Golden Cage Mommy Mutiny (Elyse) novel Chapter 38

After I packed, I bought the earliest ticket back to the countryside.

The bus hadn’t even pulled in yet, and I already saw the figure waiting at the entrance of the village. My eyes stung instantly.

I called my grandma, stayed quiet for a long moment, then finally forced out the words, “I missed

you, granny.”

On the other end, her laugh came bright and relieved, then softened into a tender, concerned tone. “Come home, sweetheart. I’ve made your favorite beef patties.”

In my last life, this little old lady in the countryside somehow found out I’d jumped from a rooftop. She grieved herself sick, her body fading fast, and not long after… she was gone.

The second I got off the bus, Grandma hurried over and took my bag from my hands. “Come on. Let’s go home. The beef patties are hot and fresh.]

This village home wasn’t big, but it held my entire childhood. In the days that followed, I quickly settled back into village life.

Back in the city, Selina found out I’d quit. She started to fluster, cause she knew the moment I stopped drawing, she’d have nothing left to “create”

She called me from one number after another, but I blocked every single one.

I knew it. As long as I gave up designing, Selina couldn’t produce any sketches either.

Grandma must have sensed something eating at me. She dragged me into the yard and made me sit with her, chatting away.

I’d been choking on the same question for so long that I finally told her everything.

Everything I drew, someone else seemed to know instantly. Not only that, they produced the exact same thing, faster than I could, like they were inside my head, living off my thoughts.

Grandma frowned, then her face turned heavy. “I’m going out tomorrow. You stay home and watch the house. Wait for me to come back.”

I didn’t know where she was going. All I knew was she left at dawn the next day.

By evening, she still hadn’t returned. I told myself she was visiting relatives or chatting with neighbors, so I called her, but there was no answer.

That night I couldn’t sleep, terrified something had happened to her.

The next morning, Grandma came back. And she brought someone with her, a woman even older than she was. Her hair was pure silver, her back bent, and she leaned on a cane.

Chapter 5

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I stared at it, then my blood ran cold. The cane’s handle was a snake’s head!

No, it wasn’t a handle.

It was an actual snake!

Its eyes were red, its tongue flicking as it stared at me, alive.

I stumbled backward. Grandma hurried to explain, This is Martha Fox. She’s from the next village over. Her family’s been spiritual mediums for generations, she knows how to deal with things like

this.”

I frowned and looked at Martha. She ran a finger over the snake’s tongue like it was nothing, then pressed that same finger lightly to the center of my forehead. A thin strand of creepy dark haze drifted out of my skin and wrapped around her fingertip.

“Girl, do you have an enemy who hates you enough to destroy you?”

I shook my head.

She sighed, then looked at me with grim seriousness. “That black energy is getting stronger. And it’s particularly negative to women’s constitution. Your life force is so weak it’s almost gone. I’m afraid you might not have many days left.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. So I was possessed?

Grandma was about to kneel down and beg her for the solution, but Martha caught her instantly. “Not yet. Since I’m here, there’s a way to break it.”

Grandma must’ve told her everything before she arrived.

Martha tapped the snake’s head once, then it moved. Slowly, it slid up onto my leg.

I froze, afraid one wrong move would set it off. It crawled to the web of my hand and bit down, which made me gasp sharply in pain.

“My good girl will pull some of that black energy out of you.” Martha looked straight at me. “The person setting you up worships something unclean. They offered sacrifices to bind your soul to someone else’s.”

“In plain English, that person can tap into your thoughts in one specific area, and the cost is your life. They’re burning you up to fuel it.”

Hearing this, I felt a deep, wrenching bitterness. “So that’s why my jewelry designs are stolen every time I start planning a draft.”

Chapter S