Notes to: Why We Fight
This was, I think, the first story I ever wrote that I was totally satisfied with. There's still a lot of room for improvement, but even so I like it to this day.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Friday, April 25, 2014
Friday, March 14, 2014
Story Notes: A Story Across Years
Notes to: A Story Across Years
The writing went across the years just as the story did. The story was complete when I first began to upload it. It ended with chapter seven. Very open ending, and hella hopeful IMO.
TheRoseShadow21 is the reason that it went on for almost twice that length. She asked me, at chapter four, how many generations it would continue on for. That's when I realized that the story had to keep going. It wasn't much longer before I knew just how and when it would end.
Skeleton Scott's legacy was truer than he thought, and his great-grandson fulfilled his dreams, perhaps, like he never would have imagined. Becoming Scott; surpassing Scott, shedding Scott like a butterfly does its cocoon.
And Skeleton Scott came back from the grave with a vengeance. He came back as the discarded mask, a copy of the original but all the same for what it represented, and he struck his killer down.
Skeleton Scott is a reference to the Skeleton Army and a possibly-folkloric character that I can no longer find any online refs to but was associated with the same.
The Face, referred to in the first chapter, is a poor man's lawyer-friendly Joker. His enemy, of course, is an expy of the Batman.
Alejandro Edgar Hess is half-Latino, just to be clear. I don't know for sure who he married or who Marilyn or her children married. I was never let in on that part of their lives.
Marilyn, Allison, and James all refer to one of their parents by first name at some point. I imagine that Marilyn isn't as close to her birth father as she'd like to think (understandable, seeing as how he was dead for so long) and to a certain extent is holding a grudge against him for being so weak as to die. Or so stubborn as to ignore Skeleton Scott's warnings. Allison has a grudge against Marilyn for obvious reasons, and James... Is he holding something against his mother? Because she didn't do enough, in his opinion, to keep Richie from becoming Skeleton Scott and then the Spook? Because she brought them back in contact with Marilyn, without which the Skeleton Scott legacy would have died out after just two generations?
The writing went across the years just as the story did. The story was complete when I first began to upload it. It ended with chapter seven. Very open ending, and hella hopeful IMO.
TheRoseShadow21 is the reason that it went on for almost twice that length. She asked me, at chapter four, how many generations it would continue on for. That's when I realized that the story had to keep going. It wasn't much longer before I knew just how and when it would end.
Skeleton Scott's legacy was truer than he thought, and his great-grandson fulfilled his dreams, perhaps, like he never would have imagined. Becoming Scott; surpassing Scott, shedding Scott like a butterfly does its cocoon.
And Skeleton Scott came back from the grave with a vengeance. He came back as the discarded mask, a copy of the original but all the same for what it represented, and he struck his killer down.
Skeleton Scott is a reference to the Skeleton Army and a possibly-folkloric character that I can no longer find any online refs to but was associated with the same.
The Face, referred to in the first chapter, is a poor man's lawyer-friendly Joker. His enemy, of course, is an expy of the Batman.
Alejandro Edgar Hess is half-Latino, just to be clear. I don't know for sure who he married or who Marilyn or her children married. I was never let in on that part of their lives.
Marilyn, Allison, and James all refer to one of their parents by first name at some point. I imagine that Marilyn isn't as close to her birth father as she'd like to think (understandable, seeing as how he was dead for so long) and to a certain extent is holding a grudge against him for being so weak as to die. Or so stubborn as to ignore Skeleton Scott's warnings. Allison has a grudge against Marilyn for obvious reasons, and James... Is he holding something against his mother? Because she didn't do enough, in his opinion, to keep Richie from becoming Skeleton Scott and then the Spook? Because she brought them back in contact with Marilyn, without which the Skeleton Scott legacy would have died out after just two generations?
Monday, March 3, 2014
Fiction: A Story Across Years [chapter thirteen]
Why did this update a few hours later? Read about it here.
This story at Fictionpress.
A Story Across Years
Chapter Thirteen: Family Reunion
And that… That's all she wrote.
It's over.
You lost.
I don't know what you were thinking when you saw my grandmother. I know the stories, but how much stock can I put in them? How much did they change and warp in just a few generations?
I never met you. But in a way, I did. I think I did.
This story at Fictionpress.
A Story Across Years
Chapter Thirteen: Family Reunion
And that… That's all she wrote.
It's over.
You lost.
I don't know what you were thinking when you saw my grandmother. I know the stories, but how much stock can I put in them? How much did they change and warp in just a few generations?
