Sins of the daughter

Sins of the daughter


With a grace born of long practice, Tammy set her fork down in the center of the empty dessert plate as she savored the last bite of German chocolate cake.  It had been exceptionally good this year, and she wondered if a new bakery had opened in town.  The swish of legs in a long dress and a perfume that reminded her of her grandmother heralded the approach of a woman from her right.  Tammy didn't recognize the scent, and guessed that it was a new volunteer or, perhaps, a guest of one of the home's staff.

"Tammy?" came the elderly but warm voice.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"My name is Elizabeth Ross.  I'm Sam Patton's sister."  So - a guest.  Sam was the oldest groundskeeper at Meadowlark.

"Sam said it was your sixteenth birthday, so I wanted to come over and offer my congratulations and best wishes.  Do you think you'll get what you wished for, child?"

"Well, we'll see."

"With all the wonderful advances in surgery and science and such these days, you wished to be able to see, didn't you?"

When Tammy didn't reply, the elderly woman began to stammer out an apology.

"Sam always says I open my mouth without thinking, and it seems he's right.  I'm sorry, dear, if I've upset you.  It just seems like a natural thing for a young girl to wish for."

"It's okay, ma'am, and you're not far off.  I used to wish for eyes, but I don't anymore."

"Why not, if you don't mind my asking?"

"When I was ten, I fell out of a tree and landed right on my head.  I was in a coma for a day or so but, when I woke up, I seemed to be fine.  The doctors did a lot of tests and couldn't find anything wrong.  Everyone was so relieved.

"A few months later, I was on the porch reading one of my favorite childhood stories--The Three Billy Goats Gruff--when I had a short, sharp pain in my head.  I closed my eyes for a few minutes, hoping it would help.  When I opened them, there was a small goat in our front yard.  I didn't recognize it at first, which was strange, as I knew all the animals from the surrounding farms.  All at once, I realized that it was the littlest goat from my story!  I was thrilled, but a little scared, too.  I decided that he would be lonely all by himself, so I concentrated on the illustrations and tried to make the other two goats appear, but nothing happened.  When my folks asked about the goat, I told them it had apparently wandered in from somewhere, which was true enough.

"Every few months or so, I'd get a little headache, followed immediately by the discovery of whatever it was I'd just been looking at: Sometimes, they were right in front of me; other times, they were just nearby.  They were mostly small objects, so I took to hiding them.  When a lovely potted sunflower appeared on my windowsill, though, Mother spotted it at once and asked me about it.  When I told her about the headaches, she insisted on taking me to the doctor.

"He listened to my story and was more than a little skeptical but, at Mother's insistence, he referred me to some neurological specialists.  They did all kinds of tests, eventually concluding that some dormant part of my brain had been 'awakened' by my fall and coma.  The scientists finally decided to call my condition 'Spontaneous INvoluntary Substantialization', and cautioned me about what kind of pictures I looked at.  Thinking back to the little goat, I was suddenly glad I hadn't gotten to the page with the troll."

Tammy paused in her narration, as tears ran down her face.

"Two years ago, I was reading The Wishsong of Shannara.  When I turned a page towards the end, a piece of paper fell out.  It was a drawing someone had done of one of the book's monsters...the jachyra.  All of a sudden, I got the worst headache I'd ever had.  It was so bad, I passed out.  When I came to, my head still hurt something awful and my father was crying and saying he was so sorry."

She heard her visitor's horrified gasp.

"The creature had appeared in the barn and killed everything there, including my mother.  My father had emptied his pump shotgun into the thing and finally killed it by severing its head with an axe; since it was a magical creature, its body disappeared.  He was crying and apologizing, because he'd plucked out my eyes.  "I love you" was the last thing he said, before he used one more shotgun shell on himself."



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