Over the years, she’s started to blur into images of the yellow-eyed monster who’s been creeping into every corner of my room, waiting to pounce on me.
But now that I see her face again, all memories of the wooden ruler drift back into my consciousness.
Mrs. Pratt.
She’s a short woman with a plump figure and now sagging cheeks. She’s wearing her usual black skirt and gray cardigan like a timeless figure. She was my and Maya’s nanny for years, but she quit when we were around seven years old because she wanted to take care of the family farm with her husband.
But that wasn’t the last I saw of her. No.
The person who kidnapped me? It was her. She had a male accomplice, who attacked our car, killed my bodyguard, and took me away. I suppose he was her husband, but I never saw his face in that black, dirty hole.
The only person who terrorized me to within an inch of my life was Mrs. Pratt. During the days I was there, she disciplined me with her ruler to the point I can still feel the painful blows against my flesh. While hitting me, she said she regretted not having the chance to use the ruler to ‘correct’ my behavior before. And that she knew I was asking Mom to replace her, which is why she quit before she was kicked out.
I did tell Mom that I didn’t like Mrs. Pratt, because she was so stern and no fun. I preferred someone who’d let me and Maya play instead of always focusing on our curriculum.
What was an innocent request became the reason for my childhood trauma.
People assumed my kidnapper was a man and I let them believe that, not seeing the need to correct them. All these years, my main priority was to make sure she and her dangerous husband couldn’t hurt my family.
That’s all I cared about.
That’s what I lost my voice for and why I’ve never gotten it back.
I believed that if she could kidnap me, kill our bodyguard, and nearly take Maya as well, she could do anything. Our tight security means jack shit to this woman.
Deep down, I thought maybe one day I’d get over the crippling anxiety and devastating fear I felt in the darkness of that basement.
Maybe one day I’d be able to use my voice again.
But seeing her now brings everything tumbling down.
My legs tremble and every fiber in me tells me to run.
Now.
“Don’t even think about it, child,” she says, her voice low and unpleasant.
I never liked Mrs. Pratt. Even before the kidnapping. Call it a self-preservation instinct or pure disdain for stunted people. I just never felt comfortable around her and preferred my Russian teacher at the time. Something Mrs. Pratt didn’t react to so well.
She takes a few steps toward me, her hold on the gun steady, and I nearly hyperventilate.
Stop coming closer. Stop coming…
“Now, tell me, Mia. Did you open your mouth, or—more accurately—your hands to tell that boyfriend of yours about the past?”
I gulp, sweat trickling down my back and gluing my dress to my skin. I can’t move.
I can barely breathe.
As if paralyzed, all I can do is stare at the monster from my past.
A shudder snakes through me and I can barely breathe, let alone think about escaping.
Is this the end?
Finally?
“You couldn’t have, right? It was supposed to be our secret, wasn’t it?” She stares up at me with her lifeless eyes.
I often saw Mrs. Pratt as an educated, normal woman, but it wasn’t until the kidnapping that I realized monsters aren’t only disfigured beings and can take different forms.
Monsters aren’t the work of cartoons and comic books. They’re not even the big buff men with scarred faces that Mom and Dad deal with on an everyday basis.
They could be something entirely different.
An apparently harmless woman with a strong moral compass could suddenly become a monster herself. Or maybe she was a monster all along, but she excelled at camouflaging that part of her.
“I warned you about what I’d do to anyone who finds out, didn’t I? Does that mean you’re ready to see your boyfriend’s blood splashed all over your pretty little face?”
Panic explodes behind my rib cage and shatters all over the ground around me.
Don’t touch him. Not him.
I open my mouth, but none of the words come out. My hands remain limp at my sides as if they refuse to speak anymore.
“You were so good at keeping secrets for over a decade, so what’s changed, Mia? Why are you being stupidly stubborn now?”
I want to open my lips and beg her not to hurt anyone I love.
Please. Not Landon or my parents or…