…a bundle wrapped in black plastic.<\/p>\n
I staggered back, the shovel slipping from my hands. My breath caught in my throat. At first, I thought it was garbage \u2014 maybe something she had buried. But the smell\u2026 it wasn\u2019t garbage.<\/p>\n
It was sweet and rotten and unnatural.<\/p>\n
With trembling hands, I reached for the edge of the plastic and peeled it back. Inside were fabrics \u2014 clothes. Small ones. Pink. A doll\u2019s dress. My daughter\u2019s.<\/p>\n
My hands went cold.<\/p>\n
Digging deeper into the bundle, I found more toys \u2014 ones I had thought we had misplaced. Then something metallic \u2014 a bracelet. A child\u2019s bracelet. My daughter\u2019s name engraved on it.<\/p>\n
I screamed.<\/p>\n
My husband came running, panic in his eyes. I couldn\u2019t speak. I just pointed. When he saw what I had unearthed, his face turned white. He grabbed the rest of the plastic and yanked it open.<\/p>\n
Underneath the toys was something else \u2014 a piece of paper.<\/p>\n
A note.<\/p>\n
In trembling, messy handwriting, it said:<\/p>\n
“She needs to be punished. You don’t deserve her. I’m saving her soul.”<\/em><\/p>\n It was signed with my mother-in-law\u2019s name.<\/p>\n We called the police immediately. The investigation uncovered more \u2014 hidden behind the shed, they found jars buried in the ground. Each one contained something bizarre \u2014 burnt herbs, nails, bits of hair, photos of our daughter with strange symbols drawn on her face.<\/p>\n Witchcraft. Dark rituals. All of it linked to her.<\/p>\n Turns out, she had been visiting “healers” in the city who told her I had put a curse on her family. That I was \u201cevil.\u201d That the only way to save her son and granddaughter was to “cleanse” the house and “remove the child’s influence” through ritual.<\/p>\n She believed every word.<\/p>\n The police took her in. My husband couldn\u2019t believe it. I couldn\u2019t stop crying. We had slept under the same roof with someone who truly believed our daughter was a threat \u2014 and tried to banish<\/em> her.<\/p>\n Our daughter is safe now. But I no longer sleep peacefully.<\/p>\n Sometimes at night, Baks still growls at the edge of the garden. I keep watch with a flashlight, and every time I hear the wind shift or the leaves rustle, I wonder:<\/p>\n What if she comes back?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …a bundle wrapped in black plastic. I staggered back, the shovel slipping from my hands. My breath caught in my throat. At first, I thought it was garbage \u2014 maybe something she had buried. But the smell\u2026 it wasn\u2019t garbage. It was sweet and rotten and unnatural. With trembling hands, I reached for the edge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":609,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":610,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}