I’m a police detective assigned to a rather strange case. We just got a warrant to search a house owned by a man and woman named Jim and Kay Boyd. I’ve been searching through their things and haven’t found much of anything. Until I got to their daughter’s room. I found a journal there, and I read most of it. Things just aren’t adding up for me. I’m typing it all up here in hopes someone can make some sense of it. I’m breaking some major confidentiality laws, but I just can’t keep this to myself anymore.

Here’s what’s written:

​

On her tenth birthday, Edie Boyd decided to go for a walk. 

It was four o’clock in the evening and no one even remembered it was her birthday. Not her dad. Not her mom. Not her friends. Not even Mrs. Penny wished her the obligatory “happy birthday” on the whiteboard at school just like she did for every other student. Edie was invisible. No matter how much her feelings were hurt, though, she didn’t say a word to anyone.

When she got home after school, her mom and dad were arguing again. Something about bills and money, but Edie didn’t care enough to listen too closely. Her parents would almost always argue everyday, and it was beginning to wear her down. Money this, money that. Her parents never had any or they never had enough. 

The reason for that was simple: her father could never hold down a job long enough to keep a steady paycheck. Her mom, on the other hand, could never get a job at all. She was always too busy smoking something in the morning to knock her out for the rest of the day or taking pill after pill in the evening to keep her up all night.

Edie would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to find her mom rummaging through her bedroom, looking for who knows what in her chest of drawers. The only things in there were the few pairs of underwear Edie had and some socks that had holes in the toes. If her mom was looking for money or drugs, Edie sure wasn’t harboring any in her room. Her mom had been too crazy to talk some sense into, though. She searched anyway.

For as long as she could remember, Edie’s life had been this way. Her parents were always neglectful, and even when they did notice her, it was always to yell at her or blame her for something she didn’t do. There were many times she’d gone to school wearing tattered clothes and clothes that were too cold for the weather. She didn’t own a coat, only long-sleeved t-shirts and small cardigans that didn’t keep her warm in the winter. 

Sometimes winters in the south could get balmy and freezing. They’d had cases of ice storms that knocked the power out once or twice and Edie almost froze to death during those. Her parents had been too preoccupied with themselves to even throw her a blanket. 

Her teachers had noticed. Even Mrs. Penny. They’d often send her to the youth service center in her school where they’d give her secondhand coats and packages of socks and underwear and sometimes grocery bags of food. She had always been grateful for those things, but most of the time her mom took the clothes and she was stuck without anything to keep her warm again.

Sometimes she showed up to school with bruises all over her body. They would dot her legs and arms like constellations in the sky. Sometimes it would pain her to walk, and she would limp to the playground during recess time with all the other kids in her class. Kids who had normal, loving parents.

CPS had been called, but nothing had been done about her situation. Edie had been taken out of her home on one occasion and she’d gotten to live with a nice family who had a nice, big, soft bed for her with a thick, warm comforter. But she only stayed there for a week before her parents earned custody of her again. 

CPS never came back and Edie learned to fend for herself.

When she stepped into the house, neither one of Edie’s parents saw her set her worn knapsack with a large hole in the bottom on a kitchen chair, grab a dry biscuit her mom made for breakfast yesterday from the counter, and walk out the front door.

She picked at the biscuit, pieces crumbling onto the ground as she made her way into the tree shrouded area behind her house. It was too small to be a forest because a couple miles in and she’d be on the other side of town next to the school. It was how Edie managed to get herself there in the morning. Her parents couldn’t take her; her mom was either passed out on the couch or whispering to herself in the corner and her dad was busy finding a new job. Neither one had cared enough to call the school and set up a bus pick-up and drop off. Instead, she walked to school every morning and walked back home every evening. 

As she ate the biscuit, she walked further into the trees, wishing she had brought some water along with her. The biscuit was so dry, the second it touched her tongue she could feel the moisture in her mouth drying up. She could hear a swishing sound in the distance; a warm summer wind brushed past her cheek. This was the one place she felt was home in the peace and quiet away from everyone and everything. Away from her parents arguing. Away from all the noise and all her problems. Out here in the woods, Edie was something. She was a part of nature. 

She took a deep breath and shoved the dry biscuit into her jeans pocket. Her stomach let out a low rumble, signaling the hunger blossoming within her belly. The biscuit was all the food she would probably get tonight. 

Edie looked down as she continued to walk, wondering if her parents were still arguing back at her house. She’d been gone for at least fifteen minutes. Had they noticed her things yet?

