# Read the first page of My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon Read the opening of My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon free, no signup. A woman takes in her dying mother, who brings something demonic home. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/my-darling-girl-jennifer-mcmahon - Genre: Horror - Year: 2023 - ISBN: 9781668019085 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781668019085&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781668019085 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781668019085 ## The opening "ALI ALLIGATOR?" MY MOTHER whispered as she crept into my room, slipped under my heavy quilt, cuddled up next to me on my twin bed. I was eight years old, a big girl, too old for mommy snuggles, but still, when she pressed her body against mine, I sighed with contentment and tucked myself tight against her. We fit perfectly together, she and I. So perfectly that I wasn't sure where I ended and she began. "Are you asleep, my love?" she asked. "Or are you playing possum?" I opened my eyes a tiny bit, enough to spy the numbers on the clock on my nightstand: 2:15. My mother often worked late in her studio, sometimes stayed in there all night, painting. But every so often she’d take a break, come into my room, wake me up, so eager to show off her latest work that she couldn’t wait until morning. Some nights she’d wake me up and ask if I wanted to bake cookies with her, or drive to the all-night convenience store for ice cream and root beer to make floats. Now she ran her fingers through my hair, down my back, bumping them along the knobby bones of my spine; my mother’s fingers, I knew without looking, were stained with paint. They smelled faintly of turpentine, like the rags in her studio—flammable, an accident waiting to happen. She put her face up next to mine, cheek to cheek. “I know you’re awake,” she said, and then I smelled it, distinct from the faint turpentine scent. Her breath was thick with gin: a boozy evergreen scent that reminded me of a forest of Christmas trees. Her fingers worked their way over the back of my nightgown, tracing shapes, making letters to spell out words. It was a game we played, she and I. A can-you-guess-what-I’m-spelling game. I felt the familiar letters: I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U I smiled, wriggled back closer to her. “I do,” she said, her words slurred in a way that made my stomach start to hurt. “You’re my perfect girl. Too perfect for this world. Sometimes I think . . .” Her words were thick and strange. “I think I should have spared you. Drowned you at birth, maybe, not let you suffer the things that are to come,” she cooed into my hair. My heart pounded so loud and hard that I was sure she could feel it, ringing like an alarm bell. She pulled me closer, squeezing all the air out of my chest. I couldn’t get away, even if I wanted to. I imagined I really was drowning, being pulled under, holding my breath, lungs screaming for air. I thought of the knife I had tucked under my pillow: it wasn’t just any ordinary knife; it was a magic knife, because I’d cast a spell on it, charged it by the light of the full moon, purified it with salt water and birch smoke. I called my knife Descender, because any evil beings I conquered with it would descend back into the dark and shadowy place they’d come from. I believed in magic then. I believed that everything had a spirit and energy that I could listen to and draw from, that rocks and plants could speak to me, that the geese flying overhead carried messages and were harbingers of things to come. And I believed that there was good and there was evil and they were curled up around each other, intertwined like thick vines. Sometimes it was hard to tell which was which. I did other things to keep myself safe too. The ring of salt around my bed, the Bible Aunt Frances had given me for my sixth birthday tucked under my pillow beside the knife. It was a children’s Bible with pictures. ## Books with a similar feel - [Bird Box by Josh Malerman](https://uncovered.ink/read/bird-box-josh-malerman.md) - [Sundial by Catriona Ward](https://uncovered.ink/read/sundial-catriona-ward.md) - [Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix](https://uncovered.ink/read/witchcraft-for-wayward-girls-grady-hendrix.md) - [A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay](https://uncovered.ink/read/a-head-full-of-ghosts-paul-tremblay.md) - [The Hunger by Alma Katsu](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-hunger-alma-katsu.md) - [Echoes by Ellen Datlow](https://uncovered.ink/read/echoes-ellen-datlow.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.