Page 5 of Threads Of Madly Whispers

“Yes, luck.” His voice is soft, thoughtful. “He believed that this necklace would help them find each other again, no matter where they were. And you know what? They did.”

My brows furrowed in confusion. “But how, Papa?”

“Whenever you think your mama and I are not there, remember, flower, we’ll always find our way back to you. And you’ll always find your way back to us—just like your grandpa found your grandma, no matter the distance.”

I look up at him, my heart swelling with the love in his voice, and I smile wide. “I love it, Papa.”

He smiles down at me, his arms wrapping around me in a tight hug. “And I love you to the heavens and back, flower.” His voice is soft but certain, a promise written in every word.

Rivers well up in my eyes as my hands clutch the necklace around my neck. The only thing I have left of him. An anguish of what once was makes me want to choke. I am living in my own hell, made of chains thick with blood and pain. It is such a draining emotion to feel everything and nothing at once. To want to die, yet the courage to slips through my hands like a damning coward.

A finger taps my shoulder, all the while making the memory fade to gray, and I turn to find Naseria standing behind me.

“Are you okay,my love?” perturbation and incertitude paint her face as she moves over to sit beside me. I give her aweedy smile and a nod, but I can tell that it is not ample for her.

“Let’s try that again and do not bother with a lie,Odessa Fontaine,” she says sternly.

“Are we using my baptismal name now?” I tease and she gives me a blank stare. “Tough crowd, huh?”

“Your confessionals,” Naseria demands. It is all concern and worry she has for me at times and I deride that. I spurn being a burden in her life, or anyone’s, for that matter. Her hands grasp mine, an act to encourage or perhaps coax me to speak.

It is said talking helps at times, but I call nonsense. Talking does not always puzzle up problems, especially mine, because the dead can not be brought back.

“What are you, a priest?” hersternnessmelts away to a smile that threatens to stretch her lips to her eyes.

“I’m your…let’s call itPandora’s box, filled with secrets, ghosts, and all the things you’d never dare speak aloud. After all, what are friends for?”

“To gorge on terrible food and binge-watchFriends,” She laughs, her voice light, the kind of laughter that makes everything else fade away for a while.

"That, and to bear the hardships of your gremlins and woes. I’m not here merely for the sparkle, but for the shadows that come alongside it. So go on, unravel it all."

With a friend like her, I could not need more.

“I was thinking aboutPapa, so my thoughts are rathertroubled.”

Unshed tears cloud my eyes again, and a similar sadness to my own mirrors in her eyes. He might have been my father, but he loved her like his second daughter. Naseria throws her hand over my shoulder, pulling me into her arms. An embrace that is soothing.

"You are not alone, and you never will be, not if I can help it. So, take off your mask and let yourself crumble, because I’m here. You have me. Never forget that."

"I know," the words escape my lips, heavy with sorrow.

A quietness settles between us, silent but all-encompassing, as we stay in the comfort of each other’s warmth. Moments turn into minutes, and as the time to part draws near, a bittersweet realization gnaws at me that I might have lost them, but I still have her. And for the first time today, I feel just a little better.

Chapter 3

Wild Rose

The Haunting of Silence

I swing the door wide, the hinges groaning in protest, their groans worn and jagged, slicing through the air of the deadened, stifling night. The sound seems to stretch and echo through the vacant, hollow street, where the only light is the scattered, reluctant glow of a few bucket lamps casting weak, half-hearted halos in the corners of the world. This neighborhood—safe, they say safe in its decay, in its quiet. The houses are ancient, their walls crumbling under the weight of years,of secrets, of chanted regrets.There is a worn beauty in the way time has claimed them, a kind of tragic poetry that speaks in cracked windows and rotting wood. Somehow, it feels right. Like this place is a forgotten relic of a story that’s been abandoned by the rest of the world.

The door closes behind me, its finality an iron lock in the dead-end night. I turn the key, the click sounding too loudly in the quiet as the house greets me with its oppressive silence. It's an eldritch stillness that surrounds me fromall sides, suffusing every corner and every shadow. There is comfort in it, yes, but not the kind of comfort that soothes, it’s a comfort born of familiarity, a comfort coiled in dread. The last thing I want tonight is his voice, mean and prying, hurling a thousand questions at me, demanding answers I do not wish to give. What’s been done, where I’ve been, who I’ve seen. The accusations hang in the air like poison, vile and rancid.

The house is cramped, and even in its mess, it feels tighter, more than I care to admit. Beer bottles, discarded and abandoned, gather dust on the dining table, while his unopened mail lies strewn across the surface. The scent of yesterday’s leftovers floats around, stale and sour, a reminder of the neglect that clings to everything he touches. My hand itches to clean, to organize, to restore some order to the mess, but what’s the point? I could scrub every inch, but it’s as futile as trying to clean the stain of blood from a floorboard—he never notices, never cares.Heis the living proof that some things can not be fixed, not even by hands that care.

Two bedrooms, a shared bathroom, and an open living space, the bones of this dark townhome are as thin as the air I breathe in this place. It’s not much, but it’s what I have. I walk down the narrow hall to my room, each step heavy with the memories I can not escape. The floorboards creak beneath me, groaning in time with the gnawing distress I feel. I do not bother with the lights—the darkness is my only ally here. I shut the door behind me and press my back to it, allowing the breath I did not realize I’d been holding to slip out in a shaky, rattled exhale.

Living with him is like walking barefoot through a field of broken glass. His actions at first were so carefully hidden,but later turned venomous. He started as a shadow, a quiet figure, but even shadows reveal their true shapes when the light hits them long enough. His true nature, once enshrouded beneath the layers of charm and pretense, began to peel away, slow at first, and then all at once. The facade cracked, flaked off like rotting skin, until there he was, bare, exposed, a monster dressed in flesh.Mamaalways said the devil wears a smile, one so sweet, so honeyed, that you do not realize it’s a snare until you’re already caught. He came to me with sweet words, with promises in velvet, with the illusion of safety, of love, offamily. And only when I fell, only when I was already sinking, did I realize that the net he promised was made of nothing but lies and cruelty. Of claws and fangs.

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