After my husband and my best friend murdered me, I found myself in a queue at the intake office of the afterlife. “Rebirth protocol is ready. Which household?” the administrator asked, his voice devoid of inflection. I pointed to the couple on the screen, the two architects of my demise, and my smile was a gash in the dark. “That one. I want to be the living testament to their love.” The administrator paused, a flicker of something like concern in his ethereal form. “Animosity of this magnitude can curdle the fate of your next life.” “That’s fine,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. “In this life, I plan to be the kind of daughter who comes back to ‘repay’ her parents for everything.” 1 The next second, I was enveloped in the warm, amniotic dark, a feeling immediately shattered by a violent, spinning compression. It ended with a sharp, piercing cry. I, Chloe Morgan, had just been born into the body of Amelia Conrad, daughter of my enemies. “Congratulations, Mr. Conrad. She’s a beautiful girl, and what a set of lungs!” A nurse, smelling of antiseptic soap, wiped me clean and gently placed me in the arms of that woman. Isabella. My best friend. My Bella. She was pale and slick with sweat, but her face was aglow with a beatific, Madonna-like radiance. She reached for me, her voice a syrupy whisper. “Come here, baby. Mommy’s got you.” Mommy? You don’t deserve that name. The instant her fingertip grazed my skin, I unleashed the most volcanic, blood-curdling scream of my short existence. “WAAAAAAHHHHHH!” My shriek ripped through the serene atmosphere of the delivery room. The doctor and nurses jumped. Isabella flinched so hard she almost dropped me. “What’s going on? She was perfectly calm a moment ago,” one of the nurses said, rushing to take me. The moment I was out of Isabella’s arms, my cries subsided into soft whimpers. “It’s probably nothing. Newborns can be finicky about who holds them,” the doctor offered, already turning away. But Isabella’s expression had already started to curdle. Back at the Conrad estate, this became our new reality. If she came within ten feet of me, my internal alarm would blare. If she reached for me, I would transform from a cherubic infant into a feral thing, a cornered animal. My limbs would flail, my tiny, sharp fingernails raking at any exposed skin—her face, her neck, her arms. “Ouch!” Isabella hissed in pain, looking down at the three angry red welts now blooming on her forearm. I took that as my cue to wail even louder, as if I were the one who had been grievously wounded. “What the hell is going on in here?” Michael, my former husband, stormed in, drawn by the noise. He took in the scene: Isabella with blood on her arm, and his daughter screaming in her embrace as if being tortured. “I… I don’t know. It was so sudden,” she stammered, her face ashen. Michael snatched me from her with an impatient grunt. The second I was nestled against his chest, my crying ceased. I let out a few pathetic, hiccuping sobs, buried my red face in the warmth of his shirt, found a comfortable position, and drifted off to sleep. The picture of docile innocence. A complete stranger to the creature I’d been moments before. Michael stared down at the angelic daughter in his arms, then at the scratches on his wife’s skin. His brow furrowed into a hard line. From that day on, it was the rhythm of our lives. If Isabella held me, I would scream and claw. If Michael, my grandfather, my grandmother, or even the nanny held me, I was as placid and perfect as a doll. Within a month, Isabella’s body was a canvas of old scars and new scratches. She had to use a thick layer of concealer just to cover the marks on her face. And the rumors began to whisper through the manicured lawns of our community: the new Conrad baby, for some reason, couldn’t stand her own mother. One night, after I’d managed to catch her lip with my nail, she finally broke. “What is wrong with you?!” she hissed, shutting the nursery door. She loomed over my crib, her face a grotesque mask of fury in the dim light. “Are you some kind of demon? Why me? Why only me?” I simply stared back at her, my eyes wide, clear, and innocent. Yes. I am the demon who has come for your soul. Seeing me quiet and calm, a sliver of her sanity returned. She took a deep, shuddering breath, as if trying to convince herself. “You’re just a baby… you don’t understand anything… you don’t understand…” Her hand, trembling, reached for me again, as if to test the theory one last time. Just then, the door creaked open. Michael walked in with a bottle of warm milk. What he saw was his wife’s contorted, snarling expression and her hand moving, threateningly, toward our daughter. “Bella! What are you doing?!” He lunged across the room, scooping me into his arms and shielding me from her. The look he gave her was frigid with disappointment. “Nothing! I wasn’t—I was just trying to hold her!” she cried, her voice thin with desperation. Michael rocked me, murmuring soothing words, then spoke to her without even looking up. “If you can’t handle her, then stay away from her.” “From now on, Maria will take care of her.” 2 Stripped of her maternal duties, Isabella’s status in the house plummeted. She went from the lady of the manor to a peripheral figure, a ghost in her own home, a mother in name only. Michael grew colder by the day, and my grandparents began to look straight through her. Her only function was to appear at family gatherings, holding me for the cameras to create the