Layla

The first thing I saw when I came out of my box was Mother. Her face. The daylight was yawning as she held me up; the subtle, pink room enhanced by lamplight and sunset colors. Soft fingertips touched the fragile porcelain of my cheek, smoothed my hair, my dress. She took in my tiny hands and feet. She smiled. 

I took a tour of the house with Mother's arms wrapped around me. My back was to her heart, where I could feel the contented symphony of that organ beat. My legs danced a tap-tapping over the tight rise of her stomach. She chatters in a fashion that makes me think of bubbles billowing into the air toward a bright sun. Most of what I could see were boxes filled with exotic items to my eye. We ended where we began, in the soft lit room. She eases us into a rocking chair and lifts me until we are eye to eye.

"How beautiful you are." she says to me. "I hope that she looks just like you."

When the shadows creep to the front door, so does the one called Father. Mother is rocking me as he enters. She has her eyes closed, but a hint of a smile teases her lips. He snatches it with a kiss much as a wolf traps a fleeing rabbit. Kiss or kill. Mother doesn't seem to mind being kissed by a wolf. On the contrary, she laughs into his face, brave little rabbit, and continues to rock. From her lap I watch him, but he does not acknowledge me. Nor does he put hands or eyes on the life within. He runs a calloused thumb across her cheek then down to cup her chin; he smooths her hair, caresses down her dress. She shivers.

"Happy, darling?" He smiles his wolfish smile as he already knew the answer.

"Oh yes, my love!" She croons on a slight breath. "The house is just perfect!"

In a voice that betrays he is much beyond her years, more than the gray in his hair and his rough-hewn face, he declares, "Then it is yours, for always. Just you and me."

"And baby makes three!" She giggled at her play on words and doesn't notice the change in him, when the guise of the man shifts to the cold predator beneath. She rubs her swollen belly. "I think I'll name her...Layla." It is to be the last time he visits her in that room. In the nursery.

Mother spends her days putting rooms together in the cottage house, humming her happy tunes. At night, she rocks in her chair with me and tells me her secret dreams. She wants Father with her in the storybook cottage and reminds me of a cursed princess, star-crossed with her true love. Father is an important man and married to someone else, she says. He does not love his wife. He claims to her he wants to give it all up and run away with her. Mother knows this isn't true. Father just wants to have his cake and eat it too, she says. Still, she dreams that Layla will save them. The product of their love.

Father visits less and less often as her belly grows. He claims his job or other obligations keep him away. The way he looks at her condition with disdain and the excuses he makes make Mother cry. I was the only one with her when Layla was finally born. She was as beautiful as Mother said she would be.

I am with Layla always, watching over her as she sleeps, playing with her during the day. Mother has everything she needs now. She collected all of her love for Father and showered it on her precious child. She no longer cries for Father, who now rarely darkens the door. It is Layla, Mother, and me. She grows into the most beautiful child, kept from the ugliness of the world safe in her storybook cottage, surrounded by forest and foliage. 

At four years old, Layla loved tea parties, at which I was an honored and frequent guest. She also loved to sit in front of the mirror with Mother, and Mother would brush her hair. Then Layla would brush my hair in the mirror as well. Layla's hair was all spring and curl, rose gold. Her eyes, luminous and dark. They were knowing.

"Goodbye Mother, I love you." She says on the eve of her fifth birthday as Mother tucks her and I into bed. 

"Goodnight, not goodbye, my darling." Mother returns, "Never goodbye between us."

Layla says nothing more as Mother kisses her forehead and leaves for her own room across the hall. The hall light through the cracked bedroom door alights on those knowing eyes who stare at me long into the night.

Layla's birthday dawned with an overcast sky and cake for breakfast. Mother busied herself with putting us in our new birthday dresses, Layla's white and mine pink. Then Layla and I seated ourselves at the table as Mother counted out five candles for the birthday cake with much fanfare and put them on top. The cake was chocolate, Layla's favorite, with pink and white swirls. Father arrived just as Layla blew out her candles, as if the smoke of the snuffed flames had conjured him.

Mother demands to know what he is doing there. He says nothing and I know, the man is no longer there and the wolf reigns. He grabs her by the nape of the neck like the jaws of a predator, the rabbit is not so brave anymore as I watch Mother's eyes widen with terror. She flicks her eyes to Layla briefly and then back to Father. She makes not a sound as he drags her upstairs. Layla abandons her cake save for a swipe from the side, unnoticeable, and takes me out on the front porch to play in the quiet.

It doesn't stay quiet for long. The shouts, the screams; the wolf chases the rabbit. We watch the upstairs window. The chink of broken glass startles us, the splintered glass as fine as a spider's web. Quiet again.

After a time, Father comes out on the porch. His hands are red. He reaches one out for Layla's. Mesmerized by the red on his hands, she doesn't argue and goes with him.

We walk to the woods, the three of us. Layla and Father walk hand-in-hand. I dangle from Layla's other hand. She never lets go. I can feel her shaking as the trees close in around us, dark as Father's clothes. She never makes the sound. Father stops in a copse of trees and looks around. He lets go of her hand and picks up a rock. He studies it. Then Layla let's go of my hand. I fall and my face hits hard on a jagged rock. My china face shatters. It hurts. It hurts.

Father walks back alone, never looking back. I lay on the bed of dry leaves in the forest where I fell, with Layla, broken. Mother comes back at dusk, also broken. She stumbles to where Layla is, picks her up. Her keening wail, like that of a wild animal, pierces the heavy air. She sat and rocked Layla as she used to when she was a baby, a me before that. It took a long time, mother didn't want to leave Layla alone in the dark, in the cold. Then she remembered I was there as she swiped tears off her face.

She touched Layla into the ground she dug with her bare hands. Then she laid the stones on top so that no animals could get to her. No one was ever going to touch her Layla ever again. Not even her. Then she sat me on top of the stones and whisper to me.

"It's time for you to look after her now. Keep her safe."

That's what she always told me. I kept Layla safe until she came back. When Mother would come back, she always brought something; a tea set, a bracelet, the cookies Layla always liked. She would sit by Layla's cairn in the woods and she would spend hours reading aloud, having a tea party with me, singing. It wasn't the same without Layla, it wasn't the same.

The last time Mother came, she cleaned me of the dirt and debris left by the forest. I was cracked, faded, the forest had started to take hold of me. Once I looked more myself again, Mother reached into her pocket. I thought she would take out her book to read to us, but she did not. Instead, she took out a newspaper clipping and began to read: "A mister George Bennett was found in his penthouse apartment late Thursday night, he had eaten cake laced with rat poison. No note was found but police do not suspect foul play and have deemed his death a suicide. The deceased was found by his wife. They had no children." There was a picture with the article that I recognized it immediately. Father.

"It's done." Mother tells me as she fixes Layla's stones. Her hands are red. "But I'm so tired. I just want to be with her." She mourns. "Maybe I will come visit her tomorrow."

As the shadows creep in, Mother leaves me to stand sentinel over her daughter as she trudges back towards the storybook house, now for all, more of a nightmare house. I stand and I wait as days turn into weeks, weeks to months, months to years. The forest takes me, as I suspect the ground has long since taken Layla. I close my eyes and feel the roots growing inside me, taking over. Still I sit and guard my charge. I wait for Mother.