“Burn everything you love. Then burn the ashes.” - Fall Out Boy

The fire crackled, snapped, and sizzled, causing sparks to leap through air and shadows to twist and rise. Sofia Margarey Daeys cowered with her knees pulled up to her chest in the cold, lonely shadows of the living room, the fire burning in her wet eyes. Her mother was in the kitchen talking on the phone again, the light tinting her skin yellow. Her mother was talking on the phone that never rang. The phone that was never plugged into an outlet. The phone with no one at the other end. But there must have been someone there, because Sofia’s mother spent hours talking. Talking to a broken phone, pouring her soul out into deaf plastic. Margarey Daeys wept every time. She would purse her lips into a quivering line, dab hastily at her eyes with a threadbare dishrag and steady herself with one hand on the linoleum countertop, propping the phone between her head and shoulder blade the whole time. Sometimes her body shook so hard that the phone would fall and bob on its coil cable, barely grazing the floor.
This was not the part that scared Sofia though. It was after Margarey hung up. She would slide down to the floor with her back against the dishwasher and bang her head in between her knees. Then Margarey would pull herself off the floor and fail to uncork the cabernet. This was usually the point that Sofia would run in and wrap her skinny arms around her mother's scarce waist and press her face into the fabric on her back.  Margarey would fling the little girl off and begin to curse and scream. She would chase Sofia around the house, telling her to go to back to hell, to stop haunting her, to leave her alone! She would rant and yell, throwing things at the child, asking why the Devil had picked her, Margaery Daeys, to torment. Sofia would cry and run through the house sobbing and wailing for her to please stop. After that it was a blur.
But not this time. This time Sofia would stay out of Margaery's sight. She would stay in the shadows. She would give her mother more time to open the fancy cabernet that was only brought out on special occasions. Sofia would go to bed and wait it out in her room with the door locked until the morning. Margaery hung up quickly this time and stumbled into the living room. She fell on the couch in front of the fireplace, her body heaving, and wrapped herself up in a pilled auburn throw. Then she noticed colorless Sofia shrinking into the corner like a flower that had been pressed between pages of a journal for many years and had lost its pigment. She blinked, then slowly rose and made her way toward the fireplace tool set. She picked up the long iron tongs and quietly crept towards the girl as if she were death itself.
“What are you?” Margaery’s tone was cold and deadly.
“Mommy please.”
“I said WHAT ARE YOU!”
“I’m your daughter. Sofia.”
“I don’t have a daughter,” she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Yes you do, Mommy, I’m right here.” Sofia slowly rose, her back against the wall. She moved toward her mother.
“Stay back.” Margarey extended the sharp tongs in front of her with a shaky arm. Sofia came closer.
“I SAID STAY BACK!” Margaery jabbed at the air. Sofia’s eyes were pouring sadness and sorrow. Her voice was thin and whimpering.
“Mommy what's wrong with you? Did you forget who I am?”  Her voice dropped,”Again?” That set Margarey on fire. The little girl seemed demonic in her broken eyes, and her accusation seemed to hold a unknown reference associated with hell. Margarey didn’t know how to respond to something she didn’t fully understand so she just squinted at her daughter, anger rising up in her cheeks and in her hot, dry throat. Sofia edged her way along the wall toward the entryway to the hallway. Margarey kept the tongs pointed at her. Something quiet began to settle; the fire popped and sparks danced through the silent air. In that moment Sofia bolted from the room and ran up the stairs. Margarey hollered in rage and chased after her. Sophia’s socks on the impeccably polished linoleum wood flooring caused her to skid. She grabbed the old metal door handle to her room and pulled and twisted vigorously. It was locked. Margarey stood at the top of the steep hardwood stairs-- one of the fanciest parts of the house-- and panted from the exhaustion of her climb, angry adrenaline thumping through her ears. Sofia picked the largest framed picture on the wall she could find, cracked it, and hurled it at her mother. Shards of glass cut through the air like birds, each one singing, singing to Margarey a song of torment that she could not shake out of her head. The glass sliced her skin, and made her brain shatter in pain. The blood pouring from her was like a hot, sticky, broken fountain, and the mess made Margarey feel momentarily helpless and distraught.