illusion of a happy, loving family. And I, bathed in the adoration of everyone else, grew to the age of two. I was beginning to form words—simple, clumsy, and each one meticulously calculated. The stage was my grandfather’s seventy-fifth birthday party. The Conrad estate was filled to the brim with high-society guests. I was the star of the show, a little porcelain doll in a red velvet dress, perched on my grandfather’s lap, soaking in the praise. Isabella stood off to the side, a forced smile painted on her face, draped in an expensive gown that looked like a costume. I knew she was waiting for an opportunity, a moment to perform her motherly love in public and claw back a shred of dignity. It came, as I knew it would, during the cake-cutting. She approached with a small plate, her movements a study in practiced elegance, her voice dripping with saccharine sweetness. “Amelia, my darling. Come, let Mommy give you some cake.” She had calculated that I wouldn’t dare humiliate her in front of so many important people. She had calculated wrong. I’d been waiting for this day for two years. I squirmed out of my grandfather’s arms, landed on my feet, and scrambled backward as if she were a monster emerging from the shadows. My face was a mask of pure terror. “No… no touch…” I babbled, my words slurring with manufactured fear. The smile on Isabella’s face froze. A ripple of murmurs went through the crowd as guests exchanged curious glances. “Amelia, sweetheart, it’s okay. Mommy won’t hurt you…” she pleaded, her voice tight. She took another step forward, trying to grab my hand. Showtime. I lifted my tiny hand, and with all the force my small body could muster, I pointed a trembling finger at her beautifully made-up, now twitching face. I summoned every ounce of hatred from my past life, every memory of her betrayal, and forged it into a curse. And through the mouth of a two-year-old, I screamed it, one syllable at a time. “Bad… la-dy!” “Kill… er!” A stunned silence fell over the grand ballroom. Every eye bounced between me and Isabella, whose face had become a bloodless, ghostly white. “Killer?” “What did she just say? Did I hear that right?” “My God, that child… is something wrong with her?” The whispers swelled into a tidal wave. My grandparents were the first to react, scooping me into a protective embrace. “Hush now, Amelia, you’re safe,” my grandmother cooed, patting my back. “Did you have a bad dream last night? Such silly things to say.” But Michael’s face had lost all color. Isabella completely shattered. “I didn’t! It wasn’t me!” she shrieked, pointing a shaking finger back at me, her voice ragged and wild. “It’s her! That little monster is lying! She’s not a normal child! She’s a demon!” A mother, in front of a room full of people, calling her own daughter a “monster” and a “demon.” “Shut your mouth!” Michael roared, striding forward and slapping her hard across the face. The sound cracked like a whip in the silent room. “Are you insane?! She’s a two-year-old child!” I buried my face in my grandfather’s shoulder, and over the chaos, I watched the two of them, the architects of my first death, begin to tear each other apart. A thrill of pure, cold victory shivered through me. 3 The fiasco at the birthday party was the final nail in Isabella’s coffin. “That crazy woman.” “Such a bitter shrew.” “Cursed by her own daughter.” The labels stuck to her like tar. She became a pariah in the Conrad family. Michael started avoiding her like the plague. It was as if he truly believed I was some kind of vengeful spirit, and he’d rather lock himself in his study than be in the same room with the “true love” he’d killed for. Completely isolated, Isabella’s mental state deteriorated rapidly. She no longer dared to approach me, but her eyes followed me everywhere, burning with a venomous hatred. She resorted to petty cruelties—spilling my milk “by accident,” making loud noises while I was sleeping, pinching my arm hard when no one was looking. I endured it all in silence. She was venting. And I was waiting for the perfect moment to shove her into hell. That moment was tied to the crystal music box hidden in the back of her jewelry drawer. It was a gift from Michael, a memento from when she’d first told him she was pregnant with me. I slipped into her room when she was downstairs. I dragged a vanity stool over, climbed onto her dressing table, and rummaged until my fingers closed around the cool, multifaceted glass. Without a moment’s hesitation, I raised it high and brought it crashing down onto the marble floor. CRACK! The music box exploded into a thousand glittering shards. But that wasn’t enough. I closed my eyes, picturing my own mangled body in the wreckage of my car. Then I picked up the sharpest piece of glass and, without flinching, dragged it across the soft, pale skin of my own forearm. A sharp, white-hot pain seared through me. Blood welled up instantly. The pain was so intense it almost made me black out, but I held on. I smeared a few drops of my own blood onto the lace dress of my favorite doll. Then, clutching the doll, a walking exhibit of my “victimhood,” I stumbled out of the room. “Grandpa! Grandma!” My terrified, tear-choked scream brought everyone running. They found me in the hallway, my clothes disheveled, my body trembling, clutching a blood-stained doll. A deep gash on my other arm was bleeding profusely. “Oh my God! Amelia!” My grandmother let out a horrified shriek and was the first to reach me. I collapsed into her