She stepped over stick after stick, avoiding them in case they happened to be a snake in disguise. Surely she could tell the difference though. One had shiny scales, the other rough, discolored bark. The more she avoided them, the quicker she hopped through the woods, bounding over fallen tree limb after fallen tree limb. She hopped onto stumps and jumped from those to piles of leaves, creating a game for herself— the classic floor is lava game. She pretended the grass patches were where the lava was hottest, avoiding those altogether. If there was a patch of leaves, she could step there, but only for a short period of time because those represented thin sheets of metal floating on the lava river. The tree stumps and some thick branches were considered safe spaces where she could take time to collect her balance.

She jumped, skipped, and rolled through the woods, careful to avoid the bare patches of grass. She was doing fine up until she caught her toes on a stump, which she thought was a lot shorter than expected. She fell face forward onto the ground, head hitting a patch of grass she had been narrowly trying to avoid. She was lying flat on her stomach trying to catch her breath. The fall had knocked the wind out of her and she felt like she’d been hit with a football going fifty miles per hour square in the stomach. 

She’d half fallen into a mud puddle; her legs and feet were now caked with clumps of mud and dirt, staining her jeans a dark brown and earthy green. She’d never be able to wash them well enough for the stains to come out. When she had managed to get onto her knees, she could see the full extent of the damage. Just what Edie expected. A hole had also been torn into the left knee of her jeans. They were ruined. Her favorite pair of pants. 

Edie sighed and lifted her head, peering at the trail ahead of her. The sun was low in the sky and shining right in her direction, directly in her eyes. She had to squint to see.

She heard it before she saw it though. A small hiss. A slither. The rustling of leaves as the reptile pushed its way through the underbrush. 

A small snake lifted its head to meet Edie face-to-face. Its dark brown scales shimmered in the sunlight, illuminating a thick coat of skin. Edie sat still as stone as she watched it flick its tongue out again and again to taste the fear in the air.

Edie didn’t dare move. She knew if she did, the snake would strike, and she’d be a goner. She knew what kind of snake this was. A cottonmouth. She’d read about them in the encyclopedia at the library. Cottonmouth venom prevents the blood in humans from clotting which therefore leads to hemorrhaging. If she was bitten, she knew she’d never make it to the hospital. Especially if her parents were still arguing. They wouldn’t care that she was about to meet Death. 

Edie gulped down the lump of fear rising in her throat. She didn’t move or break eye contact. The snake was ready to strike, and with one slight movement, the snake would latch on to her. The reptile swayed its head back and forth, ready to strike. Edie had all but stopped breathing. 

What was she going to do? How was she going to get out of this? If she had just stayed home and went to her room, then she wouldn’t be in this kind of trouble. She wouldn’t be face-to-face with a venomous snake. 

Then she thought of the biscuit in her pocket, which led to her thinking the snake might be hungry and that was why it was eyeing her up and down like she was going to be its next meal. How was she going to get to the biscuit though?

She moved her right hand slowly, maintaining eye contact with the snake. Any sudden movements would cause it to lunge at her. She had seen situations like this before, heard about them from the kids at school. Edie was moving so slowly she thought it would take her hours to pull the biscuit out of her pocket. But somehow she managed to make contact with it. Part of it had fallen apart in her pocket, leaving a pile of crumbs in its wake. She gently pulled it out, adjusting the biscuit in the palm of her hand. She slowly held it out before the snake. 

Within seconds the snake struck at the biscuit in her hand, sending it flying to the ground. Edie jumped in surprise, terrified it would lunge at her again. But it didn’t. Instead the snake was feasting on the biscuit, having forgotten all about Edie. Just like everyone else.

Anger welled inside her chest. No matter what she did or said, she was forgettable by everyone and everything. She got to her feet, stomping over to the snake. Before it could swallow the biscuit whole, she snatched the biscuit from its grasp and shoved the whole thing into her mouth, venom drippings and all. 

Edie instantly regretted it at first because the biscuit was so dry and her mouth was parched. She needed water. She regretted it even more when she thought the snake would bite her, pierce her skin with its venom. But it didn’t. Instead, it lifted its head to look at her. She swore she could see sadness in its beady eyes. She felt guilty having shoved the entire biscuit into her mouth. The dryness paired with the judging glare from the snake was enough to make her cry, a tear sliding down her cheek. 

Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore and hightailed it out of the woods, running in the opposite direction away from the snake. She’d spit the biscuit somewhere on the ground on her way back home, unable to swallow the huge clump of dry dough that had mushed together in her mouth. 

