The Creeper Man

Tell me pleasant lies, and I will believe them before I throw them away.

At least with my father, the danger was out in the open. I knew what to expect. But Auntie Cath is a different kind of dark altogether. The worst kind. The kind made from love.

Things can stay safe for long they can pretend to fit but then you hear Discord's song and things crack bit by bit.

We have no right to children if despair is all we bring with us.

Rotting in your skin rotting in your mind you are rotting in this house in this house you'll die.

You're going to destroy me," I whisper. And then he is shaking even more, and I realize it's because he is crying. Not just crying, but the kind of bone-deep crying that only comes from grief. From the deepest sorrow. The kind of crying that tears deep down into the soul from some wound that time can never touch.

I don’t say anything because he’s got fire inside him for sure, and fire burns.

I slump against the banister. "I don't understand. I'm so tired." Cath is fading away again, her last look one of pity. Sympathy. Understanding. "The mad always are," she says.