My suspicions proved to be correct as I soon had the good luck of overhearing Marie speaking with my mother.

"You know, you'll have to tell her eventually." Marie spoke softly as I listened at the top of the stairs.

Madeline huffed, "I know... but you know how she is! She ruins everything good in my life! Can't I just have this one thing?"

"You will have to tell her at some point," Marie reiterated.

"Tell me what?" I asked, revealing myself to the two women.

Mother was in a pastel purple gown. She turned to look up at me, wrinkling her pretty little nose in distaste.

"Tell me what, Mother?" I hissed.

"I am seeing a man." She replied, jutting her chin up at me.

"Seeing a man? For what?"

"For... marriage."

"You're getting married!? Why?!" I gasped.

"We need a man around the house."

"We don't need a man! You have me! Name one thing this man can do that I can't!" I exclaimed.

"Marry me! Good heavens Kiera have you never thought about how lonely I might be?" Mother shouted.

I glowered at her.

Marie's face looked pained.

"No."I growled, "I have not. Because you aren't lonely. You have Marie. You have me. You have everyone at the church that I am not allowed to go to! You could leave and run away and never come back, you have no idea how free you are Mama!"

My mother looked back at me with a stubborn defiance, "I am seeing this man, and that is the end of this discussion."

Fine mother. Then I would use a different means of communication.

It took me a while to come up with a suitable plan. One that would make sure that my mother would stay by my side. I had tried in vain to understand why she would want a man around the house.

The answer came to me in the form of Marie as she gave me a very tame version of how a child was made.

"Marie. What do you suppose men are good for?" I asked as we sat down for tea.

Her round cheeks colored with a blush.

"Men are good for many things, Kiera." She replied dismissively.

"Like what?" I looked up at her, wide eyed.

"Like... building things." She replied, as she poured me a little cup of tea.

"I can build things." I replied.

"Well, it's not the same. I- why are you asking me this?"

"I was wondering why mother wants to see the man," I snarled.

Marie nodded as if something clicked in her head.

"Alright. Well men are very special, they can, um help with getting babies."

I frowned, "What?! How? Mother told me babies came from storks."

Turning redder, Marie stammered over her words.

"W-well you see you need a man, and a woman to fill out the... form for a baby."

"A form?" I cocked my head to the side.

Marie nodded rapidly, "Yes- and then once the form is filled out, a husband and wife submit it."

"To the storks? But birds can't read."

"No... um to the... the Angels."

I nodded slowly, "So they give the form to the angels, and then what?"

"Then the angels give the baby to the storks, and the storks deliver the baby!" Marie exclaimed, now the color of a beet.

"Oh... that makes sense..." I mused, "So do you suppose that mother wants the man to help her get a baby?"

Marie spat her tea all over the table.

"What?!" I asked.

-~-

Later I stood on the stairs and peeped through the railing.

Mother had a little porcelain shepherd boy on the mantle of our fireplace. It had sat there since I was a child mocking me with it's smooth alabaster skin.

I felt on some days. That she would have liked that unliving thing to be her child, more than she liked me.

And so my maniacal little brain, latched onto that with the venom of my new plan.

On that fateful birthday so many years ago, Marie had gotten me a book about ventriloque. And throwing voices.

And I had learned at a very young age the effect that my voice had had on my mother.

So combining these things, I made a baby.

I had heard what a baby sounded like by listening at one of our neighbors' windows. When we still had neighbors. And the sound was easy to replicate.

I still find it funny, in a way. The panicked look that my mother had on her face when she heard the baby cry for the first time.

I had chosen the perfect time to test my new theory. Marie had to go take care of her elderly parents for a week. So, by the time she returned my mother was quite set in her new way.

She really seemed to think that the shepherd figurine was a real baby. Imagine my shock when she asked that I bring down my old cradle.

I did as she asked, however as soon as Marie returned I knew my luck had run out.

"Madeline!" Marie called into the house, "Oh hello Kiera!" She smiled.

"Aunty Marie why are you back so soon?!" I panicked.

"My father got better." She replied rather absently.

I frowned, my hands still raised to keep her out of the house.

She looks down on me in confusion. "Where is your Mother Kiera? I have gifts for you both."

"She's... well... see for yourself." I sighed.

Marie brushed past me to find my mother standing in the living room, rocking back and forth. Holding a little bundle of something.

"Madeline?"

My mother spun around, the light had faded from her sunken eyes. She smiled softly with a patient reprimand to her friend.

"Hush Marie. My baby is sleeping."

Marie frowned."A baby? May I see?"

My mother smiled tiredly.

"Would you like to hold him, he's finally settled down for his nap."

Marie nodded, paleness sweeping her natural rosy glow off her cheeks.

"Kiera come help me with this tea will you?" My mother called me from the kitchen.

"If you don't mind Madeline I'd like to speak to Kiera."

"Alright~" Mother started to hum.

Madeline's face was angry, I had never seen her angry before.

"Kiera... what is this?"

"It's... it's mother's baby." I twisted the lace at the border of my sleeve.

"What have you done?"

"I gave her a baby so she wouldn't have to get one with the doctor."

Marie gasped.

"Kiera, you are playing a dangerous game with your mother's sanity. Don't you understand?"

I looked down at the ground. "I don't like the doctor. Mother said some things about him that really scared me."

She sobered then. "Like what?"

"I overheard them, the doctor was talking to mama when he came to drop her off at our house. They were... they said that maybe they should put me in a home. An asylum. I don't know what that means but that sounds bad."

"Kiera, sweetheart, listen I'd never let your mother send you away."

"You know mama, once she sets her heart on something she just does it."

"I'll talk to her, okay? You just go to sleep."

I nodded and called to Sasha, who followed me up the stairs to bed.

SASHA! I almost forgot to mention her!

Sasha, a most loyal creature, and the only thing good in my little universe.

However as fate had, and has, never been kind to me. She was destined to be taken away from me as well.