Shattered

Shattered



PROLOGUE

May 1, 1981

“Mommy, somebody’s watching us from the woods again.”

Five-year-old Marisa Garcia grabbed a handful of her mother’s pale yellow cardigan sweater as she whispered the warning. The angora knit was fuzzy and soft, and she hung on for dear life, bobbing along behind twenty-nine-year-old Angela Garcia like the tail on a kite as she stared fearfully at the dark shape she was sure she could see hiding in the undergrowth beneath the trees that crowded close to the gravel driveway.

A wind blew through the branches, making them whisper and creak. Marisa looked away, shivering, and tightened her grip on the sweater. There were no lights on in the house yet, no lights visible anywhere because the car headlights were off and they lived out in the country now, with no other houses nearby. Only the moon peeped at them over the swaying treetops, a pale sliver of light that looked as thin as white tissue paper pasted against a dark purple sky.

“There’s nobody in the woods, baby.” Her mother’s tone was of patience stretched thin. Her arms were full of groceries, and she was walking quickly through the grass that was wet from the rain earlier in the day, toward the back door of their small brick house without even bothering to look around at the woods. She thought Marisa was making things up. She always did, because Marisa did make things up. Sometimes.

But not now.

“Yes, there is.” But Marisa said it hopelessly, because she already knew nobody was going to listen.

“Marisa’s a baby, Marisa’s a baby. . . .” That was her brother, Tony, who was almost seven. Swinging the grocery bag he was carrying over his head so that the Cheerios and hamburger buns and bag of potato chips inside threatened to fall out, he danced around, making faces at her.

“Stop, Tony.” Their mother was grumpy tonight, because they were late getting home. It was already full dark out, which meant it had to be getting pretty close to seven, and her dad got home at seven, and if supper wasn’t on the table when he walked in the door, he got mad.

When her dad was mad, he scared her.

Sometimes she knew it was bad to think it, but sometimes she didn’t really like her dad.

“Here, Marisa, take this.” Her mother thrust a grocery bag at her. Her mother didn’t like her hanging on to her clothes. Angela was always telling her that, so Marisa knew that her mother’s giving her the grocery bag was the signal for Marisa to let go. She did, letting go of the soft knit and taking the bag because her mother wanted her to and she always tried to be good, even if she didn’t always succeed.

“I got put in time-out today.” Tony said it as though he didn’t care. He’d been getting in trouble at school and it worried Mommy. In fact, a lot of things seemed to be worrying Mommy lately. She didn’t smile much anymore. Not like she used to.

“Oh, Tony. What did you do?”

Copyright © 2010 by Karen Robards