[ad_1]
28
Marigold Carter was twenty-eight when the police dragged her screaming out of her apartment. For onlookers capable of deciphering the bestial wails, the words coming out of her mouth would have made no sense.
A girl needs her flies!
They found the unrecognizable remains of her husband spread across the ceiling, walls, and floor of the bedroom. Their two month old daughter was recovered from a makeshift crib of rotting flesh, her pale baby skin crawling with maggots and flies.
22
At twenty-two Marigold Carter’s then boyfriend finds her cradling a dead cat in their bed when he wakes up. The smell snapped me awake, he later explained. The fucking thing was covered in vermin.
She elbows him in the nose when he tries to remove the carcass.
A girl needs her flies, she yells.
They break up on the spot, and when he returns to pick up his stuff, he finds three more rotting animal carcasses neatly placed on the bed.
15
At fifteen, Marigold Carter is suspended after continuously bringing dead animals to school. Social services are called in, but since she’s already in the system, not much is done.
She spends weeks in counseling, but the sessions are abruptly canceled, by behest of the counselor.
When prompted why, he hesitates to give a comprehensive answer.
A girl needs her flies, he mutters.
10
Marigold Carter’s teachers are worried about her. She doesn’t talk to her classmates, and there are complaints about her personal hygiene.
She smelled like a butcher’s house in a heatwave, a classmate stated.
One day a teacher reprimands her to stop walking around with hands in her pockets.
When she pulls them out, they are crawling with maggots.
A girl needs her flies, Marigold shrugs.
6
Several parents complain about Marigold Carter’s behavior in kindergarten. She would force kids half her size to the ground, and lie on top of them, saying the same words over and over again.
A girl needs her flies.
2
A few months after her second birthday, Marigold Carter says her first words.
A girl needs her flies.
Her foster parents never connect the dots. How can they? Besides, kids say the darndest things.
0
After complaints from the neighbors about the smell, Marigold is found bloody and crying in her crib, lying on top of her dead twin sister. Maggots and flies cover her pale baby skin, and according to official records the sister must have been dead for days.
Postpartum psychosis? Maybe. All they know is that the mother strangled one of the twins, but could never come to terms with what she’d done.
Just kept pretending that the flies and vermin were tiny pets.
Marigold is taken away, and placed into the foster system.
Any record of what happened in that house was hidden away, making sure the girl could have a nice upbringing without ever learning where she came from.
A girl needs her flies! her mother screamed as they dragged her away.
[ad_2]
