I'm awoken by the sound of low sobbing in the darkness, I sit up and try to look around disorientated, half asleep, half awake while my eyes try to adjust to the darkness. 

There in the corner of the room she is sat, her back to me, I see her shoulders raise up and down with every sob, waves of sadness crash over her, I hear her heart breaking with every tear that falls with every agonising cry.  I don't need to see her face, I know who she is, it's my mother. 

The light that shines through the crack of my curtain silhouettes her in the corner, it frames her tiny body, her hair hangs down her back all lank and stringy, her clothes are grey and worn and hang loose fittingly on her tiny frame.  Oblivious to the fact I have woken she simply carries on sobbing.

I watch her filled with great sadness, many times over the years I have dreamt of her - I have wished that I could see her but now she is in front of me all I see is a tiny little frail Bird with broken wings that couldn't fly away.  She tried to escape this life, free herself and somehow for reasons unknown to me she has been dragged back here with us.  Silently I watch her, too scared to utter a word, to make her leave, I crawl down the bed hoping to catch a glimpse of her face.

I wonder what has made her cry, I want to reach out to her, put my arms around her and comfort her but I'm frightened the moment I do she will disappear into the air like rising smoke and I will be here again all on my own.  She turns, just her head as if she sensed me awake behind her and for a split second she looks relieved, almost happy, to see me as a smile creeps on to her ashen grey face with tear streaks that run from her cold eyes to her chin.  She whispers to me from her dark corner, "I'm sorry".
I don't reply, the words feel lodged in my throat as tears start to prick and sting at my eyes. 
She looks at me pleadingly,  "I'm sorry, I tried to keep her out of my mind, I tried to keep you safe, but over time it worked less so I had to take more and more until I took too much". She turned completely around then I saw the needles hanging out of her arms, the blood trickling down to her wrists with the green bruises like moss slowly moving up her arms as if it was trying to consume her. 

I shuffle backwards up the bed until I hit the headboard and I pull the duvet up around me as if to protect me from what I'm seeing.

She just stands there, tears still running down her face with the remorse working its way into every line and crack on her ashen complexion.  The fear washed over me I was frightened I would drown in it but I knew this could maybe be my only chance to speak to her, I wasn't prepared to lose it.  I lowered my duvet and I replied the only thing I could think of, "I forgive you". As soon as I uttered those words I felt a great sense of relief as if years of anger towards her for leaving me no longer mattered because as she stood in front of me this broken woman, I feel I can no longer resent her for her choices, something in my mind is telling me she had no choices.  "What were you trying to keep out of your mind?" 

Her tear-stained face now becomes hard, her eyes glaze over black with a coldness to them , I feel the room temperature suddenly drop as if somehow connected to her thoughts.  My breath comes out like puffs smoke that snake up to the ceiling and my body begins to shake uncontrollably.

Her voice now deeper more controlled quietly says, "not what, whom".

The coldness is closing in on me, my skin is stinging and my joints are stiffening as if I'm being frozen alive my teeth chatter as I try to get out, "who were you trying to get out of your mind ?"

She steps back, as if frightened for a second to speak then she whispers as if she's scared whom ever she's referring to may hear her.  "She goes by many names, many different faces, but her true form is Lilith".
My mind darts to what the vicar said about asking Bell about Lilith.  I go to ask her if Lilith is somehow related to Bell if there is some connection, but then I hear them, the low animalistic growl of the feral boys from outside my window coming from the courtyard.  They begin to howl, getting louder and louder.  She steps back again, "They know I'm here, I'm sorry". She steps back into the wall and somehow absorbs into the darkness as if she was nothing more than a smoke, she's embraced by the shadows until she's gone.

They have driven her away, I fly to the window and tear at the curtains ripping them apart.  I look down and there in the moonlight, bold as brass they all stand looking up at my window with no shame. My fear is replaced with anger, an anger that I can feel burning away at my insides that is boiling my brain.  I had one chance to speak to her and they took it away from me. 

I fling the window open to grab the first thing to hand, a lamp on my dresser, I launch it down at them and they all jump back startled.  I scream at them in a voice unlike my own, far more like there's, a grisly growly voice that is hard, animalistic, that has come from deep within me. "I will skin you a fucking live, get out of here you dirty fucking flea-ridden mutts".
They growl back me in defiance then I find myself growling back at them my teeth exposed my hands clenching at the window frame stopping myself from jumping out of the second-floor window to rip them to pieces.  Gone is reason and in its place is rage and pain, a pain I tried for so long to bury deep down inside myself the growls erupts from me like nothing has ever before.

My bedroom light suddenly turns on and floods the room.  I'm blinded by the brightness and I squint to see my dad standing there, he looks half asleep, "Jane who are you shouting at?"

My brain races think fast answer him, "there was a fox in the courtyard, sorry did I wake you ?"

He snorts, "what do you think". He walks over to peer out the window but the feral boys have slinked back into the shadows, out of sight but still probably watching us.  I hear Dad gasp "Jane is that your lamp down there ?"

I nod, "would you believe me if I told you it jumped" he sniggers, "no but I'm too tired to question it, get back to bed and please can you keep your bedroom furniture in your bedroom". He shuts the window and closes the curtains, "back to bed Jane before you wake up the entire town". 
I jump into bed but I don't sleep, there will be no rest for me because my mind is full of her ... My mother.