The Grass

It is wide and green — lush; utterly terrifying.

“Daddy!” I call, but he doesn’t hear me. He’s lifting Milly over the soft green grass and helping her to land easily down next to him. They’ve made it beyond the awful layer of bright emerald which I know is littered with prickles underneath that top layer of lies. They — all of those prickles and barbs — are hidden. They’re close to the ground, down where I cannot see, but I know they’re there. Those evil spikes, just waiting for the soft pad of my foot to press down into their trap.

“We don’t have time for this!” Daddy shouts from the other side.

If we don’t have time, why did you leave me behind?

“Come on, quickly now Merry!” he says, motioning me over the grass towards them, with Milly’s hand still in his.

My hand used to be in his. He used to lift me high, far up above the terrible grass and bring me down to a soft landing on the other side.

The Other Side…

I’m at an impasse. I want to crouch and urinate. I want to cry. My dirty hoody is pulled down tight around my face and my sneakers are still an inch from the line of green that keeps me from The Other Side.

“Merry.”  He’s serious now. He says my name like it isn’t a name. I shake my head in my hoody and I don’t budge.

“Merry! We’re going to be late.” Daddy is angry now, and all I want to do is get over this green mine-field and be safe right next to him and Milly. But they are down there — the traps. He doesn’t understand.

He lifted Milly.

He used to lift me.

***

“The bus will be here in five minutes Merry!” Daddy calls from the living room.

I know I’m late but my hair is doing that stupid curly thing that it does when it rains. The hem of my school skirt seems way too long and I have no intention of eating breakfast before I leave. I know I’ll be fine to make it to the bus before it leaves.

Just as I’m coming out into the living room, wondering why Daddy can’t drive me today, I see him on the couch with Milly curled into his side.

He sees me eyeing the two of them. “She’s sick. Don’t be late, okay?”

I nod, but I can feel bile at the back of my throat. I’m mad and I notice there’s no lunch bag on the kitchen table beyond them.

“Lunch?”

Daddy shrugs, “Don’t they have a caf at your school?”

The answer is yes but I don’t give it to him. Milly is falling asleep against Daddy and I am jealous, far more so that I ever thought I was capable of. I want to stay home. I don’t want to go to school. I don’t want to go to the caf. I want to stay with Daddy.

I watch as he holds a finger to his lips — silence.

My backpack pulling my shoulders down, I am met with that foe again — emerald green and stretching further than I could ever, possibly manage.

“Fuck.” I say the word but I don’t know what it means. I know it’s bad — Daddy said I should never, ever say it — but I feel like right now it is something I should say. There is no one around so no one hears me. I say it again. “Fuck.”

I don’t want to go to school but the bus is pulling up and the grass stands between us. “Fuck,” I say, again. It sounds momentous. And yet…

It doesn’t help me cross that awful green sea.

I’m wearing my lace-up school shoes which are seemingly impervious to the horrors that lie beneath the grass, and yet…

I cannot cross it.

The bus pulls away and I am stuck where I am, on the other side of the grass.

The Other Side.

***

I can feel the damp earth underneath the grass — it’s seeping moisture into the skin of my knees and lower legs where I am kneeling. The soft green blades are pressing criss-crossed patterns into my shins and the thick, splintering pole scratches against my inner thighs.

“Daddy?”

I don’t hear him respond, but I can feel my hands above my head and when I try to move them, the rusted chain scrapes against the ring — I look up and it’s a foot above my head, nailed into the wooden pole.

I’m hungry. Thirsty. There’s a pain from my lower back right down to my tailbone and then further.

There’s an ache in the pit of my stomach.

I look down again and my forehead catches on the rough wooden pole. I see a jagged triangle of blood on my dress between my thighs. It fills the space — it should be clean cotton, dotted with yellow flowers, but it’s not. It’s dirty brown-red and it smells.

It reeks.

I feel the need to call out for him again.

“Daddy?”

I hear movement above me as Daddy and Milly prepare for dinner. I want to cry. The blood is slick against my thighs and I know what this is, only because the other girls talk about it. I know what this is.

I'm quiet, because there’s almost no point in saying it out loud. “Daddy.”

I want to say — I need you Daddy.

I want to plead — Come help me Daddy.

I want to beg — Please save me Daddy.

A stab of pain underneath my belly button makes me spasm without warning and a sharp piece of wood from the pole embeds itself in my thigh. I groan. I am a wounded animal.

“Daddy?” and now it is no more than a whisper. I can smell onion and garlic and tomato and herbs.

This is when the sin starts.

I’d heard him say it before but I never knew quite what he meant.

But now —

He knows what it is.

And, with my knees still in the grass, I know what it is.

I’m on The Other Side.