Stepmother so sly

Stepmother so sly

The icy feeling was still there
The moment I sat in her chair.
Stepmother hated me;
She caused all the harm to me.

Her eyes, the perfect colour green,
Wicked, if you know what I mean.
Dad thought she was perfect—
Things he just never seen.

I knew she pushed him down the stairs;
It was me who shielded him.
She hated me for that,
Her patience wearing thin.

She’d smile whenever Dad walked in,
Pretend that all was well,
But when he turned his back on her,
Her face had tales to tell.

I learned to listen for her steps;
I knew them on the floor—
The gentle ones when Dad was home,
The hard ones at my door.

She’d whisper things to frighten me,
Then swear she’d never spoken,
And every time I told my dad,
She’d laugh as if it were a joke.

But I had seen what she could do;
I’d seen my father fall.
I’d thrown myself across his path,
My back against the wall.

“You little liar,” she would say,
With hatred in her stare.
But something cold lived in that house
And followed everywhere.

Then years went by and Dad grew old,
And truth began to show.
The perfect woman that he loved
Was someone he didn’t know.

And when at last she left this world,
They emptied out her room.
Dad couldn’t face her old green chair;
It sat there in the gloom.

I don’t know why I sat in it—
Perhaps to prove I’d won,
Perhaps to tell the ghost of her
The hurting days were done.

But icy fingers touched my neck;
I froze beneath her stare.
For in the mirror opposite,
A green glow watched me there.

I called a medium to move her on,
And the room turned happy again.
The second she was gone,
I sold the house and carried on.