How Can Parents Retell The Story Of Crow And Sparrow At Bedtime?

“If you ever call that bastard my child again, I will yank it out of your belly!” My heart shatters like a knife plunged deep. I stay still, my body shaking. “Now sign these papers and get out of my life!” he barks, throwing the papers at me. “If I ever see you close to me or my territory, I will have you beheaded in the most painful way imaginable!” **** Isla Monroe had given up everything: her dreams, her wishes, even her best friend; just to please her cold, distant husband. She endured the silence, the neglect, the loneliness, hoping that one day he would change… that he would finally look at her as something more than just the trophy wife. The day she learned she was pregnant, Isla was accused of an affair with the gardener. The staff turned on her, her family cast her out, and Marcus believed them without question. Saving her unborn babies was more important than proving her innocence, so Isla left quietly. “From now onwards, I will be your mother and your father. I will never let those who discarded us come close to you.” She fled the city. Five years later, Marcus runs into two identical little children who look just like him. They have his red lips and deep blue eyes. He is instantly drawn to them. “Little one, who is your mother?” The children point to Isla, the wife he discarded, now powerful and determined to keep him from her children. “Get away from my children!” she hisses, urging the nannies to take them away. “Didn’t I tell you not to speak to strangers, my babies?” Marcus is shocked. But what will he do when he finds out she is married to his blood, his rival? Drama with a twist.

I'm adopted by my parents. They are very nice to me—so nice that they keep praying for my health and happiness before my bedtime every night. Later on, Mom is pregnant with a baby. I hide under my blanket and spend the night crying. Then, I secretly pack the tiny suitcase I've brought with me. But my parents don't send me away. Instead, they treat me even nicer. On the day my little sister, Freya Walker, gets born, Mom takes my hand and pats me gently on the head. "You're an older brother now. That's why you have a little sister to be with you." Dad lifts me over his head while spinning me in circles happily. "You really are our lucky charm, Ash! You'll always be our beloved darling!" Finally, I don't have to keep worrying about getting kicked out. From that day onward, I really think that I've become a part of the family. That is, until Freya smashes my favorite toy car model one day. I'm so angry that I smack her on the spot. She stumbles away from me, soon plopping to the floor. At first, she's stunned for a few moments, only to start bawling immediately after. Mom loses her mind instantly. She shoves me away before scooping Freya into her arms and keep asking her if she's hurt. Dad rushes over and starts strangling me immediately with frighteningly bloodshot eyes. "We've kept you around for so many years, and yet you have the gall to bully Freya? Believe me when I say I'm definitely sending you back to—"

My husband, Gabriel Buckner, and I had been married for three years. I'd gotten pregnant twice, but I'd lost both babies. It was all because of my in-laws' parrot that could talk. The first time I got pregnant and went to their house, the parrot stared at my belly and kept repeating, "Get rid of the baby! Get rid of the baby!" The second time, the same thing happened. It looked right at my stomach and said the same words. I thought it was just nonsense, but to my shock, my in-laws actually took the parrot seriously and forced me to end the pregnancy. I even showed them the prenatal checkup report from my doctor to prove that the baby was perfectly healthy and begged them not to do it. But they dragged me to the hospital anyway and made me have an abortion on the spot. When I got pregnant a third time, I wanted to be extra cautious. I went straight for an amniocentesis. The report confirmed the baby was healthy and even showed a 99.9% DNA match with Gabriel's. I thought everything would be fine this time. But as soon as the parrot saw me again, it repeated the same words—"Get rid of the baby." And just like before, the Buckners immediately tried to drag me to the hospital. I couldn't understand it. The baby was perfectly healthy, and the DNA report proved it was Gabriel's child. So why would they rather believe a parrot and insist that I get rid of the baby?

Father is a seven-tailed white fox, and Mother is a five-tailed flame fox. By all logic, with those two rolling the genetic dice, the worst child they could get should be a six-tailed fox. But Mother has given birth nine times, and each baby is a single-tailed earth fox. The two of them think their cultivation simply isn't strong enough, so they train even harder. The truth is, every child Mother has given birth to is a nine-tailed fox. It's just that Father's subordinate, Oscar Brown, switches them at birth and strangles them to death. I'm the unlucky idiot who's died nine times. By the tenth time, I cry and scream that I'm done. The Heavenly Way is so sick of me kicking up a fuss that they say they'll help me solve the problem. I expect them to just strike Oscar and those fox cubs with divine lightning. Instead, they grant Father the ability to perfectly comprehend baby language. When I open my eyes again, Mother is crying to Father while holding a scrawny, dark-furred earth fox. "Darling, it's all my fault. Our child only has one tail again." Meanwhile, Oscar has hidden me in his sleeve. He's about to take me away to be disposed of. In my panic, I shout in my mind, [Father, save me! Your subordinate switched me! I'm in his sleeve!] Father, who is gently comforting Mother, freezes. He looks toward Oscar, who looks shifty, and says, "Stop right there. What's that in your sleeve?"

The Mother That Fed the Dark is a study of inherited guilt, ritual, and the long reach of a mother's choices. Amahle, a woman who practices the old rituals in secret, believes that her younger son , Sipho, was born as a spiritual "door" to be sacrificed for the sake of power and protection. During the ritual she performed , she got interrupted by the older son, Thando, who died instead. While the community believes Thando's death was accidental, Amahle knows better: it was the wrong son who died, and the ritual was left unfinished. Drenched in fear and resentment , Amahle raises Sipho as if he is the love of her life, while at the same time working to destroy him. Behind closed doors, she feeds the supernatural force from the failed ritual, which weakens Sipho, making him fearful and dependent. As Sipho grows, so do the misfortunes that follow him, and an unseen entity begins to present itself-first in dreams and whispers, then in the physical world . What we see is that the ritual did not bind to the house but to Sipho's bloodline. When Sipho leaves home, the haunting grows stronger. After Amahle's death, Sipho finds her secret notebooks , which reveal to him the shocking truth: that his brother's death was a mistake and, in fact, Sipho was never meant to die but to be the vehicle for the ritual, which he indeed is. Setting the family home on fire brings only temporary relief , but the curse does not break. In the final revelation, Sipho realizes that he is not the offering but the keeper, the living portal through which harmony, hardship, and magical power flow. Unlike his mother, he comes to the realization that he has a choice.

I suffer from a rare lung disease and depend on a ventilator to stay alive. My dad, Wesley Lowe, works three jobs and saves up enough money to replace my old machine with an imported one. The new ventilator is already relatively very quiet. Even so, my mom, Keira Sheeran, still thinks it's too noisy. She says the sound keeps waking her up at night and reminds her that I am like a bottomless pit. One day, my newborn baby brother, Jasper Lowe, won't stop crying. The doctor says newborns are sensitive to noise. Mom immediately breaks down. Her eyes are red with tears as she rushes over, points at me, and screams, "Can't you just die already? Your cousin can't afford to get married because of the burden you put on our family, and now your little brother can't even get a good night's sleep! "Can't you turn it off for just one night so the whole family can finally have some peace and quiet?" After saying that, she takes Jasper and goes back to her parents' house. I look at the "Happy Family" cross-stitch embroidery hanging on the wall. Slowly, I unplug the ventilator. "Mom, Dad, it's quiet now."