Part 1

The first seven years of Nora's life.

Part 1

The oldest thing Nora could remember happened when she was about 2 ½ years old, when she heard screaming coming from the other side of the door of the room she and her older sister, Tatiana, shared.

"I don't care! I do NOT want to deal with a daughter who hears 'voices' that don't exist!" her father screamed.

"Well, we have to deal with it! She's your daughter!" Her mother replied.

"Oh yeah? Well, we'll see about-" There was a smash, "-that!"

As more smashing sounds followed, Nora silently glanced at Tatiana, who was still asleep, "Tatiana," she whispered, "how do you sleep through this?"

"No!" Her mother sobbed, "Please, have mercy, Eric!"

"It's too late!" Her father responded

More smashing sounds followed and Nora tried to cover her ears.

"Is this about me, Ellie?" Nora asked.

"Yes," Ellie said, "your father doesn't like us."

"He doesn't even believe in us, Nora," Joe, another one of her voices, chimed in.

"But I can hear you two," Nora frowned, "and Venus and Ethan too."

"However," Ellie started, "Your father denies that we exist, and we can't do anything about it."

She sighed as she turned to lie on her side.

"You know what, Emily?" Nora's father started, "I'm outta here! I can't handle this crap anymore!"

"No!" Her mother begged, "Please don't! How can I care for two daughters, one of them hearing 'voices'?"

"Too late! It's all up to you now! Goodbye, Emily!"

Nora heard her father stomp around, and then the front door opened and closed. She then heard her mother growl and charge straight to the door that separated Nora and her sister's room from the rest of the house.

Her mother flung open the door, "It's your fault, you little-" she ran to her bedside, "if you just lived in reality, your father wouldn't have just left us!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, mommy!" Nora screamed as she heard a rustle. Tatiana woke up and was staring at her.

She sighed, "Nora…"

"You're gonna make your own sister cry!" her mother interrupted and then slapped Nora as hard as she could on the cheek, which stung worse than a bee sting, "you're going to have to pay hard for this, you b*****d!"

What followed became not just meals consisting of tap water, plain bread, and the scraps of Tatiana and her mother's food, but also Cinderella-like chores like mopping the bathroom floor. Nora's mother even brought bars to be placed over her bed so she couldn't escape at night. She sometimes tried to stand up for herself, but all her mother said to her if she did so was, "You did this to us, and now you must pay!" Nora was harassed almost constantly by her mother and sister as well, from slaps and beatings to insults barked at her randomly. However, that all made her grow closer to her voices.

"Venus…" she whispered one night, "I think my mom controls my 

actions."

"And how is that so?" the smooth-as-butter voice asked.

"Well, when she tells me to do something, I either do it or say no, and she forces me to do it if I say no."

"How can she control your actions if you say no?"

"Well," she started, "she controls Tatiana too, and makes her hate me a lot. I'm not as easy to control, so sometimes mom has to use force on me to do something."

"Sounds possible," Venus responded, "how does your mom do it?"

"Her voice has special smoothing powers," Nora explained, "and the voice can control anyone, even me, even though it doesn't work as well on me, because I keep saying no."

"It makes sense that it doesn't work as well on you, but try harder to fight back against your mom."

Nora nodded, "Alright, Venus," She said as she drifted off to sleep."

When Nora was 5, someone new came into her family, since her mother found a boyfriend named John (18-year old Nora couldn't remember his last name) and she was convinced that her mother used her "mind-controlling powers" to turn him against her too, since he liked her as much as a cockroach in a bathroom sink. One night, about a week after John moved in, Nora work up screaming.

John charged into the room, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Hands…" Nora stuttered, "The hands are grabbing me!"

John glared around the room with a fierce look on his face while Nora tried to fight off the "hands", "I don't see no disembodied hands," he said.

"But they're grabbing me!"

He walked up to her bed and yelled, "But I don't see no hands!" 

Then slapped her arms and cheeks, "that's what you get for waking me up, you filthy thing."

As John left, Nora stopped feeling the "hands".

"Why doesn't anyone understand me?" She asked herself.

"But we understand you," Ellie and Ethan said in unison.

"Yes, you all do," Nora slightly smiled, hurting her stinging cheeks, "but I mean that no one besides you all understands me at all."

"I get what you mean, Nora," Venus softly began, "but one day, you might find someone who will."

"I don't think so. All the kids laugh at me, saying I'm a 'weirdo' and too 'naïve', whatever that means."

The voices were silent as Nora cried herself to sleep.

About two years after the "hand" incident and even more bullying, abuse, and endless chores, Nora's elementary school got a new counselor: Kikako Osaka, a bubbly, petite woman of about 28 with shoulder-length ebony hair and shy, Asian eyes. She took special note in Nora, mainly because of the sad face and old, oversized clothes she wore. So, one day, Nora was called into her office.

"Good morning, Miss Nora," Ms. Osaka said as Nora walked into her office.

"Hello, Ms. Osaka…" Nora started.

