November 9, 1882
Lucinda Beckenmeyer waits in her bed, open eyes and whirring mind. Here, in her room at the top of the second tower, she can see the property of the estate stretching out beneath her. She indulges in lying in the silent darkness, the new moon’s night giving her bursts of exhilaration with each tick of the grandfather clock downstairs. Perhaps she is numb from the cold, or perhaps she is numb because of the task that is set out for her later that night.

She waits for the strikes of the clock, almost yearning for them to echo through the estate. One, two three, four-

As she counts, she is stopped by the first guttural sound of the grandfather clock. It rings throughout the estate, sending a mournful groan into Lucinda’s room, where she shudders with excitement.

Twelve strikes and she will begin her hunt, as she likes to call it. She hates the term murder, which is too gruesome and sick for what she is about to do. Murder never ends well. The one who murders does a brutal job, because they want their victim to be dead as rapidly as possible. See, the difference with Lucinda is that she has been waiting over a decade for her victim to be killed. And now, the clock strikes twelve times, and Lucinda’s broken soul will be set free.
One.

October 18, 1873
Mother hit me today. Simply, I suppose - a hard slap across the jaw. Perhaps I have deserved it, although there is no reason for me to clarify, for when I asked why she had done such a wicked thing to me, she only slapped me again.
Is there something wrong with me? Perhaps whatever I am is what is wrong with me. I have not created a problem; the problem was created within me. Yes, that must be it. My dear Mother would only hit me as a punishment, I suppose - therefore whatever is broken within me shall be rectified.

Rectified, Lucinda supposed on that first night, that night in which her father vanished and her mother hit her, is what she must be. She thinks back to it now, almost haughtily, at how much of a fool her mother was to hit her as she did. Quite harshly she will be punished, Lucinda thinks with a twisted smile in the night, as the second strike sounds from below.

July 10, 1876
Mother discovered my writings about a week ago. She flew into a rage and shredded my papers, and then before she departed she dumped the ink of my pen about my head, and it dripped down onto the white fabric of my dress. This sent her into another rage, and she grabbed me by the hair and threw me into a wall with a shout. I watched a servant walk by the open bedroom door in which we were in, not daring to look in my direction, as my mother had taught her and all of the servants at the estate. “The girl shall be treated under my rules,” Mother had said to them, “and if intervenience is a desire you have, push it away or be thrown into the hot sun and freezing night.”
The blow I suffered from the wall gave me a great deal of pain, and it is only today, a week after my suffering, that I awoke on the floor surrounded in my dried blood. My dress is stained gray with ink, and I have only been able to find this journal now because I’d forgotten where it was located.
I am ill, but Mother does not take heed of this and schools me anyway. I have gone to bed tonight with no recollection of what Mother had taught me, which I fear for  - she will punish me again, damn this wicked woman who I live with. Damn her to the pits of hell. 

For a moment, Lucinda forgets about the hunt and in a moment of panic thinks that she will have to deal with her mother in the morning. She looks down at her bare arms, the bruises only seen by the throbbing pain that has taken over her arm. She thinks of the morning, when her mother will wake and drag her out of bed by her hair, and hot tears burn in the back of her eyes. But Lucinda pushes them away when she feels the cool metal of the blade under her pillow, as thoughts of the hunt return to her. Three.

December 25, 1881
You would expect that even my mother would leave me alone on Christmas Day. On the contrary, she is with me every moment. Perhaps my pain is her present.
I have learned that every child should love their parent eternally, no matter how cruel they are, for the parent has given the child life, a home, and food and drink.
In my situation, the eternal love for my mother has been quenched by fear and hate, so much that it has led me to become fatally insane. You might think, reader, that if I am calling myself insane, that I cannot be, for one who denies their insanity is the opposite. But, you see, I have noticed the signs. I have formed dark thoughts, and I find satisfaction in watching the servants skin the chickens for dinner. If this is considered average, our world must be better than I thought it was.

Lucinda is numb as she listens to the fourth, fifth, sixth strikes. Then, at the seventh, she rises from her bed and pulls the blade from under her pillow. She holds it up, and it gleams with the reflection of the starry sky. Just like the chickens in the kitchen, her mother will be skinned, slowly and thoroughly.
“My darling mother,” Lucinda whispers in the darkness, “for all the times you have stripped me of my dignity and sanity.” As the twelfth strike sounds, she slips out of her bedroom and into the hall.

March 27, 1880
I am going to kill my mother, and that is that. She has made me into what I am, and for that she will pay.

Back pressed again the cold stone wall, Lucinda slinks down the hallway, mentally counting the doors she passes until she reaches her mother’s. She grips the doorknob and finds her hands clammy.

Her mother’s room is dark except for the dim glow of a candle on her nightstand. Her mother is asleep, and Lucinda hovers in the doorway, watching her chest rise and fall, and for a moment she is reluctant of her decision. But today is her birthday, her twenty-first, and she deserves a present of her own.

November 9, 1882
One, two, three. Happy Birthday to me.
One, two, three, four. I don’t love Mother anymore.
Five, six, seven, eight. She’ll be dead at this rate.
Nine. Oh my, She’s running out of time.
Ten. And She’ll return to hell again.