Melissa woke to the chirps of birdsong and the tang of dried blood. She peeled away her clothes, scratching at the red flakes that stuck to her skin. Itchy. For the past few days, she didn’t have the will to wash herself. Now it sounded like a good idea.
Usually, when Teddy forced her to wash, Melissa had to make sure her father wasn’t home before using his bathroom. He said she was supposed to use the restrooms at school, because she wasn’t allowed to use his.
Well, she didn’t have to worry about that anymore.
Melissa turned on the shower. As she waited for the water to warm, she grabbed a towel from her room. Teddy was still sleeping, and the girl didn’t feel like waking her.
Pleasantly warm water pitter-pattered on her skin, pooling down the drain with rust-colored runoff. Her fingers fashioned themselves into claws and gouged at her tangled brown hair. She scrubbed her body for dried blood, cleaning everywhere except the small part of her back she couldn’t reach well.
The shower turned off with a soft click. The curtains swished. Her hair was almost black now, glossed dark with water, and her eyes glimmered with the same light from yesterday. Melissa smiled, and the yellow-stained reflection in the mirror did the same. It was a bright, vibrant tilt, one that she wasn’t used to.
Then, she frowned. The image of Teddy crying tears of blood resurfaced to her mind.
“‘Hurts’...” the girl whispered, remembering what Teddy whimpered in her arms yesterday. Melissa was struck with a sense of unease. What happened while she was asleep? Teddy was hurt, while her own body was fixed. It didn’t make sense.
After she dressed, Melissa returned to the living room. Teddy had fallen from the table. The stuffed toy sprawled on the floor, giving off an impression of helplessness. “You’re awake now,” Melissa noted.
Are you happy? Teddy's voice wasn’t bitter like the last time she asked that question, the morning after Melissa opened the freezer. It was tentative this time, like her feelings actually mattered.
Melissa tilted her head, but it didn’t take long to place her feelings into words. “Mm. Nothing hurts. Daddy is gone.”
Good, Teddy said. She trembled in her arms. You don’t have to say you love him anymore. I’m sorry for trying to force you yesterday. I was so selfish. Do you forgive me?
“M’kay.” Melissa never understood why Teddy kept apologizing to her. In fact, she didn’t understand apologies in general. She only knew that ‘I’m sorry’ was an important phrase she could use to lighten her punishments sometimes. It was apparent to her that adults often gave meaning to meaningless things.
But maybe she was the same as them. When Melissa first opened the freezer, she apologized too, just like Teddy did. For months, Melissa believed her mother abandoned her because her father said so. She didn’t know the truth. She hated her mother for running away.
That day, she found the corpse in the freezer, cut into chunks and frozen in ice.
The corpse abandoned her. Her father said so.
She believed his lies so easily.
Melissa hated her mother so much. She hated her own mother, who was already dead.
‘I’m sorry.’
The girl wondered why she said those words back then, bursting past her lips with uncontrollable tears.
Why did she apologize? What was she apologizing for? Her throat prickled. She knew the answer, the reason far too painful to place into words. Melissa squeezed her eyes shut, trying to calm her breath.
Melissa breathed slowly. The air was gloomy with mildew.
Is something wrong, honey?
“The festival,” she mumbled. It seemed the wish was the only thought keeping her alive. The girl visualized everything about her mother she had buried inside her mind, carving them back into her memories. The times they held each together, the sound of her laugh, the toys, smiles, and her mother’s scent buzzed in her head.
Audrey Cardoso. That was her mother’s name, Melissa remembered.
The festival, Teddy echoed. Her voice shifted to anger, then grief. That damned monster. I can’t let you go, Melissa. I love you. I-I can’t have you go. She mourned as if the girl was already dead.
“I’m going,” Melissa said quickly. “That’s why I’m alive, right? Mommy can come back. I can wish for anything.”
Teddy hesitated. She buried her face into the girl’s stomach. Mommy doesn’t care about that. Honey. Please. Don’t go. You won’t come back.
Melissa shook her head. Nothing could change her mind. Teddy shivered, wrapping her arms around Melissa’s waist.
You won’t come back, Teddy repeated softly.
Melissa ignored the voice, grabbing several bags of potato chips from the floor. She opened two blackish bags and ate breakfast, but her mind couldn’t focus on the delicious flavors. She needed to wish for her mother back, because that was the only thought keeping her alive. Otherwise, what else was she alive for? She didn’t have anything else. The orange dust on her fingers tasted like smoke and sugar, dissolving on her tongue.
Teddy said she wouldn’t come back. Melissa tried to imagine what that meant. If she went to the festival, then she could never go back home.
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Home? As in the empty drink bottles littering the ground, the glass shards beneath her feet, the stench of filth?
She would never return home again.
So what? Melissa didn’t care if she never returned. There was nothing, no one, waiting for her. Only rotten ice.
The pale walls began to morph into gaunt, frozen skin. A familiar face, coated with a sheen of ice. Melissa clutched her head, holding back a whimper. “But the smiling man said you would prepare me, Teddy. Liar. Liar.” Her expression was glazed, unreadable. The glimmer in her eyes faded into a familiar dullness.
…Prepare you? What are you thinking! I only accepted his conditions to save you, Melissa. Taking you to that festival is nothing more than suicide!
The girl chewed slower, chips crunching in her mouth until they turned into mush. She swallowed the last of her breakfast. She stood up, clutching Teddy in her arms.
Honey? Teddy asked as the girl walked outside. The faintest hint of dawn peeked from the horizon. The streetlamps buzzed and glowed, still orbited by moths and other night insects. Where are you going?
