Chapter 5: Please help her!

~Elara~

It's been seven days since the accident. Seven days of proof that whatever had happened in the car and in the hospital was a fluke. A response to trauma. A one-time thing that would never happen again.

Looking at her now, I could almost believe I had dreamed it all.

"And then Mr. Whiskers said he wanted pancakes but I told him rabbits don't eat pancakes, Mommy. They eat carrots. But he said he's a special rabbit so he can eat whatever he wants. Do you think that's true? Can special rabbits eat pancakes?"

Lily's voice filled the car like sunshine. She bounced in her booster seat, her braids swinging with every animated gesture, her little hands painting pictures in the air as she described the elaborate breakfast conversation she'd had with her stuffed rabbit.

"Mommy? Are you listening?"

"Special rabbits can eat whatever they want, baby." I smiled at her through the rearview mirror. "That's what makes them special."

She beamed at me, all gap-toothed joy and dimpled cheeks, and my heart ached with how much I loved her and desperately I wanted to protect her from everything.

I pulled up to Greenwood Elementary and stepped out to help Lily from the car."Okay, sweetheart. Remember what we talked about?"

"Be nice. Share my crayons. Don't bite anyone."

I flinched at the last one. She had added it herself after an incident in preschool that the teachers had chalked up to a phase. Children bite sometimes, they had assured me. It's perfectly normal.

But the marks she had left on that boy's arm hadn't looked normal. They had looked like something with too many teeth had tried to take a chunk out of him.

"That's right, baby." I crouched down and adjusted her collar. "And if you start feeling funny?"

"Tell the teacher I need to call Mommy."

"Good girl." I kissed her forehead and breathed in the scent of her strawberry shampoo. "I love you to the moon."

"And back." She threw her arms around my neck and squeezed tight. "Don't be sad while I'm gone, Mommy. Mr. Whiskers will keep you company."

She pressed the stuffed rabbit into my hands before I could protest. Its button eyes stared up at me, one of them hanging loose from the last time I had stitched it back on.

"I can't take Mr. Whiskers. He's yours."

"He wants to stay with you today." She said it with the absolute certainty that only children possess. "He told me."

My throat tightened. "Okay. I'll take good care of him."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

She grinned and skipped toward the gate without looking back. I watched until she disappeared through the doors, before I began to drive back home.

The house was a disaster. I hadn't cleaned properly in over a week.

I threw myself into it like a woman possessed and by noon, everywhere was spotless.

I opened the junk drawer to look for batteries and saw the card that the stranger had given me.

My fingers hovered over it for a long moment, then I walked to the trash can and dropped the card inside.

About twenty minutes later, my phone rang. I glanced at the number and saw that it was the school. A feeling of dread settled over me as I put the phone to my ear.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Vance? This is Principal Morrison from Greenwood Elementary."

My grip on the phone tightened. "Is something wrong? Is Lily okay?"

"Your daughter is physically unharmed." The pause that followed was heavy. "But there's been an incident. We need you to come to the school immediately."

"What kind of incident?"

"Your daughter attacked another student. He's being taken to the hospital." She took a breath. "Ms. Vance, three teachers saw what happened. They're saying... They're saying she threw the boy across the playground like he weighed nothing."

"That's impossible. She's five years old. She couldn't—"

"Please come to the school, Ms. Vance."

The line went dead. Without wasting anymore time, I grabbed my keys and drove to the school.

When I got there, the parking lot was chaos. An ambulance sat near the playground entrance, its lights flashing red and blue. Parents clustered in groups, whispering. A police car idled near the front doors.

They had called the police on my five-year-old daughter.

"Where is she?" I shouted. "Where's my daughter?"

"Ms. Vance." Principal Morrison appeared, her face pale. "Please, come with me."

"Where is Lily?"

"She's in my office. She's safe. But I need you to stay calm."

Stay calm. My daughter had just been accused of throwing a boy across a playground and this woman was telling me to stay calm.

I followed her down to her office. The door opened and I saw Lily sat in a chair that was too big for her, her feet dangling above the floor. Her braids had come loose. Her dress was torn at the shoulder. Her hands were folded in her lap, trembling. Her eyes were filled with tears that streamed down her cheeks.

"Mommy."

She launched herself at me and I caught her, dropping to my knees and pulling her against me. She sobbed into my neck, her small body shaking so hard I thought she might break apart.