She kept running until she saw her house appear in the distance, a wave of relief washing over her. For once in her life she was glad to see that familiar dirty, white vinyl with a massive hole underneath the back window. She could see the damage on the roof where her dad had tried to patch some leaks. 

“Where the hell have you been, Ed?” Her dad asked when she threw herself through the front door. “You’s s’posed to be home an hour ago.”

Edie looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot and wide with anger. He was breathing heavily and his mouth was parted, revealing the bottom row of his teeth jutted out from a severe overbite. His cheeks were red and pockmarked, a product of arguing with her mom, who was nowhere to be seen at that moment. Her dad’s white t-shirt had been torn, like someone had tried to rip it off him, and his jeans hung low on his hips, revealing the band of a pair of Fruit of the Loom boxers underneath. 

Instead of offering up an explanation, Edie ignored her dad and went straight to her room, shutting the door behind her. 

“Edie!” Her dad yelled.

She didn’t want to face her dad’s wrath for not listening to him, but she couldn’t take the added stress. Edie threw herself onto the bed and closed her eyes, hoping for sleep to take her instead. 

——

Over the next few days, Edie hadn’t been allowed to go to school. After she had ignored her dad, she took a beating and punishment of being locked in her room. She was only allowed out to use the bathroom and drink water. Those were the worst three days of her life. She had a bruise the size of her dad’s fist on her cheekbone, sore to the touch. Her stomach rumbled with hunger on and off for those three days, and the longer she went without food, the more her stomach hurt. 

But one thing that lingered in her mind during those three days was the snake she met in the woods. She thought about him to help get her mind off things at home. She wondered if he was still there, if he was still hungry. Albert, it’s what she decided to call him, in remembrance of the stray cat she once had as a pet for a week, but then disappeared shortly after. 

When she regained her freedom, she decided to take a plate of food into the woods with her, hoping to see the snake again. This time she’d packed an array of foods. Some grapes, lunch meat and cheese, another dry biscuit, and some chocolate. She knew snakes ate small prey, but she didn’t have any field mice around to bring Albert, so she settled on what was in the scant fridge at home. 

She took the same route through the woods as she did three days ago, although this time she chose not to play that stupid child’s game that got her hurt and ruined her jeans. 

She walked and walked, looking at the ground for any signs of the snake. But she never found one. Albert had probably slithered off somewhere far away after their meeting. Why would a snake stay around in hopes of Edit bringing it food? He was a reptile, not a human. She scoffed and silently laughed at herself. How could she have been so stupid?

She sat down on a big rock next to where she tripped the last time playing floor is lava. She picked at the lunch meat, taking bird bites of everything else. Although she was starving, she felt she was too sick to eat anything too substantial. 

She heard a slither somewhere close, a brushing of leaves and grass. Was it Albert? Edie searched the ground, looking for the snake. He was so dark, he matched the color of the ground. It was difficult to tell if she was looking at him until he raised his head from the underbrush just like he had the first time.

“Albert,” she said, relieved. The snake had stayed in the spot. It made her wonder why, but she tried not to think too deeply about it. Maybe she had made a friend in this lonely snake. 

Albert slithered his tongue in and out as if in reply. He didn’t try to strike her or lunge at her. In fact, he looked happy to see her. Edie could tell in the way he was bobbing his head back and forth. She smiled, grabbing a piece of the lunch meat. She pushed it toward Albert and he took a piece from her. She took a bit in turn. 

They shared the plate of food until only crumbs remained. Edie would feed a bit to Albert and then she would take a bit. They continued with that pattern until the plate was empty. When it was though, Edie frowned. She had no more food to give to Albert. But he stayed in the same place, full and satisfied. She reached her hand out to pat his head with two fingers. The scales were cold and slimy to the touch. She recoiled at the sensation, and Albert withdrew into a coil on the ground, slithering away in the underbrush. 

Edie felt like she hadn’t spent all but twenty minutes with him and now she had scared him away. A tear fell down her cheek, and another, and another, until she was sobbing. The one thing she had managed to get to notice her she had scared away. 

She sniffed, wiping under her nose with the back of her hand. Edie would come back the next day with even more food. And the next day. And the next day. She and Albert would become best friends. 

She was sure of it.

——

Edie kept to her word and returned the next day with even more lunch meat, cheese, fruit, and bread. She would feed Albert a bite, then she would take a bite. The pattern continued like that everyday until her parents started noticing food was missing from the fridge and pantry. 

