Page 9 of Traces of Her

Five

ROWENA

Seventeen Years Old

I CAN CONFIDENTLY SAY THAT being cleansed with singing and a bleach bath is a crock of shit. For the past year, every Sunday I’ve been cleansed of my supposed sins. I had no sins to be rid of, none that were important at least. All her little ritual had done was strip me of any emotions or feelings. I was Maggie’s replacement and Rowena’s ghost. Now, I was just simply a ghost. The longer time went on, the farther away I drifted from life; from an identity.

After the night Phil raped me, I was locked in my room for a month, except for the bathroom and showers. Janet served my food to me, allowing no contact between Phil and I. It didn’t last long. After my thirty-day lock-up, Phil slowly started visiting me again, shoving his nasty troll fingers where they didn’t belong. But, just like the cleansings, all it did was leave me completely numb.

Although, there was one single emotion that lingered, simmering just below the surface. One that they could never take away from me.

Rage.

I’ve been planning for a year now and things were finally coming together. They were both going to get what they deserved; I was going to burn this motherfucker to the ground, and I was going to get out.

My room has been unlocked since early this morning when Janet first woke up. She’d been doing this more frequently since we had started our Sunday cleansings and Phil learned to keep his secrets well hidden. A word was never spoken again of that night and somehow it worked for everyone in its own way. Phil was a golden husband and visited me when he wouldn’t get caught, but he never tried to stick his dick in me again. Janet got this sick satisfaction from scrubbing me with bleach. It’s almost as if it made me pure and good in her eyes. And somehow the cleansings earned me more freedom. Like it provided some type of reassurance in her warped mind that I would just continue living like this.

She’s wrong.

Dead.

Fucking.

Wrong.

Clear, ice blue eyes stare back at me coldly through the mirror, void of any emotion. My silky white-blonde hair lies just above my waist, thin and straight. My natural pale skin has slowly taken on a translucent appearance from the effects of the bleach. I looked ghostly, like a figment of one's imagination, one that might appear in a dream. I stare intently, fearful that I may vanish into thin air, right in front of my own eyes.

I take a step back, away from the bathroom counter, hearing Janet moving around downstairs, talking to someone on the phone. Giving myself one last look, I abandon my reflection in the bathroom mirror and make my way downstairs to see where Janet is. Her voice travels down the hallway and I follow it, leading me into the kitchen. When I walk through the doorway into the kitchen, we almost collide into one another, stopping short in front of each other as she ends her phone call. She lets out a small yelp and jumps, staring at me with wide eyes.

“You almost gave me a heart attack, child!” she cries. “You’re so quiet, never making a sound. I never know where you might be!”

“Sorry,” I say, sheepishly, ducking my head. She’s a liar. She always knows where I am. I’m always right here, in this house.

She adjusts her oversized purse on her shoulder. “No, no. Don’t be sorry. I should have been looking where I was going. It’s okay.”

I nod, stepping into the kitchen in search of breakfast, finding a stack of pancakes sitting on the counter.

“I’m just going to run to the store quickly and to the post office to pick up your diploma. Your father is working from home today, so he is in his office, but I won’t be gone long anyhow,” she says, starting down the hallway. Since he can’t spend an evening without liquor on his breath long enough for Janet to run errands, he works from home the days that she needs to go out. They give me more freedom to roam throughout the house, but I’m never to be trusted here by myself.

I wouldn’t trust me either.

“Okay.” I nod, following after her quietly.

“We can find something for us to do when I get home. I’ll get something from the store.” She reaches for the keypad by the front door and stops, looking over her shoulder at me. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I shrug. “I wanted to grab a sweatshirt. I’m cold.”

“It’s the middle of the summer. How are you always so cold?” she prods like I know the fucking answer. I shrug. “Just go,” she sighs, pointing upstairs.

I make a point to make my footsteps be heard and rushed as I fly up the flight of stairs, with her eyes on me the entire time. When she thinks I’m out of sight, she turns her back and reaches back for the keypad. I float down the stairs, quickly and quietly. Her fingers punching in the code is directly within my eyesight. With each number, my sense of freedom grows, flourishing in the main key to my escape.

The code is exactly what I had suspected. Maggie’s birthdate.

With adrenaline, satisfaction and the need to escape, I scurry down the hallway into the kitchen without ever being noticed. I was one step closer to getting out; one important step closer. I had everything I needed; all the pieces were falling into place. Now all I needed was the perfect time, the perfect moment to carry out my plan.

It was time for Maggie to finally be laid to rest.

And it was time for Rowena’s resurrection.

I’ve spent enough time living my life as a ghost.

That time was slowly coming to an end.

And so was theirs.

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