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“I want to talk to Dad,” I said.

I started to walk towards the door, but she quickly grabbed my wrist to stop me. My mother squeezed hard, digging her nails into my skin. “No, Poppy.”

“Ow, you're hurting me. Let me go.” I tried to yank my arm free, but she held on tight. “Mom, stop. Let me go. That hurts.”

“Poppy! For fucks sake, you're nine years old; just do as your goddamn told!” Her tone hit me like a ton of bricks.

I was instantly afraid of her. There was something about her eyes—the twitchiness of them, the swelling darkness that seemed to be seeping over the banks of her pupils. The way I could see myself inside them, like she had two mirrors where her eyes had once been, made my chest squeeze. Thin red veins cracked across the white orbs, reminding me of spiderwebs scattered between blades of grass.

I didn't argue anymore. I was silent, doing everything my mother asked me to do. I had never been scared of my mother before—not once. And now it was a feeling I would never forget. This fear was different. It came from deep inside my body, spreading out like liquid fire, and setting my skin ablaze.

The moon was still out when my mother put our suitcases in the car. The house was dark. There wasn't a single light on, noteven above the front door. The wind whistled as it swirled and danced between the forest.

She kept looking around as if someone might burst out of the trees at any moment. “Get in. We have to go if we're going to make our flight.”

I climbed in the car without resistance. My mother took one last look around, then paused a little longer on our home. She seemed to be looking through the walls, through the furniture, through the caverns of empty space until she stopped. Her eyes steadied in the sockets, lips thinning as if she locked eyes with someone else. And then we were gone.

“Look, Poppy, I know this is confusing for you, but I don't want you to worry. Everything is going to be fine.”

I finally mustered the strength to ask, “Where's Dad? Is he meeting us at the airport?”

She kept her eyes on the road as she tilted her head and said, “No, Honey. Dad is not meeting us at the airport.”

“Is he meeting us where we're going?

“No. He's staying home this time.” She twisted her hands around the steering wheel nervously as she frowned. “Don't worry about dad. This is for us.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

My father wasn't around all the time. He was a busy man with a lot of weight on his shoulders. He worked a lot, and his job required him to travel all over the world. My father was an important man. He was making the world better. He was making the world healthier. And he was saving people.

My mother pursed her lips briefly in thought then said, “It means you don't need to worry, alright? This is going to be fun—a fun girl's trip. How does that sound?”

I shrugged my shoulder as I turned to look out the window. “I don't know.”

“Dad goes on all kinds of trips, doesn't he?”

“So why isn't he on this one with us?”

“Does he ever take us with him?”

“No.” I sighed heavily, then turned to glare at her. “But that doesn't mean he never wanted to. He told me before that he wished he could bring me with him, but his trips are for business, not fun. But he promised me that once I was old enough, he would take me with him.”

“That's bullshit,” she scoffed, her voice almost a mocking chuckle. “God, he's so good at filling your head with lies.”

“What?”

“Forget it. Forget about your father and what he's told you. This is our trip.Ourtrip. And we're going to have fun.”

When we reached the airport, my mother gathered our stuff from the trunk. There was a nervous air about the way she moved. She kept looking around again, the same way she did when we were leaving our house, fumbling with our things as if they were covered in oil and too slippery to control.

“Okay, come on,” she said as she tucked her purse under her arm and pulled the bags behind her. “Our flight leaves in two hours.”

“Where are we going?”

“It's a surprise.”

She didn't look at me when she was talking. She was staring into her purse and rummaging around. I still felt the same fear that had come over me earlier at home. I didn't know what was happening, where we were going, or why we were leaving. The trip didn't feel like a trip; it felt like we were running away.