“Edie Joanna Boyd, you’re eatin’ us out of house and home,” he dad grumbled at her, slamming the fridge door shut. “Where are you puttin’ it all? You ain’t big as nothin’.”

Her heart jumped into her throat. What was she going to say? How was she going to lie her way out of this?

“I just get hungry after school is all,” she replied, picking at the cuticles on her nails. She was working on a loose piece of skin on her finger, picking and picking at it until she could feel the blood start pouring out of her. She lifted her finger to her mouth, sucking and licking the wound clean. The familiar taste of metal coated her tongue.

“Edie, girl.” Her mom’s raspy voice trailed up the hallway. She was coming into the kitchen to join them. “That’s the only food we got until next month, ya hear? Don’t be wastin’ what we got.”

Edie had been taking the bare minimum in hopes they wouldn’t notice. She was wrong once again. Her parents always noticed the small things if it affected them directly, never if it only affected her. 

“Listen to yer momma,” her dad pointed his big index finger toward her chest. “Go to your room.”

“Yes, sir,” she said and made her way down the hall, sidestepping where her mother stood. Edie could feel her wide, wild eyes never waver from her small frame. She walked a little fast down the hall and into her room. She shut the door behind her, threw herself onto her decades old mattress on the floor, and cried and cried until she couldn’t open her eyes.

——

After yesterday’s debacle, Edie decided she was going to see Albert one more time. She hadn’t gotten to see him the day before because her parents confronted her about the missing food. She hadn’t wanted to add fuel to the fire because God knows she would have received the beating of a lifetime. 

Edie wrapped two slices of bread, a slice of ham and cheese loaf, and a couple of grapes in a paper towel and made her way to the back door. She closed it quietly behind her, hoping not to wake her parents. They’d still been asleep since it was Saturday— even if it was one o’clock in the afternoon.

She skipped down the back porch steps, careful not to drop her sandwich and grapes. She looked ahead and almost felt like she could hear the woods whispering to her, beckoning for her to come inside and find Albert and stay there forever.

She wanted to, but then what would happen to her? Her parents wouldn’t care— she knew that for certain. But someone at school would call the police, report her missing. She just wanted to be left alone. Or maybe they would forget about her entirely. She was invisible after all.

Edie trekked forward into the woods to the secret spot where she and Albert shared meals. She found him curled up perfectly where she left him the last time.

“Hey, buddy,” Edie said, excitement lighting up in her eyes and tone of voice. She was glad to see her friends again. 

As soon as he recognized her voice, Albert lifted his head and began bobbing it back and forth as if he was excited to see her too.

“I’ve got some more goodies for us.” Edie balanced herself into a sitting position on the big rock she always sat on. She carefully unwrapped the bread, meat, and grapes, grabbing a slice of bread first. 

She took a small bite and then offered it to Albert who struck at the bread, tearing a piece from the slice. Edie smiled, taking another bite. She switched to the ham and cheese loaf next, sharing the slice with Albert. Back and forth, back and forth. Edie would chew her bite and Albert would swallow his. They’d almost finished eating everything when she heard a rustle of leaves and branches to her left. 

Edie jerked her head to the side to see the giant form of her dad appear in the clearing. His cheeks were red and a bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. In his hand he held a big, rusty machete. He must have used it to slash through branches and shrubbery. He was a big man; he couldn’t fit through the woods like Edie could.

“You thievin’, connivin’ little bitch,” he seethed through his teeth clamped together. His jaw tightened more and more the longer Edie stared at him. “I shoulda known you was up to no good.”

He started toward her and Edie let go of the paper towel, rising to her feet, scrambling to get away from her dad. 

“What the hell do you think this is? Your feedin’ a snake? A snake, Edie? What is wrong with you?”

She stumbled backward as her dad reached for her arm. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Albert slithering into a defensive stance. He was scared just as much as she was. He looked like he would strike at her dad any second.

He grabbed Edie’s wrist, squeezing it tightly. She tried to pull away, to no avail. “Dad,” she said, exasperated. “Please, it’s not what it looks like.”

“I don’t give a damn what it looks like,” he growled, pulling Edie toward him. “It’s stopping right now.” 

Edie’s dad stepped to the left, dragging Edie with him. She tried to pull away but he was so strong and she was so small. In one fell swoop, Albert lunged at her dad in an attempt to bite him, send venom through his system. He was still a cottonmouth after all. Her dad was too quick for him though. He swung the machete just as his head almost made contact with the skin on his bare upper arm. He sliced his head clean off.

And within seconds Albert was dead.