Sofia ran up the stairs at the end of the hall toward the attic. She bolted the door behind her and pulled the lamp chain with a clink. Dust mites hung in the drunken light, and Sofia looked through the beginning of her childhood held in dusty cardboard boxes soft and loose from age. A tear dragged itself down her worn cheek, leaving a salty inflamed trail that burned her skin. Sofia dropped to the floor as gently as possible in between two large boxes overflowing with scuffed and chewed baby toys and grass-stained baby clothes. She let out a sob that held so much force her entire body fell forward. The moon had made it’s own somewhat shabby appearance through the greasy windows, but in some spots pure white light filtered through and cast dots on the floor. Sofia pulled one of the boxes to her and lifted a wide rectangular album with pink padded front and back covers. The pages were filled with faded memories in plastic sleeves-- pictures with too little remembrance to be a memory. Most of the photos were Polaroids of Sofia as a little baby running through fields of sunshine and green, sitting with snowflakes dangling from her long lashes like crystals hanging from a chandelier.
Sofia set the photo album down next to her on the creaky floorboards. She reached into the oily worn box and removed a picture with cracked glass and a rusted antique picture frame. Margarey Daeys, Ashton Daeys, and little Sofia Margarey Daeys stood smiling, the forest swaying behind them to what seemed like the beat of the finale of her childhood. Unlike the others from the pink album, Sofia remembered this day. Her mother had hired a fancy photographer to take a professional picture of them (portrait?) to last through the ages even if they didn’t. And she was right to do so. That night Ashton hadn’t gotten his paycheck that would renumerate the photographer as planned. So Ashton and Margarey offered to repay her in a dinner. There was no food in the pantry; an hour before the sun was about to set, Ashton took his shot gun down from the mantle and slung it over his shoulder. No one ate that night. No one came home with food. Sofia never saw her father. A few days later Ashton was found in a heavily wooded part of the forest, a bullet through one eye and an unblinking reflection in the other.
Was the demon who had been spawned straight from the gut of hell still lurking in her house? Margarey pinched her eyes shut and exhaled, the weakness in her heart carrying out into the drained air. She was dripping blood like a tree with holes drilled into a trunk that was oozing sap. It was not pretty. She was not pretty. Life was not pretty. But she had always bared it prettily, even when everything she held close to her was turned ugly with the reality of existing.
Margarey used the railing to pull herself to her feet. Then, picking her way around scattered shards of glass littering the landing, she made her way into her bedroom. She shakily removed a cigarette from the pack she kept in her bedside table. It took several tries to light the match, but eventually the thin light danced in her eyes, mocking her for being weak. For losing. Margaret exhaled a silver puff.  She let it sting her eyes and clog her nose. Removing the crucifix from the wall above her bed frame, she placed it on her mattress. Then, lifting the carpet, she pulled out a rose quartz switch blade. It was an heirloom that Margarey had stolen from her grandfather as a child and had been too embarrassed to return. She almost used it once to end her life after Ashton died, but then she still had Sofia. Now she was sure she had nothing to live for. Margarey had been a firm believer in the Lord and Savior and had missed only one Sunday mass in her thirty years of life. But now, she was sure that the Bible’s only truth was Satan. God had abandoned her. She was on her own. Again. Hopefully for the last time. Margarey raised the knife and stabbed the crucifix which had also been family heirloom. Her knife slid down the polished wood, but left a long, wide scratch down the figure's abdomen. Margarey brought her bloody lips next to the little statue’s miniature ear and whispered her final prayer.