"You can call me 'Kika' if you want," she smiled, "all of my friends call me that, and you're a friend of mine."

Nora said nothing as she sat down in the chair opposite of her.

"She seems nice enough…" Venus began.

"No," Joe interrupted, "there's something off about her, Venus."

"So, Miss Nora," Ms. Osaka started, "do you like it here at Bell Lake Elementary?"

"Just nod your head," Joe instructed, which Nora glumly did.

"Now, why do you wear that frown on your face?" she asked, "are the other children hurting you?"

"Shake your head," he told Nora.

"NO!" Venus protested, "This is your chance, Nora! Tell her everything!"

"But we don't know if she's a friend or bad person yet!" Joe explained.

"Do we have to go through that? Just listen to her, Joe!"

"Gosh, Venus, you're so shallow!"

As those two voices (Joe and Venus) kept arguing, Nora covered her ears and shook her head, "shut up…" she mumbled, "…shut up…"

"Are you okay, Miss Nora?" Ms. Osaka asked, dropping her smile.

"No…" she groaned, "the voices…won't…shut…up!"

"What… 'voices'?"

But Nora didn't answer, as she was occupied with trying to mask her ears from the arguing of Joe and Venus.

"You can trust her!" Venus yelled, "Talk to her, Nora!"

"No, we need to know her more, and then we can talk!" Joe screamed.

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Talk to her!"

"Wait until she can be trusted!"

As those two barked at each other like rival dogs, Nora pressed her ears harder and harder, until she couldn't take the screaming anymore:

"SHUT! UP!" she screamed.

The voices instantly became quiet, and Ms. Osaka slightly jumped from her chair.

There was a knock on the door, "Is everything alright in there, Kika?" A man's voice asked.

"Ummmm…yes, Mr. Reed," Ms. Osaka said, shaking, "Could you come in and take Miss Nora Mason here back to her class?"

opened the door, revealing a man of about 40 with dark skin, neat black hair, and a thin mustache and body.

"Alright," he looked at Nora, "come along, little Nora, who's your teacher?"

"Mrs. Garland," Nora told him as she left the office.

As she walked back to her class with Mr. Reed, Ellie asked, "What did I miss, Nora?"

"The new counselor wants to know stuff about me," Nora replied.

"What kind of stuff?"

"Why I frown most of the time, and about you."

"What?" Ellie was shocked.

"Well, Venus and Joe kept arguing on whether to trust that counselor or not," Nora explained, "it got out of hand."

"I'll talk to them about it. They'll trust me, of course!"

"Yeah," she smiled.

Throughout the week, Ms. Osaka kept calling Nora to her office to try and gain her trust, from giving her favorite white chocolate-chip cookies to letting her play with a stuffed fox called "Moako".

"See, Joe?" Venus asked one day after a session with Ms. Osaka, 

"She can be trusted."

"I'm not buying it," Joe responded, "'Kika' just wants information on us. In fact, I can tell that she reads minds, so she should already know about us."

"And how do you know that?"

"Well, how did she know about Nora's favorite kind of cookie?"

"Her 2nd grade class did an 'all about me' thing at the beginning of the year…"

"And that she's shy?"

"That's just Nora. Also, you know what Ellie said about fighting about this."

"I don't care."

"I can trust her!"

"I can't!"

"Enough, you two!" Ellie's voice emerged, "you two should remember what I said: If the situation is about Nora, then she should decide herself whether to trust Kika or not."

"Fine," Joe groaned, "But I'm still going to believe in my opinion," and that ended the discussion.

The next morning, the air conditioner in Ms. Osaka's office broke, which made the room all hot and stuffy when Nora entered, wearing an oversized light grey sweater and worn-out navy blue jeans.

Ms. Osaka, who was wearing a light-green polo and pink skirt, asked, "It's hot in here, isn't it?"

Nora looked up, her short brown hair sticking to the back of her neck, "I guess so… she responded cautiously.

"Why don't you take off the sweater?"

"I'm fine…"

"But it's 87 degrees in here."

"I'll be okay," but Nora was sweating more than an American tourist on a hot summer day.

"You're sweating, Miss Nora," Ms. Osaka noticed.

"I'll be fine."

"But it's hot in here!"

After a few more minutes of arguing, Nora stubbornly took off the sweater, revealing scores of cuts, bumps, and bruises, including a series of deep lines decorating her arms, a huge purple dot near her right collarbone, and a deep gash that began before her shirt on her backside.

Ms. Osaka gasped, "What happened to you?!"

"I might as well tell you everything now!" Nora yelled; and she did, from when her father left her family over four years before to the tormenting and bullying she faced at home and school.

"Ok, Nora," Ms. Osaka nodded her head, startled; "I know I usually send you back to class by now, but I want you to stay today."

"Okay…" Nora said.

"You see?" Joe asked as Ms. Osaka dialed a number on her phone, "she's calling your mother now, and she'll use her mind-control power against her too!"