Edie stared down at his slithering body. It was still writhing like a worm on the ground. But he was dead, she knew he was. Snakes were known to move around long after they were dead, but they couldn’t survive without a head. Nothing could. 

Her first best friend in years was dead. Her dad had killed him. 

“Come on,” her dad yanked her hard, almost sending her falling to the ground. “No outside privileges for a while. If you think you can steal our food and get away with it, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Edie tried to yank her arm out of his grasp, but he was way too strong. She could see the veins popping out of his muscles in the strain. As he continued to force her out of the woods, Edie let the grief and pain take over. Her stomach was in knots; she couldn’t breathe. Albert was dead. And so was she.

She passed out before they made it out into the clearing.

——

Days passed and Edie couldn’t tell if it was daylight or dark anymore. She was let out of her room three times a day to go to the bathroom. Her mom or dad brought her water a few times throughout the days and food only once a day. It was rough, and she didn’t know how long she would have to be locked in her own room, forced to lay here and stare at the ceiling.

She cried everyday for her friend Albert. She wondered if his thin, lifeless body was still lying there out in the open or if some other animal had carried it off. 

She got sicker and sicker everyday. When her parents brought her food, she would just push it out of the way and not touch it. Not even a bite. She could feel her stomach growing inward, eating itself and her muscles. Her skin grew pale and her cheeks were sallow. She was so weak she could barely lift herself out of bed. When she did eat, nothing made her feel better or stronger.

Several days into her prison stay, she knocked on her own door.

“Dad,” she said, out of breath. “I think something’s wrong. I think I need to see a doctor.”

But they ignored her, grumbled something about her being selfish from the living room, and she slumped her weak body against the door. Her head lolled to the side. She didn’t have the strength to lift it up. She didn’t even have the strength to cry.

She was fading and her parents weren’t going to do anything about it.

She closed her eyes and thought about Albert. She thought about eating all those slices of bread and lunch meat and fruit. She thought about feeding him a bite after she had eaten some. They ate after each other a lot, and she knew she was ingesting venom with every bite she took after Albert. 

The venom would enter her system and float around in her bloodstream, making her one with Albert. They had shared more than friendship; they shared a part of one another as well. 

When Edie’s dad had killed Albert, she wasn’t exaggerating when she said that he had killed her too. Because that’s what was happening. She was dying because Albert was dead. 

It was just taking a lot longer because she was a lot bigger than Albert. 

The days went by slower and slower until eventually her parents opened her bedroom door and Edie was passed out on the floor, pale and barely breathing. 

Her parents were worried then. They worried they had starved her to death. What would the police do to them then? Would they get arrested? How were they going to get out of this?

Instead of rushing her to the hospital, Edie’s dad took her out into the woods, carrying her limp body in his arms. Each breath she took in was shorter and smaller. She was close to death, she could feel it. 

Edie’s dad walked for a while until eventually he stopped. Edie was able to open her eyes briefly to see that they were in her and Albert’s spot. The spot where they ate together everyday. The spot where they became one in the same.

She was fading in and out of consciousness, but she could still hear her dad grunting and working. She could hear the slice of metal sliding into the ground and the cracking of roots being separated from their homes. Splatters of dirt rained down on her face from time to time. Her dad was digging. 

He scooped and scooped rocks and dirt for what felt like hours, pounding his shovel into the gray ground. Eventually though, he stopped, and all was silent for a few moments. Edie reveled in the silence, silently hoping for death to take her.

Her dad lifted her up, but he wasn’t careful; she could feel her hands knocking into the side of the rock she used to sit on when she fed Albert. He wasn’t careful when he threw her into the hole he’d dug for her makeshift grave either. 

Once she was in the hole, she didn’t move. She couldn’t; her body was too weak. She did feel something flop on top of her, though, and she pretended her dad was burying her with Albert. That he’d had the courtesy of throwing her best friend into the grave with him. She tried to move her hand to touch him; to make sure it was actually him and not just a pile of dirt. But she couldn’t muster enough energy to even wiggle her fingers.

This was it for Edie. She was about to die. But she was ready.

A small smile played on the edges of her lips. She drew in one last breath and thought of Albert before slowly letting her soul leave her body forever. Just as she withered away quietly, though, she could feel her dad covering her body and Albert’s up with dirt. 

She was gone. 

​

Edie Boyd has been missing for weeks now. No one has seen or heard from her. A police force and rescue squad have gone to dig up the area we think was written in her journal. We all thought it was written by her, but why is it written in third person? And more importantly, how was she able to continue writing if she was dead?