"I didn't mean to." She wailed. "Mommy, I didn't mean to. He was being mean and then everything got too loud and my tummy felt funny and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop it, Mommy. I tried so hard to stop it."

"Shh." I stroked her hair with shaking hands. "It's okay, baby. It's okay. I'm here."

"They're scared of me." Her voice broke on the words. "Everyone's scared of me. Even the teachers. They looked at me like I was bad. Am I bad, Mommy? Am I a bad girl?"

"No." I whispered fiercely. "You are not bad. You are the best thing in my whole life. Do you hear me? You are good. You are so, so good."

Over her shoulder, I saw Principal Morrison standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed. Her expression was carefully blank but I could see the judgment in her eyes.

"Ms. Vance." She called, her voice flat. "We need to discuss what happens next."

"Not in front of her."

"Fine. Officer Davis can stay with Lily while we talk."

I pulled back and cupped Lily's face in my hands. "Mommy needs to talk to the grown-ups for a minute. Can you be brave for me?"

She nodded, her lower lip still trembling.

I kissed her forehead and forced myself to close the door behind me even though every instinct screamed at me to grab my daughter and run.

Principal Morrison led me to a small conference room down the hall. She closed the door and gestured to a chair.

I didn't sit.

"Tell me what happened."

She sighed and rubbed her temples. "Recess started at 11:15. Your daughter was playing alone near the swings, which apparently is normal for her. A group of children approached her. We're still getting the full story, but it seems Marcus Webb, one of the boys in her class, started teasing her."

"Teasing her how?"

"Calling her names. Weird girl. Freak. The usual cruelty children are capable of." She paused. "According to witnesses, he pushed her. That's when things escalated."

"Escalated?"

"Ms. Vance, I've been an educator for twenty-three years. I've seen playground fights. I've seen children lose their tempers." She looked at me with terror. "I have never seen a five-year-old girl pick up a boy twice her size and throw him fifteen feet through the air."

My legs went weak. I grabbed the back of a chair to steady myself.

"Three teachers witnessed it, two parents who were volunteering for lunch duty, and approximately thirty children." She continued in that same flat tone. "They all say the same thing. Lily's eyes turned gold. She growled. And then she threw Marcus Webb hard enough to break his arm and crack two of his ribs."

"She's five." I whispered, my voice shaking. "She can't—"

"I know what she can't do, Ms. Vance. I also know what I saw on that playground." Principal Morrison's composure finally cracked. "I saw a little girl who didn't look human and I don't know how to explain that. I don't know how to write that in an incident report. But I know that Lily cannot come back to this school."

"You're expelling her?"

"I'm protecting my students and my staff. And frankly, Ms. Vance, I'm protecting Lily too. Because if this happens again, the police won't just be taking statements. They'll be taking her."

I felt the beginning of panic spreading. They would take my daughter, lock her away somewhere and study her like a specimen.

"Please." The word scraped out of my throat. "Please, she didn't mean to. She's just a little girl. She doesn't understand what's happening to her."

"Do you understand what's happening to her?"

I couldn't answer. I couldn't tell this woman that my daughter was normal when we both knew she wasn't.

"Can I take her home?"

Principal Morrison nodded slowly. "The police may want to follow up. And I'll need to report this to Child Protective Services. It's protocol."

CPS. Of course. Because this nightmare wasn't complete without the threat of losing my daughter entirely.

"I understand."

I walked back to the principal's office on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. Lily was sitting exactly where I had left her, her hands still folded in her lap, her eyes still red from crying.

She looked up when I entered. "Am I in trouble mommy?"

"No, baby." I lied. "We're going home."

I picked her up and she wrapped herself around me like a koala, her face buried in my neck.

The drive home was silent. Lily fell asleep in her booster seat, exhausted from crying. I watched her in the rearview mirror, this tiny person I loved more than my own life, and my heart broke even more.

What was I supposed to do?

How was I supposed to save her from something I didn't understand?

When we got home, I carried her inside, laid her on the couch, and covered her with her favorite blanket then I walked to the kitchen.

The trash can sat exactly where I had left it. I lifted the lid and looked inside.

The card was still there, crumpled at one corner.

I reached in and pulled it out.

My hands were shaking so hard I could barely read the numbers. I typed them into my phone before I could change my mind.

He picked up on the third ring..

"Hello?"

"I can't lose her." The sob that tore out of me was ugly and raw. "Please… Please help her."