She loved her daughter. Of course, most mothers did, but Ellie loved Maria especially. More than most mothers. Each night, they’d sit by the crackling fire burning in a loose wire cage, curled under a blanket made of silk strands, their backs pressing the hardwood floors. Always after some sort of delightful dinner prepared by Ellie from the plants in the fields and gardens that Maria gathered. They would sit as the night fell, talking about dreams of traveling around the world, colorful new things they could do with the farm animals, paintings and murals they could make with the tools on hand at the farm. What Heaven was like.

Then Maria would fall asleep, and Ellie would carry her off to bed. Bury her in heavy, pink sheets.

As God said, it was good.

During the hours of daylight, they would work. Work on the farm, tending to the many animals. Pigs, chickens, and the like. Fielding the cotton and planting flowers around the shop near the highway. The corn, the produce. They were many miles from town, and they ate only what they grew. And often, they would become distracted. Distracted by the flowers and the breeze and the clouds in the sky, and they would play in the mud and race through the hot fields on the backs of horses.

Maria was six.

Ellie was thirty.

Warm days, all days like summer. In the winter; snow, and different types of play, especially in the heated pens with the animals, who were anxious. In the spring; mud and rain, but rain brought about the most fascinating games between a mother and a small child.

It was good.

They had a dog. Brick, a black lab. He did the work of rounding the sheep and chasing birds. And he loved his family, and they loved him. Maria would ride on his back around the house during lunchtime breaks, bouncing off the walls and furniture, laughing uproariously. And Ellie would chase them. Brick was always there when they rested near the fire, curled up on the wood floor beside them, his droopy eyes wet with tears of love.

It was good.

They minded the farm by themselves. Brick and Ellie and Maria. Somehow, and they loved it. It was a life they wished upon themselves for eternity, and it was peaceful, and it was happy, and the little problems that arose would be struck down by the mindful fists of independent girls. And a well-built dog.

One day, a miracle happened. Maria turned seven. Alone, they ate sherbert and carrot cake. The rejected meal fallen into their hands. As night fell, and Ellie prepared the fire, Maria played in the lawn with the lab, Brick, riding around and wrestling and throwing a ball.

A bird, a black one, was buzzing alone in the cornfield. Brick, overanxious from his game with the birthday girl, borked three times before giving chase after the bird, charging into the field faster than the cars on the distant roads. Maria was afraid and determined. She ran after the dog, into the cornfield, the barks and cries attracting Ellie, who ran out to the porch with wild eyes. She scanned the cornfield, but the rest of her family had vanished.

Though, after just three minutes, both returned. Brick with an executed crow locked in his big jaw, and Maria with mud all over her white dress, a red mark dripping grey something on her hand.

A bite.

Ellie didn’t notice. 

As they were preparing dinner, Maria grew tired quickly, and before they could even sit by the fire as they had hundreds of times, the tiny girl was asleep. Much to the surprise of her mother. It seemed the energy had been drained through a funnel, and Ellie put her to bed, ignoring her own confusion.

The next day, Maria fell asleep over her lunch. She refused to wake up again, and Ellie put her to bed, this time only slightly concerned. 

The following morning, Maria didn’t wake at all, not until her mother, in a matronly panic, soaked her with cold water. In the afternoon, Maria’s skinny legs failed her, causing her to collapse in a pile of manure. As Ellie bathed her inexplicably drowsy daughter, she noticed the mark on her hand, a mark which had grown by three times, sprouting red veins down her wrist and bursting a black seam. As Maria slept early, Ellie promised to take her to the hospital in the nearest city, one hundred miles north.

However, that night, a tornado ravaged through the dry countryside, tearing trenches through the highway on both sides of the farm. Ellie was trapped with her ill-fallen daughter.

She proceeded with strength, though, providing warm bowls of soup, water, and homemade medicines, including a lotion treatment made from corn. Maria’s rotting tissue remained in stalemate, and she was able to stay awake for longer amounts of time.

Twenty days following the destructive cyclone, Ellie was tending to the cows in the grass, the work bearing down on her shoulders more than it ever had, with the absence of her little helper. After milking the cows, she made a cup of tea and crept into her recovering daughter’s bedroom, where the curtains were drawn and the lights were low.

Maria was there, sleeping, her golden hair laced in a braid and her cheeks puffy with tears Ellie had not been present to see the origin of. Ellie sat down in the wooden chair near the bed, whose seat was sagging with many visits from the same woman. She set the tea on the bedside table and nudged her daughter’s restful shoulder. After there was no movement, she did it again. And again. And again.

No seven-year-old girl would wake that morning.

Or afternoon.

Or evening.

Ellie, so overwhelmingly grief-stricken, did not even bury her daughter. She simply couldn’t take the extended process. 

Instead, she carried her daughter into the cornfield and threw her into the weeds, turning and running back to the house to throw a fit of rage like a mad-woman.

Over time, the field grew orange, then red, then brown. The animals broke from their pens to escape for food, and Brick was trapped outside to drink only from the gutters. Ellie locked herself away inside her home, with nothing but her sleeping gown. The stove crusted over with age and the refrigerator blinked out. Ellie would lie in bed and scream into her pillow, and then scream into the air, and then throw her wild fists into the windows. She would dive to the floor and try to tear out the hardwood planks, and she would kick the wireframe over the fireplace until her toes were shredded and blood soaked the foot of the couch. Ellie would wake up from horrible nightmares, finding herself standing in the kitchen, digging holes in her own skin with her torn fingernails.

For every morning, every afternoon, every warm evening, Ellie would see her. Standing in the cornfield, sitting at the table, curled up by the hearth. Wearing the same muddy dress, the pink bow above her golden hair which masked her face. And red eyes and rotting flesh where the spider had bitten her and blood visibly draining from her childish cheeks.

Ellie would cower to the floor, her head in her hands, whether conscious or not, for she would see her daughter in all those places, all around, covered in the marks of a dead child. And every day, she would whisper the same thing, her voice sweet and hypnotic.

“It was you…”

It wasn’t long before the dog died.