My Hair Paid for My Brother's Punishment

Synopsis

My little brother Ethan cut up Mom's favorite silk dress. Mom didn't hit him or yell at him. Instead, she turned and walked into the kitchen, pulling out a pair of scissors. She grabbed my ponytail, and with a sharp snip, cut it clean off at the roots. Ethan dropped to his knees, sobbing hysterically. But Mom just stroked his face, her smile both gentle and terrifying. "Get a good look. Every time you mess up, your sister pays the price. Does that hurt your heart?" From that day on, my hair became my brother's sentence tracker. To keep him in line, I was shaved into a buzz cut, even a bald head. Until one day, in the school bathroom, I picked up the scissors myself... That rusty pair of sewing scissors had always been kept in the bottom drawer of the living room TV stand. We used it to trim loose threads or open packages. No one thought there was anything special about it. Until the summer I turned seven, I learned that those scissors could be used to kill. Not to take a life, but to kill someone's spirit. That afternoon was scorching hot. My mom, Mia, was in the kitchen chopping meat for meat pies. The cutting board thundered with each strike. My brother Ethan was only five then, at that age where