The girl clambered down the stairs, ignoring the voice in her head. She reached the traffic intersection.
The speaker buzzed. “Wait— Wait— Wait. Please wait for the crosswalk.” The girl pressed the button a fourth time, and the command replayed with the same monotone. “Wait. Please wait for the crosswalk.”
Did I say something that upset you? Honey? You can talk to me. Where are we going? Be careful! Teddy’s voice crept with panic.
Melissa looked right, then left, searching for oncoming cars. A red palm glared at her from the other side of the street. She scampered across the striped white lines, squeezing Teddy to her chest as she ran. A truck whizzed inches behind her. Her clothes thrashed in the wind. Teddy shrieked.
She ran until she reached a building, red and tall, and she climbed until she reached a door numbered three-nine-five. The girl’s breath wheezed and hitched. Her lips shivered pale. She pounded on the door. The doorknob jiggled as she tried to turn it.
Something shifted behind the door. “What do you want?” Charlotte’s voice whispered, faint with exhaustion, and the woman wept as Melissa jiggled the doorknob again. “Go away.” It sounded like she was pressing against the door, using her body to jam it shut.
“Help me,” Melissa said.
The weeping noise halted. A minute passed before the door swept open. Charlotte’s cheeks were inflamed with red, highlighting the paths of her tears. “Is that you, Melissa? What are you doing here so early? Daan’s still in bed, but come in, come in!” It reminded Melissa of her mother’s smile, how it forced itself wider with each bruise bled onto her skin. Charlotte’s grin was more nostalgic than beautiful, the girl realized. The more Melissa looked, the more pitiful it became, until she had to stop looking because she didn’t want to cry again.
Melissa stepped inside. The air was freezing. Her breaths blew snow into the air, and something was watching her, something she couldn’t see. Frigid hands caressed her body, feeling her skin.
Melissa shivered. A second passed before the sensation dissipated. The unknown presence’s attention flicked away, and the cold abated slightly.
Charlotte coughed. Her skin was almost ice. “So Melissa, is Teddy with you? Is something wrong?”
I’m here, Teddy replied. A lot has happened since yesterday.
Teddy explained what Melissa’s father did to her last night, and how the smiling man offered a choice between two lives. Charlotte’s eyes widened as Teddy confessed to accepting the smiling man’s offer, killing one to save the other. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened,” Charlotte mumbled. “You made the right choice. But… well, I’m sorry you had to decide between them.”
Another apology. What was Charlotte apologizing for?
Thank you, Teddy said thinly. That monster said the condition for saving her was to bring her to the festival. He’s playing some sick joke on me, Charlotte. So I save Melissa, just to see her leave me again? You know what it’s like there. She won’t survive. You barely did.
“The smiling man said you’d prepare me,” Melissa interrupted. “What does that mean?” Frankly, Melissa wasn’t even sure what the festival was, only that it could fulfill her reason for living.
Charlotte pursed her lips. Melissa’s question was promptly ignored. “A sick joke… That’s what it seemed like to me, too.” Her hands rose to her clouded eyes. “I lied before. That monster took my eyes. He knocks on my door every night to remind us what he took from me.” Her voice cracked.
Teddy bristled with anger. What? That bastard…
The woman hugged her legs. Her clouded stare dimmed even further, lingering on a patch of floor. Melissa could barely hear the woman’s voice. “I used to tell stories to Daan. About spectres. The festival. I-I left out the worst parts, but he never wanted to go. I taught him that much.”
Charlotte took a shuddering breath. Her expression twisted. When she spoke again, her whisper turned into shrieks. “But that monster convinced my son by taking my eyes! He said the wish would bring my eyes back! But I don’t care about my eyes, Daan—I don’t care, don’t you understand? Why can’t you just stay with me?” Charlotte sobbed, clutching her face.
Melissa recognized those words. Teddy said something similar, too, how mommy didn’t care about that. Still, nothing could dissuade Melissa from her decision. That wish was the reason she existed in this world.
He wants the children, Teddy said slowly. They’re, children of past winners. Do you remember that cult freak? He was one of them. The winners can’t go again, so he wants the next alternative. Melissa. Daan.
Melissa frowned. If she understood Teddy correctly, then she was ‘legacies’. That meant her father won the festival. Or was it her mother? She found it strange how Teddy would know something like that. Actually, Teddy knew a lot of stuff she didn’t know, and even seemed older than her. For the first time, Melissa was curious who Teddy was. She decided to ask Daan later.
The boy in question burst into the living room, panting. “Mama, are you okay? I heard screaming.” He looked at Charlotte, then Melissa, then Teddy. “Uh, did I interrupt something? Morning, Melissa.”
“Morning,” Melissa said. She stared at him. Now that Daan was here, the previous conversation was conveniently forgotten.
Charlotte hid her face from Daan, wiping away her tears with her sleeve. “No, baby. You came just in time.” Daan gave her a look that said ‘for what?’, but Charlotte was blind. “If her father’s gone now, that means she’s living alone, right?”
Yes, Teddy admitted. But—
“Then let’s help you move out, Melly! Aww~” Charlotte pinched Melly’s cheeks, giggling as she doggedly squirmed away from her. There was no time for Melly to react as Charlotte ushered her out the door.
Then, Charlotte turned to Daan, holding out her hand. “Let’s go!”
Daan took his mother’s hand, and a hint of grief touched his expression. Only he knew how fake his mother’s smile was, the mask she wore to hide her pain. “Careful, mama.” He sighed, gently guiding her forward.
With one wish, he could make her smile real again.