See No Evil

Martha doesn’t want to sit down. She eyes her father from the stairs—sees her mother walking back and forth in the kitchen. She knows all too well what tonight is going to be.

“Martha,” her father calls from the dinner table, not looking up from his newspaper. “We had a long talk earlier about what happened.” She sits frozen in the clammy silence.

“You can come to dinner now,” he continues. “There’s no use trying to hide.”

From behind her, a thump sounds at the top of the stairs. She turns to see her brother looking down at her. She knows he can only see the terror showing through her face. He croaks, slowly descending the stairs—each step thumping like the slow gong of a tribal drum.

She can’t move.

“Darling,” her father pushes aside his newspaper with an elbow. “Our daughter doesn’t want to eat with us at dinner.”

Mother looks at Father, a grave look sinking into the wrinkles of her skin. She stops the burner and looks up at her daughter. Martha can’t tell if its rage or sadness flickering behind her mother’s eyes.

“You know what has to happen,” father says. Mother closes her eyes. “It’s the only choice we have.”

Martha looks to the entrance—a space the outside world would call quaint and comfortable. He had already gotten mother to put the chains over the door. The curtains are shut fast. She knew something had gone wrong when her phone upstairs was disconnected—the landline cable severed. Mother must have done it in the afternoon before she got home.

Martha flinches as her brother grabs her from behind, wrapping his long, lanky arms around her torso, and drags her off.

She’d heard sounds from her parent’s bedroom that morning. That’s where this all started. She’d continued getting ready for classes, gathering her things, and almost didn’t think twice as she left through the back door. But as she walked through the garden, around the corner of the house where her parents bedroom lay, she heard the sounds even louder.

She saw in through the window. Her parents were doing something she didn’t understand, and whatever it was, the sounds, the shifting in the darkness horrified her—but she couldn’t look away.

Suddenly they stopped. Her father saw her, and she ran. They’ll probably think I was just passing through. If they ask, I don’t have to tell them anything.

But those words were no comfort to her the rest of that day, as the lump in the back of her throat continued to rise. As her brother holds her down in her chair at the dinner table, the lump feels like it’s about to block her breathing—her heart pounding like a freight train.

“You remember, Martha, what Jesus said.” Martha can only stare at her father as he gets up from his chair. Mother brings out the sick bowl—the one usually reserved for when the flu is in season. There’s a large spoon sitting at the bottom of it.

“Christ stood at the top of that mountain, and he preached.” Father looks at her with piercing eyes, and she anticipates the sermon that’s only just beginning. He adjusts the collars around his prosthetic hands without blinking.

Brother continues to hold her down, as Mother walks around the table to her right side, reaching for the spoon.

“Christ said, it’s better for part of you to be thrown away, than for your whole body to be cast into hell…”

Mother is mouthing the words in unison with him. Martha glimpses the stump of her severed tongue that peeks from behind her teeth.

“So if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.”