I was born a bastard daughter in India, my mother bearing me out of wedlock. She had cheated on her husband, a noble rich man who held great influence in upper society. Back then, I would’ve been an outcast, perhaps even barbarically killed on the gallows, had it not been for my mother covering up my true undesirable identity my entire life.
I remember that horrible day so vividly. My heeled shoes reverberated loudly off the palace’s white marble flooring, the warm springtime air refreshing and bright as I walked with my best friend, Kayva. Spring time was always a beautiful time of year.
The constant high pitched blaring of vehicle horns was pushed into the back of my mind as we strolled, giggling and laughing with childlike immaturity. Collapsing into each other’s arms in heaps of laughter, we descended the palace steps and slipped through the iron gates, onto the crowded, stench-covered sidewalk.
“Have you talked to Vikram?”
“What? No!”
“Oh yeah sure, like you wouldn’t wanna spread your legs for him!” Kayva giggled, her voice breaking down into bubbling cackles that caused heads to turn. She buried her head into my shoulder to suppress her hilarious outburst, her traditional pink silk dress flowing underneath her soft brown hair.
“Oh shut up, Kayva! He’d never be with a love child like me anyway!” I gasped, realizing my horrible mistake. My face turned beat red, my cheeks heating up in intense embarrassment. Kayva’s head shot up, her laughter ceasing to stunned silence. Her mouth was agape, her eyes widened.
“No! Not you Prisha!” She stared at me, “Tell me it’s not true!” My mouth was dry, unable to move. My life of luxury was about to end, I knew it. No one in high society could be born out of wedlock and be accepted. It could ruin my parents reputation!
“Kayva…” I reached out a hand, but she pulled back in disgust.
“Do your parents know?” Kayva asked. She was retreating slowly.
“No! Please keep quiet, I’ll do anything!” I begged, hot tears streaming down my face. Kayva bit her lip and shook her head in repulsion, turned and began to run. I screamed her name as I chased her through the gate and up the steps. I collapsed in a heap as I realized that I spilled the one secret, the one thing I was told to never, ever let out.
I laid there until sunset, when a guard picked me up. A mustached man.
“Prisha, your mother is demanding to speak with you in the bedroom.” He told me. I got up and began the long walk inside. It felt like it took forever, that walk. I don’t know how I did it. In hindsight I should’ve ran away, but where? Where was a twenty year old girl to go to? My thoughts raced as I entered my bedroom, the hallway leading up to it feeling as long as a cricket pitch. My chest tightened up as I poked my head in, seeing my mother seated on the bed, her eyes rimmed red from crying.
She looked up at me, with the most hateful eyes I have ever seen.
“Your father has disowned you. Your royal father, not your real one. He disowned you long ago. And I don’t blame either of them. You’re worthless, Prisha. Every breath you draw could be better spent on an earthworm or a snake.” She scowled at me, her fists balled up so tightly her knuckles were ashen white. A strange humming sound filled the room but I could not place it. My mother seemed… different, but I could not place why.
“I ask one thing of you, Prisha!” Tears began to well in my eyes but did not fall.
“Mother…” I said softly.
“ONE!” Her scream was so loud that it caused the walls to ring. I flinched, fear coursing through my veins. I felt a lump form in my throat; it was painful and stabbed my neck with each of my anxiety filled swallows.
“He wants me out of the royal palace, and he wants you executed by hanging.” She looked up at me. My heart fluttered at the words.
“I brokered a deal for both of us to stay, and I am happy to carry it out.” She turned to the side and revealed a small blowtorch. Resting on top of the open blue flame was a pair of hedge trimmers that the landscapers would use outside near the water fountain.
The humming sound of the flame jogged my memory as the blades on the sheers began glowing a hot spicy orange.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Sit in the chair.” She beckoned to the small chair in the corner of the bedroom. Being as naive as I was, I slowly lowered myself into it, my abundance of trust entirely misplaced.
“What do you mean carry it out?” I asked. My mother rose to her feet, her flowing dark dress bobbed over the wooden floor boards as she approached me. I looked up at her. She smiled a sick, demented smile.
“I will not allow you to ruin my life again.” A single tear squooze itself out of her eyelid, but she sucked it back in.
“I did not mean to say those things, mamma!” I begged, “Kayva is a tattler! She wishes to destroy our family!”
“Which is exactly why I do this.” Suddenly, my mother began tying my wrists to the chair’s armrests. I shrieked in surprise and fear as I began bucking ferociously. She secured my left wrist; out of pure desperation I clawed at her face with my right hand.