"Well, we'll see about that, Mr. Skeptic!" Venus said

The phone call took about five minutes, with Ms. Osaka summarizing what Nora told her about what happened the past 4 ½ years.

"Alright. Thank you, sir," Ms. Osaka concluded, and then she hung up and looked at Nora, "You're going to be okay, Miss Nora, I just called someone who can help you."

"Who?" Nora asked.

"You'll see," she smiled.

The next day was Saturday, so there was no school. Nora was scrubbing the mucky bathroom floor while her mom was sipping hazelnut coffee and reading the paper, getting a massage from John. Tatiana was still asleep.

Then, the doorbell rang. From what Nora heard after her mother opened the door, a man named "Mr. Smith" was there from something called "Child Protective Services", and wished to come in. She heard her mother say that everything was fine, but he said that if someone filed a report, he had to come in. He won the argument, and asked where her daughter was.

"Of course," Nora heard her mother say, "I'll wake Tatiana up."

"Not her," Said Mr. Smith, "your other daughter, Miss Nora J. Mason."

"I think he's here to help you, Nora," Ellie advised, "go to him."

"You sure?" Ethan asked.

"Yes."

"Alright," Nora got up and ran to the living room to see her mother and a man of about 35 with light tan skin and neatly-pulled-back mahogany hair, wearing a black suit with a white button-down and jade-green tie, "Hello." she told the man, "I am Nora Jeanne Mason."

The man turned to her and smiled, "Why, hello Nora. I am Mr. Smith. I got a call about you yesterday; can I talk to you about it?"

"Kika called you?" She asked

Mr. Smith looked confused, "Kika?"

"That's that I call Ms. Osaka."

"Kikako Osaka?"

Nora nodded.

Mr. Smith laughed, "She didn't call me," he explained, "but where I work, and that's why I'm here. Can I discuss the call with you?

"Say 'yes'," Ellie said.

"Yes," echoed Nora.

"Where's the most silent place in your house?" He asked.

"The garage," she smiled, and then she led him to it.

"No! Everything's fine!" her mother protested, attempting to prevent Mr. Smith from entering the garage, but it was too late (the hallway was too wide for her to block all of it).

During the interview, Nora confirmed much of Ms. Osaka's phone call, even the part about the "voices".

"Does your mother do anything weird, like sniffing things, Nora?" Mr. Smith asked.

"No." she shook her head.

"Do you know why you hear those voices?"

"Oh no," Joe started, "this is it. Now he'll think you're crazy, Nora!"

"No," Nora said again.

"Alright, Nora. Thank you." Mr. Smith got up, brushed off his suit, and then left the room.

Throughout the month, Mr. Smith kept returning every now and then, despite the protests of Nora's mother and John. One day, he interviewed Tatiana, who confirmed some of what Nora said (at least from what Nora heard), but she mentioned that their father left the house because of her and that she "deserved" the forced chores. Another day, Mr. Smith took Nora to a clinic, where she was tested for something she didn't really know (she couldn't make out what Mr. Smith told the doctor to test her for). She was asked by a doctor about her voices and beliefs about certain people and given blood and urine tests.

"What do you think about your mother?" the doctor asked, "be honest."

"That she has…mind…controlling...powers." Nora said cautiously.

"Darn it, Nora!" Joe yelled.

At the end of the month, Mr. Smith came with another CPS worker: a woman with light brown skin, curly chestnut hair in a bun, and hazel eyes.

"We have finished our investigation," Mr. Smith started, "and your daughter is unsafe, Mrs. Mason."

"What?!" Nora heard her mother scream, "My little girl has to go away?! No, she is staying with me!"

"We're sorry, ma'am," the woman said, "but we have a court order."

"Do you hear that?" Venus asked.

"Yes," Nora smiled, "am I free?"

"Indeed you are. Go with them."

Nora got out of the bars surrounding her bed (as it became quite easy for her then) and walked to the door, "I'm ready." She said.

"Don't you want to pack a bag and tell your family goodbye?" the woman asked.

She shook her head, "I don't have much stuff anyway. But bye…Emily."

Her mother pouted, "Fine," she said, "leave without telling John or even your own sister goodbye. Just go! Go, and leave with your 'schiza-whatever' too!"

After that episode, Nora was taken to the car of Mr. Smith and the woman, who was introduced as Mrs. Summerfield. While driving to the CPS building, they talked about Nora, mentioning a couple called "Mr. and Mrs. Breedlove" and something called "childhood-onset schizophrenia".

"Ellie," she asked, "what's childhood-onset schizophrenia?"

"I don't know," she responded, "but I think it has to do with why your father left."

The remainder of the car ride was silent, but Nora smelled something like vanilla, which the CPS workers denied. The Breedloves were going to be her "foster parents", according to Mr. Smith, when the young couple arrived at the workplace and picked her up from Mrs. Summerfield's office.

"Ready to go?" Mr. Breedlove asked when he and his wife arrived (and after talking to the CPS workers).

Nora nodded, and the three left the workplace for possibly forever.

Author's Note

What do you think?