MARTHA'S HOUSE
The day Martha moved into her aunt's house, she thought she was stepping into safety.
Her mother's illness had worsened, and Aunt Patience had insisted that the girl come to live with her "until things got better."
But nothing ever got better.
The house was too big for its silence. Every wall echoed with things unsaid. Her uncle, Mr. Benson, was rarely home. When present, he barely glanced at his wife.
Patience was a beautiful woman, but her beauty had turned bitter with time. Her friends called her "Madam Fire." She loved to laugh, dress loudly, and talk about men as if they were meals meant to be consumed, not loved.
But lately, her laughter had turned hollow.
Rumor in the neighborhood was that her husband had found someone else, a younger woman, softer, gentler, the kind that smiled even when insulted.
Patience knew it too.
And the knowing burnt her alive.
"She stopped wearing perfume, then started again. She stopped cooking, then cooked too much. She stopped sleeping, and when she did sleep, it was never alone
At first, Martha thought her aunt's anger was caused by stress. The shouting, the throwing of plates, the long nights of music and laughter from behind closed doors, all of it was confusing, but survivable.
Until it wasn't.
The woman's eyes changed. The same eyes that used to watch over Martha now lingered too long. Her words, once sweet, turned sharp and strange.
She began to call Martha into her room at night, always with that same bitter tone:
"You think you're better than me because you're young? Because you still have men staring when you walk by?"
Martha didn't understand. She never said a word. But every night, the woman's voice and presence pressed heavier, closer, wrong in ways she couldn't name.
Her aunt's pain became her cage.
Whenever Mr. Benson came home late, Patience would lash out first at the air, then at the furniture, and eventually, at Martha.
She'd slap her for leaving a cup unwashed. She'd drag her by the arm for smiling too brightly at nothing.
"You look like her," she once spat, eyes blazing. "That useless girl your uncle is seeing. That's why he can't stand to be here. You're his punishment to me."
The words sank like poison.
And so, the nights stretched longer. The fear grew deeper.
Every creak of the door, every footstep in the corridor made Martha's heart race. She slept less, ate less, spoke less. Her laughter, once light as wind, vanished completely.
She stopped looking people in the eye.
She stopped believing anyone would notice if she one day just disappeared.
At school, her friends would ask why she always wore long sleeves in the heat, why her eyes always looked tired. She'd shrug, smile faintly, and say,
"I'm fine."
But she wasn't.
Inside that house, she became a ghost.
Her aunt's loneliness and rage devoured her, piece by piece, until she no longer recognized her own reflection.
The girl who used to hum while washing dishes now flinched at her own name.
The girl who once loved stories stopped reading.
The girl who wanted to become a nurse stopped dreaming entirely.
And still, every night, her aunt called her.
Her aunt's voice always started soft, trembling not with affection, but with the fever of someone desperate to hurt because she herself had been hurt. That was when she started touching Martha's fingers, and gradually her hands moved to places where they weren't supposed to go, squeezing, fingering as her aunt touched her for her own stimulation.
And Martha would lie still, frozen, knowing that tomorrow would come again with the same silence, the same air heavy with secrets, and the same unspoken truth that no one would believe her if she spoke. Morning would break, but the cycle would never end. Days blurred into nights, each marked by quiet suffering, until everything changed once more.