Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“Do you feel different?” she asked with caution.
“Some. I’m not fast or strong like them.”
“Do you sometimes feel like you’re stuck in a different time, like going backward or forward?”
“No.”
“Someday, you may, and when that happens, I need you not to be scared. You must keep it a secret and never tell a soul except for me.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Nothing to worry about. I just want it to be our secret.”
“Did you feel like that?”
“Yes.”
“Were you scared?”
“Very, but I got used to it.”
“Are you different?”
“I guess.”
“How old were you?”
“It started when I was about your age.” She pinched his cheek. “If it happens, don’t tell granny or daddy. Just me. Can you do that for me?”
Doumar got up and started walking toward them. With every step he came closer, her heart squeezed tighter, knowing she had as many seconds left as the steps between them.
Turning Niels’s little body to her, she hugged him tightly. “Listen to me, baby,” she whispered in his hair, inhaling his sweet, child scent. “I love you more than anything in this world. You’re always in my heart, and I’m in yours.” She held him at arm’s length. “Tell me how much I love you so I’ll know you haven’t forgotten.”
“More than all the sand on the beach—” he started.
“Time to go,” Doumar said, cutting into the moment with his brusque voice and hateful smirk.
“Carry on, liefje.” She held Niels’s gaze, urging him on with a smile. “Like all the stars in the sky—”
Doumar grabbed the boy’s hand and pulled him from the bench. “Now. We have a birthday party to go to, remember?”
A lump lodged in her throat, making it hard to speak. She stared up at Doumar with a plea in her eyes. “Five more minutes?”
His mouth lifted in one corner, transforming his face into the cruel mask of someone who derived pleasure from another’s pain. Without a word, he turned Niels toward the exit.
“Wait! Let me say goodbye.” She jumped up and folded her arms around Niels from behind, planting a kiss on the top of his head. Her voice breaking on the last word, she said, “See you soon.”
“Come now,” Doumar said, pulling her son from her embrace, “or there’ll be no party.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
She stood rooted to the spot, watching them go while her soul tore apart.
Too short.
Not enough time.
She hadn’t asked him how the cat he’d adopted was doing or how he’d liked his first visit to the circus.
Halfway to the park exit, Niels glanced back at her, his expression a mixture of anger and longing. There was so much he blamed her for and didn’t understand, maybe never would.
When they cleared the gate, she kept on watching. Long after they’d disappeared from view, she remained in the same place. She stood motionless while her world and heart came undone.
It took all her willpower to stay in the present and not go back in the past so she could see Niels for another fifteen minutes. The risk of never returning was too high. Every time she revisited her moments with Niels, it became more difficult to pull herself back, and she wouldn’t do her son any good if she was stuck in a mental limbo and turned into a vegetable. The only thing that kept her alive was earning Doumar more money with fortune-telling than all the prostitutes he pimped together. If she were no longer a source of income, Doumar would kill her. Then what would happen to Niels?
Mechanically, she walked home. Only in the privacy of her caravan did she give in to the unbearable torment. With a cry of rage, she swiped her arm over the shelf with her kitchen utensils, sending picnic cups and bowls flying. She jerked the drapes from the windows and ripped the sheets off the bed. She expressed her suffering in the only way she could, not stopping until the interior of her home was a wreckage of anger.
With nothing left to break, tear, or throw, she fell to her knees, clutching her stomach while sobs wracked her shoulders. Exhausted from her maddened exertion, she rolled onto her side, curling into a fetal position. She cried until she had no more tears or fight left, not even the energy to get back up on her feet.
A sliver of sunlight cut across the floor from the gap under the door. She watched it move, inch by inch, until it crawled over her face and warmed her cheek where dried, salty tears pulled her skin tight. If not for Niels, she would’ve provoked Doumar until he killed her. Maybe she would’ve tried her hand at suicide. She would’ve gladly given her soul to the devil to escape this hell she was trapped in on earth.
Her existence was reduced to fifteen minutes a month. Doumar’s cruelty was too great to keep their son from her completely. That would’ve been kinder. Instead, he gave her fleeting glimpses of what could’ve been, of what she’d lost. The lesson was a constant reminder of how much more there was to lose. Doumar’s most precious bargaining chip was the life of their child. There was no doubt in her mind Doumar wasn’t bluffing with his threat. He was incapable of loving anyone but himself. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill her baby—his own flesh and blood—should she try to run or defy him. In his way, Doumar was a genius. These invisible chains he’d put on her when he’d fucked her until she’d fallen pregnant were much more effective than any brick and mortar prison cell.