Read Online Dead Spell by Belinda Frisch - Free Book Online Page B

down the bowels of Pinewood Estates, nothing had changed. Her trailer lights were off and probably the power, too. Lance’s, of course, were on and there were two cars parked out front of his place that she hoped were stop-and-go customers because she needed more than anything to settle in, drink a beer, smoke a joint—anything to take the edge off, if he would still have her.
    She felt her jaw and, deciding that the swelling was down, turned on her phone. Twelve new messages. Assuming they were all from Adam, she deleted them without listening.
    “Welcome home,” she said and climbed the rickety stairs.
    The heel of her boot sunk through the decking of the half-rotten porch and she gritted her teeth to stifle the scream. She pulled her foot loose and cursed the searing pain in her ankle.
    “Let’s see what’s behind door number one.”
    She turned the wobbly door knob and pushed. The door didn’t budge, its frame bent by a previous tenant’s domestic dispute that was anything but. The landlord had been promising for months to fix it, but so far had only showed up to complain that they were late on rent.
    “Looks like another break-in.” She knew just where to hit the door to knock it in and she tightened her muscles to minimize the pain. “Ready or not…” She checked the door with her hip and the vibrations rode up her bones and into her aching jaw. “Shit.” A thick blanket of kerosene fumes and the smell of sour vomit washed over her.
    “Oh my God. Mom?”
    No one answered.
    “Mom, are you here?” She kicked her way through mounds of trash to get to one of the few working windows and opened it.
    “ Uhhh… ” The guttural moan caught her off guard and she jumped.
    “Mom.” She grabbed a flashlight off the end table and hit it hard against her palm to keep it lit.
    Her mother was balled up under a blanket in the corner behind a pile of worn out boxes that had been moved so many times it took a roll of tape to keep what was left of their shape. Boxes that after four months of living at Pinewood Estates still hadn’t been unpacked.
    Harmony climbed over the cardboard fortress and dropped to her knees.
    “Mom.” She slapped her cheeks and shook her shoulders. “Mom, come on. Answer me.” Even in the muted light her lips were visibly blue. Harmony pressed two fingers against her neck and found the faint glug-glug of a weak pulse. “Mom, wake up. Come on. Wake up.” She unrolled the thick, urine-soaked blanket from around her and she immediately shivered.
    “Oh, God. Not again.”
    Harmony plucked the empty syringe from the crook of her mother’s left arm and undid the belt cutting off her circulation and discoloring her arm from the elbow down. She was wearing nothing but a bra and a pair of torn panties and there were handprint bruises up and down her throat, arms, and legs.
    Like mother, like daughter.
     “Mom, please answer me.”
    She vomited a soap-like foam and started to seize. Harmony turned her on her side and dialed 9-1-1.
    “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
    “I need an ambulance right away. Pinewood Estates, trailer 16. The last name is Wolcott.” Harmony hung up and buried the dirty needle in an overfull trash can behind her.  “I can’t believe this shit.”
    She th readed her frail mother through a grease-smeared sweatshirt and pulled a pair of drawstring pajama pants up her legs and over her tiny, bone-protruding hips.
    A siren blared and lights swirled in the distance.
    “I have to go. I’m sorry.”  She picked up her bag and went around the back of the trailer to watch through the window.
    A young paramedic stepped into the trailer and repeatedly flicked the switch. “The light’s not working.”
    Bill, a paramedic Harmony knew well from his visits to their house, pushed past and knocked the newbie forward with the big red bag slung over his shoulder.
    “Light never works.” He used an empty box like a bulldozer to clear a path to her mother. He set down the