Peek A Boo I See You (Emma Frost #5) (25 page)

She writes Mystery/Suspense/Horror, Paranormal Romance and fantasy. Originally from Denmark she now lives on Florida's Space Coast with her husband and two daughters. She is a huge fan of Stephen King, Anne Rice and Isabel Allende. When she is not writing or reading she enjoys watching the dolphins play in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Her books have been downloaded in more than 550.000 copies.

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The following is an excerpt from Willow Rose's Bestselling Horror Novel
E
DWINA.

E
DWINA

C
HAPTER 1

"
A
RE YOU SURE
you want to do this?" The social worker, Line Petersen who was handling the girl's case said. "I mean we're thrilled that you want to take Edwina in, don't get me wrong, but Edwina is ... a special case."

"Mother used to say that no pit is ever so deep that God can't reach into it and pull you out," Marie-Therese replied calmly even if she wasn't sure she believed in it. She was neither religious nor superstitious, even if her mother had been both.

"Well that's settled then," Line Petersen said and handed Marie-Therese the case file.

It wasn't the first time the girl came into foster-care. Every time before this had gone wrong somehow. But that didn't frighten Marie-Therese. She had heard about the girl's unfortunate story from Mrs. Hansen who owned the local grocery-store that Marie-Therese visited almost daily. The girl's mother used to work at the grocery store back when they had just arrived from Ukraine. But now the mother was dead, leukemia they said, and the father had died before they left Ukraine to move to Denmark.

Marie-Therese knew perfectly well why the girl was the way she was. She was introverted and shy because of the mother - and probably the loss of her father in an early childhood. But the mother had to have been the worst factor. To think that she had hid Edwina from the world for almost a year when they moved here from Ukraine, was something that would have made Marie-Therese furious if she wasn't such a controlled person who never let her temper (which her own mother had taught her could only come from the devil) get the best of her.

Edwina wasn't the first foster child Marie-Therese had taken in. She had two more waiting at home for her to bring back the new kid. Evil tongues claimed from time to time that she only took the kids in for the extra two thousand dollars a month per child she received, but Marie-Therese didn't see it that way. She told herself that she did something good for these children, she gave them a home and a family, and since she had no man or children of her own, there was plenty of room in the old house on the street of Langholm. It was just an extra bonus that she, now with Edwina in the house, would be able to finally quit her part-time job as a nurse at the local hospital.

Marie-Therese never cared much for taking care of sick people. Her mother had told her being a nurse was a good idea, a good way to pay God back for all he had done for her. But Marie-Therese didn't feel like she owed God anything. She didn't care much about him, and didn't think he cared much about her either. It was mostly her mother who had been into all that, being religious and all. They lived together in the mother's old house until she died four years ago. Marie-Therese inherited the house and it was while sitting alone as a spinster in the old house, reading the paper about a woman who had done the same, that she had come up with the idea of taking a child into foster care, giving her a home and of course - as a bonus - at the same time providing an income for herself.

Now Marie-Therese was sitting in the social worker's office once again, waiting for Edwina to be brought out to her. She read the file a couple of times, and it was heartbreaking what happened to the family before her who had taken in Edwina. She felt mostly bad for Edwina. That poor girl. All alone in life once again. Marie-Therese was thrilled to be able to provide a new home for her.

The door opened and Line Petersen stepped out. She stopped and held the door open.

"Come on, Edwina," she said with a sigh.

A face peeked out, hiding slightly behind the doorframe. A set of eyes met Marie-Therese's.

"Well come on," Line Petersen said with another annoyed sigh. "We haven't got all day."

More of her face was shown and even if she had been warned, Marie-Therese couldn't help but gasp. The lump on the girl's forehead was substantially bigger than what Marie-Therese expected. All the veins were visible and it looked like it was pulling her face, making it lopsided.

"This is Edwina. Edwina, meet Ms. Lundtofte, she'll be taking care of you, so you be good to her, you hear me? Ms. Lundtofte is a very nice lady."

Marie-Therese felt revulsion, and was almost nauseous. She had heard the rumors about the girl and her appearance, but never really believed them. But this ... this was almost too much. The girl's glowing green eyes stared at her and made her feel uncomfortable. Marie-Therese looked into them, searched for just a hint, just anything she could care about in there.

"Hi, Edwina," she said swallowing her nausea and bending down in front of the girl. "I'm Marie-Therese."

"She doesn't talk much," Line Petersen said. "Mostly grunts. They don't know why. It's not that she
can't
talk, she just doesn't do it." Line Petersen leaned over and whispered. "It might be the
thing
in her forehead that blocks her brain somehow, the doctor says. Poor girl."

"What is it?" Marie-Therese asked staring almost paralyzed at the lump.

Line Petersen shrugged. "Some sort of tumor, as far as they know it's benign. But it's too much a part of her head to be removed; it has been there since birth so they are afraid to kill her if they remove it. It is a sort of deformity caused by the radiation she was exposed to in her mother's womb."

"At Chernobyl?"

"Yes. You read the file. They were both there when the explosion happened. The parents worked there. Edwina's mother was pregnant at the time of the explosion. It's a miracle that Edwina is still alive. I heard a rumor that the mother was in fact expecting twins and when the explosion happened the other child died and Edwina sort of absorbed it in her brain, but as I said, it's just silly rumors," Line Petersen said laughing. Then she went serious. "The fact is we've had several doctors look at her and they don't know what it is, they only know that it is somehow a part of the girl's body, it has been with her since birth and removing it might be fatal, as I explained. So I guess she is stuck with looking like this."

"But that's terrible ..."

Line Petersen shrugged. "We all have our lump to carry, don't we?"

Marie-Therese nodded while staring at the girl, who wasn't much bigger than a four-year-old, even if she was supposed to be six.

Marie-Therese knew all about burdens to carry. She had taken care of her mother all those years when she had struggled with cancer and that wasn't a pretty sight. In the end the mother had become mean as a bat, constantly yelling at her daughter, calling her awful names and throwing things at her. On the really bad days her mother couldn't even recognize her and accused her of stealing from her, of being a thief. Once she even managed to call the police to come and arrest the woman who had broken into her home and was stealing all her money.

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