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What did she say? She had to have it? That made absolutely no sense. "You did it? You took the lock of hair from her head?"

Now I was really confused. She remained silent, rocking, staring at the wall, her lips tight with rage.

"But how... you weren't even born yet. Mama."

She turned to look at me, and in her expression I could see that she had said more than she had wanted. She actually looked frightened for a moment and turned away.

"Mama?"

She shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it anymore and I don't want you to talk about it. Ever."

"But how could you be there to do it?" The question wouldn't swallow back. It was a bubble that wouldn't be denied no matter how I tried to keep it from reaching the surface. How could she be there to cut the lock of hair from a stillborn baby born to her great-grand-parents?

The answer was in the heavy silence that fell between us. It wasn't a stillborn baby born to her great-grandparents. Was it her mother's baby? Why wouldn't she ever have told us? Why would she say it was her great-grandparent's child? My heartbeat quickened and a feather made of ice brushed over the back of my neck.

"Was it your mother's baby?"

She turned back to me ever so slowly, and when she did. her eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into her skull. Her lips became tight and thin.

"No."

"No? Then I don't understand."

"She came out of me," she said in a deathly whisper. "You?"

"I wasn't much older than you are. I hid it from my mother until I could hide it no longer and she drew it out of me so it would be stillborn. It was wrinkled and ugly. Only its hair was pretty, only its hair. Its hair was like spun gold. I couldn't resist."

"Your baby? How did your mother know it was evil?"

She looked away and rocked. "Every family has a dark spirit in it, a blemish. He was my father's younger brother. He wasn't here often or long, but it was enough. I was seduced, and afterward he was punished."

"What happened to him?"

She smiled. "Yes, something happened to him. My mother put a curse on him and he died a horrible death, his insides rotted out with cancer. But he was a handsome man, a charming man. Evil always is, you know, The devil hash a pleasing face,' she quoted.

She looked at me. "That's why it's so important to be careful, to be guarded, to be

good. That's why you must listen to everything I tell you and do what I tell you. Noble."

She turned away again and rocked. "If she had lived, if she had been alive, she would have been the first Celeste. She knew that and she worked and worked at returning until she entered my Celeste, and that is why I had to bury her forever and ever. Now all the evil is underground and we're safe. We're safe," Mama chanted.

She had entered the first Celeste? Had Mama always thought me evil? Was that why she so readily believed Noble's death was my fault?

"We're safe," she chanted. "She's dead and gone. Buried and gone."

She looked at me again. "And she'll never be resurrected." Her words fell like small explosions on my ears and echoed.

And echoed,

"Never be resurrected... never be resurrected... never..." I turned and ran out and up the stairway.

5

I'm Beautiful

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All my life I had grown up believing that our