Eloise went out in the evenings alone a lot now. She got dressed up, and left Gabriella alone when she went out with friends. Gabriella wasn't entirely sure her father knew that, since he was gone so much, and her mother stayed home whenever he was in town. But the atmosphere between them had clearly deteriorated. Eloise made a lot of rude remarks about him, and no longer seemed to hesitate to insult him to his face, whether Gabriella was in the room or not. Most of the comments were about other women, whom she called harlots or hookers. She talked about him “shacking up,” which was an expression Gabriella heard a lot, but she never knew quite what it meant, and she never dared to ask. Her father never answered her mother when she said it, but he drank a lot more these days. And when he did, eventually he left the house, and Eloise came to take it out on her.

Gabriella still slept at the bottom of the bed to escape her, but it was more out of habit than out of any success she'd had in convincing her mother that she wasn't there. Eloise always knew exactly where to find her. Gabriella didn't even waste time hiding now. She just took what she knew was coming to her, and tried to be brave about it. She knew that her only mission in life was to survive.

She also knew that somehow she must have caused the coldness between them, and although her mother never mentioned her name when she berated him, she knew that somehow, in some way, she was to blame for all their troubles. Her mother told her frequently that all her problems were because of Gabriella, and she accepted that now, along with the beatings, as her fate.

By Christmas that year, her father almost seemed not to live there. He hardly ever came home anymore, and whenever he did, Eloise flew into an uncontrollable rage. She seemed, if possible, angrier than ever. And now there was a name she screamed at him constantly. She shouted at him about “some little tart,” or “the whore you're shacked up with.” Her name was Barbara, Gabriella knew, but she had no idea who she was. She could never remember meeting any of their friends by that name. She didn't understand what was happening, but it seemed to make him even more remote, and he seemed to want nothing to do with her mother. He scarcely ever spoke to Gabriella, and most of the time when he was home now, he was drunk. Even Gabriella could see that, and he made no attempt to hide it anymore.

On Christmas Day, Eloise never came out of her room. John had been gone since the day before, and didn't return until late that night. There was no tree that year, no lights, no decorations. There were no presents for her, or any of them. And the only Christmas dinner she ate was the ham sandwich she made herself on Christmas Eve. She thought of making something for her mother, but she was afraid to knock on her door, or draw attention to herself. It seemed wiser to keep to herself and stay well out of the way. She knew how angry her mother was that her father wasn't there, particularly on Christmas Day. She was nine by then, and it was easier to understand what had happened, though the reason for her parents’ hatred for each other was not entirely clear. It had something to do with the woman called Barbara, and undoubtedly something to do with her as well. It always did, always had, according to her mother. Gabriella understood that very well.

When he came home late on Christmas night, the argument they had was not confined to their bedroom. They pursued each other around the house, shouting, and throwing things at each other, and knocking things down. Her father said he couldn't take it anymore, and her mother said she was going to kill them both. She slapped him, and he hit her mother for the first time. But instinctively, Gabriella knew that whenever the fight ended, she would be the one to take the brunt of it. She wished for the first time in a long time that there was a safe place to hide, a place to go for protection, people she could turn to. But there was no one, and she knew that all she could do was wait and see what happened. She had known for years that there were no rescuers, no saviors in her precarious life.

Eventually, her father left the house, and it was then that her mother found her. It was all too predictable, as she descended on her like a large, furious black bird. Her hair was down and flying out behind her. Her fists were powerful and relentless. Gabriella was aware of a sharp pain in her ear right from the first, a blow to her head, and a battery of blows to her chest, and this time her mother used a candlestick to hit one of her legs. Gabriella was sure she would hit her in the face or on the head with it, but miraculously she didn't. And after the shock of the first few minutes, the rest was a blur. Eloise was angrier than she had ever been, and Gabriella could sense easily that whatever she did now, whatever she said, might cost her her life.