“Kutiya!” As the Hindi word for bitch flew from my mother’s mouth, an open palm swung at my left cheek. An explosion of stinging pain spread across my face, my eyes watering excessively. Before I could look up, another brutal slap detonated on my right cheek, the back of her hand, adorned with a diamond wedding ring, stung much worse than her open palm.
My mother tied down my other hand and walked over to the bed, the sheers now a bright yellow, resembling the shade of a lemon.
“One who gossips shall have their tongue removed!” She turned off the blowtorch and grabbed the handles.
“No please stop! My bladder released, a puddle began pouring onto the floor. I began to sob uncontrollably.
“Guards!” She bellowed. The mustached man from earlier entered the room, and, as if the process had been rehearsed, walked over to me and squooze underneath my chin. The pressure in my mouth intensified until I was forced to stick out my tongue. The pink flesh of my tongue glistened from saliva as my mother brought the shears down towards them. I tried to scream but couldn’t.
I couldn’t break free, I was trapped. I struggled and wretched, but I was unable to escape. I winched, feeling the intense heat emanating from the garden tool.
In one fatal swoop, my mother squeezed the handles of the shears together. The sound resembled a steak getting cooked on a grill. For a split second, the pain didn’t come.
I heard a plop on the floor.
“AAAAAAAAH!” I howled, but the sound was muffled. Muted. What was left of my tongue instinctively retreated back into my mouth. To my horror, it extended to the back of my throat but no further. I couldn’t feel my teeth. I couldn’t talk. Couldn’t think.
The pain! DEAR GOD THE PAIN!
A million volcanoes stabbed into my mouth. The pain was so intense my bowels relaxed, then released. It was as if a blacksmith was using the most sensitive area of my mouth as a melting pot. My body shook violently as my animalistic, primal shrieks of body-consuming agony reached a crescendo. My toenails dug themselves so hard into the floor they snapped off like pencil lead.
“That’s what happens to girls who gossip!” My mother shouted, but was drowned out by my hysterical wails. I passed out not long after.
I, to my surprise, wasn’t cast out of my family. I remember the immediate aftermath was awful. I never saw my family, I was locked away down a small, side hallway, never able to attend any events or family gatherings. I was given a pen and notepad by one of the servers to communicate, because my mother did not want me learning sign language. I attempted many times to kill her by slipping poison in her tea, only to find out to my dismay that she blamed one of the chefs for the foul tasting drink and had him beheaded.
On the rare occasion I saw my mother, she would force me to wear a white cloth mask to cover my mouth. She wanted nothing to do with me.
A few months went by, and I became socially isolated; so much so that I arranged myself to be smuggled overseas to America. One of the servants stuffed me in a cargo box. I arrived in New York after a hellish journey in 2005. After several difficult and arduous years, I attained legal citizenship and have since started a family with the most wonderful man… and, at 38, am proud to say I am completely fluent in sign language.
However, earlier today, and this is the impetus for why I am writing this story in the first place, I was in my regular coffee shop ordering a cold brew. I glanced to my left, and saw, to my utter dismay, the woman that had severed my tongue all those years ago. My mother was old and haggard looking, the years had been long and hard on her. As for why she was in New York, I didn’t know nor care.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, picked up a napkin, and scrawled a note on the thin papery layers. Without a word, I passed it to her. She glanced up, catching a brief glimpse of my face.
“Prisha?!” The voice sounded much older then I remembered, but was still unmistakable.
I nodded. She glanced down at the note, then began to cry. She flipped it over. The coffee shop was silent, as if we were in a movie.
You ruined my life. I hate you.
“Prisha I’m so so sorry! Here take this!” I backed away but heard something flutter to the ground. Something fell from her purse.
I turned and saw it laying on the ground… the photo. I thought it might be worth posting so I put it up above. It’s weathered and water damaged but something struck me. And I still can’t explain this.
Her hands, they’re all deformed. I don’t recall mothers hands ever looking like that. I can’t help but think that perhaps she was possessed by a bhoot or preth, as it is known to Hindus.
I still see her every night in my nightmares. The shears, the heat, the pain. The betrayal. It feels like she’s slipping back into my life. Like I’m holding back a dam about to burst but the water just keeps getting heavier and heavier.
I look over my shoulder because I just know that if those deformed hands ever touch me again, I won’t be able to fight them off. It’s stalking me. It was trying to manipulate me back at the coffee shop to get me to touch her.
Whatever it is, It’s not my mother.
I can’t embrace the evil, not again.
