her stop crying. But I didn’t get a chance to do any of that.

I remember my dad swinging the knife back behind him and my mom shifting her eyes to me because she finally realized I was there. Her eyes widen as a new found fear surged through her. But she didn’t have time to do anything about my presence. Time for my mom, during that moment, was coming to an end. My dad, at a breakneck speed, lodged the knife into my mom’s abdomen. She screamed again, only this time it was laced with unimaginable pain. My breath stopped and my eyes couldn’t seem to blink. He did it again as she tried to run, he did it again as he shouted bitch, evil slut, whore, and he did it again as she laid face down on the tile floor.

I don’t know how but I found it in myself to turn on my heel and run as fast as I could out the front door and into the cold winter night. I remember seeing my breath come out in huge clouds as I ran harder and harder, my little feet slapping against the gritty concrete of the sidewalk. I ached as I ran further and further away from the death of my mother and my murdering father. I ran so far that I didn’t know where I was and the cold started to seep deep into my skin and muscles. It was like fire, the cold. It singed the tips of my toes and my fingers but I ran.

I only stopped running when red flashing lights appeared and hands wrapped around my arms. I screamed and pushed and kicked at the person who grabbed me but they only brought me into their chest and wrapped their arms around me. Apparently, someone had seen a little girl running down the street in her fairy pajamas with no shoes on at midnight and decided to call the cops. I sobbed into the police officers arms as he asked me what happen.

I don’t remember what I said if I said anything, but they found where I had lived. They found the wreckage that was my kitchen. They found the knife my dad had been holding. They found my mom’s body with 23 stab wounds all over as she laid in her own blood. But they didn’t find my dad. He didn’t take the car. No one saw him leave. He just vanished.

After the official questioning where I had calmed down enough to tell them what I had seen and heard, my aunt was called. The police officer that had found me stood up as my aunt walked into the station. Her pale face was paler than usual and her blue eyes were scanning the room, flicking from everything to the clock on the wall to the woman sitting behind the desk to the officer standing next to me.

“Ms. Craft?”

“Yes, that’s me,” she said. Her voice was light, breathy. Her long red hair swayed at her hips as she came forward to stand directly in front of the officer.

“I’m Officer Pine-” he began.

“What’s happened? Where is my sister?”

Her eyes shot down to me. She was always my favorite out of my mom’s siblings. She smelled like honeysuckle and she brought me obscure candy whenever she visited.

Officer Pine sighed. Sweat glistened against his chestnut skin. It must have been his first time telling someone that someone they loved had died.

“Your sister, Cassandra, has died. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Her husband, Daniel, stabbed her to death,” he said in a rush. His hands twisted themselves together.

Aunt Morgan tried to form words like why and how but nothing fully came out. She eyes filled to the brim with tears quickly as she looked at me. She knelt in front of me and wrapped her arms around my tiny frame as she cried. Sobs filled her body, sudden and jagged, and shook us both. Her hair fell in my face and I smelled her honeysuckle scent. It was like breathing in a warm, sunny day.