She did nothing to avoid the blows that rained down on her that night. She simply waited, as she always did, for the storm to abate. And when it receded finally, and her mother left her alone on the floor of her room, Gabriella couldn't even crawl onto her bed. She simply lay there, drifting between consciousness and darkness, and was surprised to find that this time nothing hurt. She felt nothing this time, and all through the night she saw what seemed like halos of light around her. She thought she could hear voices once, but she couldn't hear what was being said. It wasn't until morning that she realized someone real was speaking to her, the voice was familiar, but just like the voices the night before, she couldn't distinguish what she was hearing. She didn't even realize it was her father. She never saw his tears, or heard his gasp of horror when he saw what Eloise had done to her. Gabriella was lying in a pool of blood this time, her hair matted to her head, her eyes glazed and unseeing, a terrifying wound on the inside of one leg. He wanted to call an ambulance but he was afraid to. Instead, without even waiting to talk to Eloise, he wrapped Gabriella in a blanket, and hurried outside to hail a cab.

When he arrived at the hospital, he wasn't even sure she was still breathing, but he rushed inside and deposited her on an empty gurney, called for help through his tears, and explained that she had fallen down the stairs. It was almost a believable tale, considering the extent of the damage, and no one questioned him. They put an oxygen mask on her small pale face and rushed her away, surrounded by nurses with worried faces, while John stared at them in disbelief.

He sat there looking stunned for several hours, and it was four o'clock in the afternoon before they came to reassure him that she would in fact survive. She had a concussion, three broken ribs, a broken eardrum, and a serious wound on one leg. But they had stitched her up, taped her ribs, and after a few days in the hospital, they felt sure that the worst of her injuries would be repaired. They asked him how long he thought it had been from the time she fell until he found her, and he said he thought several hours, although he admitted he wasn't sure when she had “fallen.” He didn't tell them he'd been out.

“Shell be fine,” a young intern reassured him, and the nurses promised to take good care of her. He peeked in at her once, but she was sleeping, and without approaching her again, he left. He felt dazed as he rode home in the taxi, unsure of what to say. He had no idea how to stop Eloise now, how to end this, how to do anything except escape himself. At least Gabriella was in good hands now. It seemed like nothing short of a miracle that she'd survived the beating of the previous night.

He entered the house with overwhelming trepidation, and was relieved to discover when he went upstairs that Eloise wasn't there. He had no idea where she was, and he no longer cared. He went to the library and poured himself a stiff drink, and then sat there waiting, not even sure what to say to her when he saw her at last. What could he possibly say to her? She wasn't human. She was an animal of some kind, a being from another planet, a machine that destroyed everything it touched. He wondered now how he could ever have loved her, how he could have deluded himself that she could be a wife to him, or a mother to their child. He wanted nothing now except to get as far away from her as possible. He wanted to be with Barbara that night, but for once he didn't dare. He knew he had to wait for Eloise and confront her, even if it was only for this one last time. He had to do it now.

She came home shortly after midnight, in a dark blue evening gown, and as he looked up at her all he could think of was that she looked like an evil queen. The Queen of Darkness. And seeing the state he was in, she glanced at him sprawled across the couch in the library with utter disdain.

“How nice of you to visit, John,” she said with icy contempt that wasn't lost on him even in his drunken state. “You're looking well. To what do I owe the honor? Is Barbara out of town, or is she servicing one of her other clients?” She walked slowly into the room swinging a small beaded purse in her hand, and he was aware of an overwhelming urge to throw his drink in her face or hit her, but he refrained. He knew that whatever he said or did to her, inhuman as she was, he could never hurt her. She was well beyond his reach in every possible way.

“Do you know where our daughter is tonight, Eloise?” His words slurred, but he knew exactly what he wanted to say now. It had finally become crystal clear to him, after far too many years. He was only sorry it had taken him this long to do it. But Barbara had finally given him courage. And seeing the state Gabriella had been in had strengthened his resolve.

“I'm sure you're going to tell me where she is, John. Did you leave her somewhere, or perhaps give her away?” She seemed amused rather than concerned, and it was easy to see her now for the monster she was. The only thing he didn't understand was how he could have been fooled by her for so long. He had wanted to be, wanted to believe that she was someone she wasn't, but that was another story, and something he was still unable to face, even now.