“You’ve deserted me once before. I thought you had come back for me, to save me. But I was wrong. You only came to torment me.” Margarey stood, brushed herself off, and walked across the room. She kneeled and then placed the wooden crucifix in the empty stone fireplace. She stood up, hovering in the doorframe. A thin, hollow smile settled across her pale face. Margery tossed the cigarette over her shoulder, then smiled at her aim and the sound of crackling wood in the fireplace.
The door swung open, crashing like waves against rocks into the wall. Sofia, who was curled up in a drowsy blanket of her memories, felt her blood suddenly crystallize and prick the insides of her veins from shock. Margery had an almost zombie like gait as she stumbled into the room, the rose quartz switch blade clenched dangerously in her bloodless fist. Sofia felt her body meld with the floor; she couldn’t move. She watched in terror as her mother slowly tripped toward her, realizing the woman who raised her had lost her, had lost herself. Margary crouched down in front of Sophia, holding the switch blade a few inches from her neck.
“Before I send you back to hell… I just want to know… why the devil picked me. What I did wrong…”
“What do you mean, Mommy? The devil hasn’t picked you for anything.”
“He sent you to me.”
“Mommy I never left.”
Margarey slapped her daughter across her inflamed cheek. The sound stayed in the air and Sofia’s cheek turned maroon. Margarey was sobbing.
“My baby is dead, she went to heaven. And you came here from hell.” Sofia’s wet face contracted in confused hurt.
“I never died.”
“Yes you did. I just got the call. Don’t you remember.”
“I don’t remember. I didn’t come from hell. And I DIDN’T die.”
Margery just shook her head slowly, the tears sliding down her jawline to her chin. She reached for her daughter, but Sofia scooted back.
“You were… you were…”
“Tell me what happened,” her voice was tremulous and high. “How did I die?”
“You were playing with the landline. Plugging it in, then unplugging it. The next thing I know you were convulsing on the floor, so I called the ambulance. And it was less than an hour ago that I got the call. That you… That you were dead.” Sophia wasn’t looking at Margaery. She couldn’t see. Or hear. Or feel. She was there though. In spirit.
Sofia felt different. She was beginning to remember. The landline. The game. The pain from being shocked. Then nothing at all. She looked around in shock, the realization of her departed presence chilling her. The attic was empty and dusty. There was an area where the wood boards were rotted and broken, exposing the dark hallway below. The roof had collapsed and moonlight cast eerie shafts of light over the dank corners of the attic. Shards of glass littered the floor and caught the light from where the window panes had been crushed and broken. Sofia turned slowly to see her mother whose arms were outstretched ready as if asking for an embrace. Margaery's wrists had long slits across them, and the parted flesh was damp from the wet blood. Sofia held Margarey's wrists close to her own face, something else traumatically hitting her.
“Mommy, you're dead too.”
Margarey’s features shifted to hide her concern. It was her turn. Sofia held the slit veins up to Margarey’s face. Margarey blinked.
“No I’m not.” Sofia held Margareys
“What’s on my wrists?”Sofia held Margarey’s wrists up to her face. Margarey blinked.
“You can't see it, can you? You died. You committed suicide. You don’t remember.”
“I don’t think there is anything to remember.” Margarey slightly patronized her daughter as she said this.
“You don’t know. Try to remember. Did you cut your wrists?”
It began to come back to Margarey in flashes. Her tears. The call. More tears. The cabernet. The knife. The bathtub. Red billowing from her wrists like ink. Sofia. Then Margarey saw it all: the dilapidated attic, her open veins, her daughter pale as the bones that were almost visible under her thin skin.
“How long have we been reliving this?”
“I don’t know.” Sofia took her mother's hand and pulled her to her feet. Their fingers lacing and locking together, they walked down the rickety stairs, through the peeling painted walls, across threadbare scraps of rugs. Sofia and Margarey looked at each other with an understanding as they paused where sturdy front door and screen to their house had been once, long gone. Then mother and daughter walked out of their house into the dark, silent night.