Troubled

THIRTY THREE

CORA PHILIPS

"It is done, she is normal again." That was what the woman said before she left.

Mom's eyes watered as she looked at me, they didn't water because she saw her daughter in pain. No they watered because she could finally stop spending her money on all of these treatments.

"Can I help you get dressed?" She had the guts to ask.

But I don't want to see her, since everything started this was the first time I hated her. I don't want her to touch me. I wanted her to get out.

And that's what I tell her. Her eyes bulged, but she quickly walks away. Leaving me laying down in the middle of the sitting room naked, with slashing injuries stuffed with what I assume was leaves.

The lady burned a few things to create the smoke that made me weak, but my eyes were wide open. I watched her chant a lot of words. My mom was the one who stripped me out of my clothes, I could only watch. For some reason I couldn't struggle. I couldn't tell them to leave me alone. I can't move.

When my mom finished undressing me, she stepped aside, unable to meet my eye. I want to ask why, but I know, she was tired of the woman gossiping around her about her devilish daughter. So instead, she was willing to humiliate her daughter.

The first whip landed on my arm. I couldn't scream out, but it hurt. It felt like a burn. My skin peeled open and blood gushed out. I watched it. I don't know what that whip was, but the lady wasn't stopping her chant. Another one landed on my side. I heard mom whimper. At least she was feeling it.

Blood flowed out of two open wounds on my body and the woman causing them continued chanting in the rushed language only she understood.

Another whip landed on my calf. I was laying on my side so I could see everything. I want to shut my eyes, I don't want to see it anymore. I want to scream in pain because it hurt but I can't. I couldn't even cry. I wasn't made to cry.

One landed on my stomach. By this time you would think the pain had gone numb, but it hasn't. It won't. Every strike the whip made on my body brought a long gash, and blood poured out of it.

I looked at mom, she stood in a corner, inching towards the kitchen. As if she wanted to hide, her hand pressed against her mouth as if suppressing a scream. I want to chuckle. But I can't move a limb. She can't bring a stranger into the house, tell her to do things like this to her daughter then turn around and feel guilty about it. Even after I started to go to miss Suzie.

I cursed my mom for the first time in all my seventeen years of life. I cursed her to rot in the deepest parts of hell.

The woman abruptly stopped chanting. She quietly dropped the whip and bent down to retrieve her items from her bag. I don't know what she was looking for but I felt relief when she dropped the whip. I feel relief that I would no longer feel the pain anymore.

I find my body can move now, maybe it was her chants that held me down. So I face mom squarely, she looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Where is dad and Cory?" My voice was croaked. I don't want them to come home and see me like this.

"I sent them to visit granny." She sounded frightened.

"They will be there the whole week."

I swallow thickly, the whole week. Does she mean she had other things planned other than this one?

"This will sting." The chanting woman tells me.

I scoff, so she was human after all. She didn't say anything before whipping my entire body.

She crouched down to my level. And started to analyze the injuries. Whatever she saw left a satisfied smirk on her face.

"The whipping was to take out the evil spirit. This will make sure they never come back in." She showed me something. It looked like she had pounded a bunch of leaves. What had mom brought to our house exactly?

"You're the evil spirit." I manage to tell her.

She looked stunned for a bit before regaining her composure.

Her fingers pick up a bit of whatever she was pounding, I inch away from her because it smells like gunk, but she shifts forward.

"Let's just get this over with shall we?" Her voice was not soothing.

I scream when she smears it into the one on my arm. I thrash around, what was this? It felt like she put pepper in the open wound.

Mom held me down while she continued terrorizing me with the gunk. She had plastered it on every one of the open gashes before she left me alone

I pant heavily.

"There, don't take a bath until they are dried, or else you may invite the demons back in." She warned sternly.

Every part of my body hurt, no burned. They felt like they were going to fall apart.

But I manage to get up, a cry escape my lips as I felt the pain in it's true form. It was like hell. It felt like she was whipping me all over again. But I wasn't going to stay here, naked in front of her, so I go upstairs to my room. And collapse by the door. My body couldn't take it much longer.

I lay there for as long as I could. I can't cry, I'm still defective and the woman doesn't know anything about her job. I ached all over, and there was nobody to save me from all of these. From me. I don't know how she convinced my dad to leave but she did.

I spent the whole night squatting under my shower. f**k what the woman says. I stay still and wash off everything. My body was on fire, but I would rather be on fire than to let that quack woman control me.

I stay there till my legs shut down. But sat still as the water cascade down my face and down my body.

"Cora?" I hear mom's quiet voice call me.

I don't answer.

"I'm dropping pain relief on your table. Please ensure you take them." My door closed signifying she left.

I turn off the water and make my way out of the bathroom. True to her words there were two tablets of Advil and a cup of water laying there.

I almost leave them to spite her, but the pain was almost unbearable so I take them. My legs were getting heavy from the wounds.

I wrap myself in a bathrobe and lay down on my bed. I wasn't going to think of school today. Everything can go to hell and burn.