arms, sobbing so hard I could barely breathe, and pieced together the perfect lie with my carefully practiced, broken speech. “Mommy… bad…” “Mommy… no like… Amelia…” I held up the bloodied doll, my cries escalating until I was nearly hysterical. “Smash… dolly… dolly broke…” Finally, I showed her my bleeding arm, my voice a pathetic whimper. “Arm… hurt… owie…” Every word was a hammer blow to their hearts. Isabella, drawn by the commotion, stood frozen in the doorway. She stared at the wound on my arm, then at her own empty hands, her mind a complete blank. “No… it wasn’t me… I didn’t…” Her denials were pathetic, meaningless in the face of my blood. “You poisonous bitch!” my grandfather roared, his body shaking with rage. He pointed a trembling finger at her, his eyes blazing. “How dare you lay a hand on this child! This family has no place for a monster like you!” Michael was stunned silent by the bloody scene. He looked from me to the raving, frantic Isabella, and the last shred of affection he might have held for her was replaced by pure, unadulterated fear. As they rushed me towards the door to go to the hospital, I looked over my grandfather’s shoulder. Past all the panicked faces, my eyes met Isabella’s. She looked dead already, her face a mask of gray despair. I formed two words with my mouth, speaking only to her. “Go. Die.” She understood. And as she stared at me, a sound tore from her throat—a scream of such primal terror it was no longer human. 4 The cut on my arm required five stitches. I became the most precious and fragile treasure in the Conrad family, handled with painstaking care wherever I went. My grandfather hired two full-time bodyguards whose only job was to ensure Isabella never came within ten feet of me. Isabella herself was placed under effective house arrest, confined to her bedroom suite. I heard stories of her smashing things, screaming that I was a demon, that I had hurt myself to frame her. No one believed her, of course. Who would believe the word of a madwoman who harmed her own child? But I knew this wasn’t enough. House arrest wasn't the end. I wanted her gone. Erased from this house, from my life, completely. One afternoon, I told my bodyguards I wanted to play hide-and-seek by myself, a ruse to get them to leave me alone. Then I tiptoed to her bedroom door. It was unlocked. She was sitting on the floor amid the glittering shards of the broken music box, muttering to herself like a lunatic. I pushed the door open and walked in. The sight of me sent her scrambling backward into a corner like a terrified rabbit. Her eyes were wide with fear. “What… what do you want?” I walked right up to her and crouched down, my voice low and steady, utterly alien coming from a child. “I’m here… to get my things back.” Isabella’s pupils constricted to pinpricks. I looked at her, and slowly, I let a smile spread across my face. It was Chloe’s smile. The one she knew better than anyone. “You stole my husband. You killed me… and now, I’m going to take it all back. Piece by piece.” “AAAAAHHH!” In that instant, the last thread of Isabella’s sanity snapped. She finally knew. I wasn’t just a child. I was Chloe’s ghost, returned from the grave to claim her debt. “Demon! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, you demon!” she shrieked, lunging at me. Her eyes were bloodshot, burning with a raw, murderous light. She grabbed my arm and started dragging me out of the room, toward the long, winding marble staircase in the main foyer. I didn’t fight her. I even went limp to make it easier. I was counting the seconds in my head. I knew that in ten seconds, my grandfather would be leaving his study to come downstairs for his daily afternoon tea. “Die, you little monster! Die!” Isabella was completely unhinged. She dragged me to the edge of the landing and raised her hand to strike me. Now. I heard the soft click of the study door opening. In the split second before her hand could connect with my face, I sucked in a breath and let out the most piercing, terrified scream I could manage. “MOMMY! DON’T PUSH ME—!” Then, I deliberately wrenched myself from her grasp and threw my own body, without hesitation, down the several dozen feet of cold, unyielding marble steps. The world became a spinning, chaotic blur. The impact of my bones against the stairs sent shockwaves of agony through me that threatened to pull me into darkness. THUMP. My body landed in a broken heap on the foyer floor. My left arm was bent at a sickening, unnatural angle. The pain was a tidal wave, drowning me. But I fought through it, using the last of my strength to lift my head. I saw my grandfather, standing at the top of the stairs, his face white with horror, his body trembling as he stared at the hellish scene before him. He had seen Isabella’s hand, raised and ready to strike. He had heard my desperate cry: “Don’t push me!” And he had watched my “helpless” body tumble down the entire flight of stairs. I met his horrified, furious, and heartbroken gaze. I raised my good arm, my hand shaking, and pointed a trembling finger at the woman who was now frozen in place like a statue. My voice was a ragged whisper, mixed with tears and sweat. “Grandpa… help…” “Mommy… she… she tried to… kill me…” As the last word left my lips, my head lolled to the side, and I let the darkness take me. Just before I passed out, I heard my grandfather’s roar—a sound so distorted by rage and grief that it was barely human.
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