I never met you. But in a way, I did. I think I did.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Fiction: A Story Across Years [chapter ten]
This story at Fictionpress.
A Story Across Years
Chapter ten: Fractures
It was better than Allison would have hoped for. The boys didn't ask why they hadn't been able to meet their other grandmother for so long. Marilyn didn't ask if they would like to grow up to be masked criminals.
By unspoken agreement, neither adult spoke of certain matters that now lay in the past, buried like so many corpses. Rotting, falling apart, and… perhaps nourishing the soil in which they rested.
Allison hadn't let herself recognize the hunger that had been growing in her for years. The hunger that was a betrayal of her father and herself, the hunger that was merely a different flavor of a kind that she had known for many years before she had stopped talking with her mother. The hunger for her family, no matter what she had learned about some of them.
Allison still loved her mother. Missed her. Secretly, she was glad that her sons had forced her hand.
Perhaps this was what children were for, to make parents rectify the mistakes of their pasts.
Her siblings began to speak to her again. It was slow, but Marilyn had been furious to learn that they had cut off contact at all, and they were cowed easily enough by her tone. There were times that Allison wondered if her mother was able to get her voice just right because she was a killer. Or perhaps she was simply a more experienced mother, with more time to perfect it, more children to handle (Allison wants to think "change," but doesn't know why), and less support from others.
It didn't matter. They were a family again. And Allison was able to forget.
It could never last, of course.
#
In the (beginning of the) end, It was Richie who came to her.
Marilyn would have pegged James to be the Querent, if she had known for sure that there would be one. Oh she had hoped that there would be one (that's why she had made the title in her mind) but she hadn't known for sure that there would. She kept silent as she knew Allison wanted her to, but she didn't take proactive measures to keep her grandchildren from finding out.
And it was one of her Allison's boys who found out, as she hoped would happen. Her other grandchildren didn't have the stuff for it. They wouldn't have survived the stress. A stint in the military might change that (she was especially encouraging to Rachel on that front) but for now there were no other good options. Her daughter could think what she would, but Marilyn would not put the legacy of Skeleton Scott above the psychological well-being of her family. Even Father hadn't pushed her into it.
Always their choice (perhaps Allison might even take up the role, as Marilyn had originally wanted nothing more than the simple life, but she feared that this was only wishful thinking).
But she had supposed that James would be the one to find out, if indeed anyone did. Sweet, reserved James, who spoke little but watched everything. Surely he would hang the clues together on a string of deduction and know who his grandmother was and her grandfather had been.
It was Richie instead. Brash, forward, bustling Richie, who talked much— and, Marilyn realized, listened as much as he spoke. Perhaps he could have exercised a little tact or caution rather than pose the question in front of his brother and mother, but Marilyn wasn't going to be remembered as a liar. She had only ever withheld the truth from her grandchildren, never substituted it.
So she told him. To her credit (for patience that is) she refused to discuss the subject any further that day. She knew that he would come back later. Perhaps James would come with him.
But Richie came alone. Marilyn didn't ask, but she wonders if they had talked about it before Richie approached her. Perhaps James had been the first to know. Or perhaps he had simply declined the invitation.
One thing was for sure. Family get-togethers had suddenly gotten very awkward.
#
Marilyn pretended to focus on her knitting. She knew her daughter. The girl needed time to adjust (but five months?). She intended to give whatever time was necessary.
And yet, this was the most perfect time to take the first step. Richie and James had left the house for the evening, and none of her other myriad descendants were visiting at the moment. With others in the house Allison might censor herself, if censorship were necessary, and that might mean that things needing saying would go unsaid.
Marilyn wasn't sure exactly what Allison needed to hear or say, or when, or how, but she would stack the deck in their favor. And there was something else that needed saying, for someone else's benefit.
"You're going to let Richie take up the mask when I get too old to wear it," she said.
Allison didn't turn to face her. "Is that a commandment, Mother?"
"An observation. I've been your mother for as long as you've been my daughter. Assume that I know a thing or two about you."
Allison sighed. She started scrubbing another dish. "I have to let them make their own choices. Or else…" She paused, and let her hands work in the sink. Another dish went through her hands before she spoke again. "Or else I'm no better than you and… Grandpa."
"Then you can't judge them, love. Or make them take sides against family."
Allison stopped. The plate in her hands was laid to rest on the bottom of the sink. She looked at her mother. "What are you saying?"
"I've watched how you interact with your boys. Nothing wrong with having a better dynamic with one of them than the other. You can't help that, now can you? James understood, and he didn't seem to hold it against you. Something about you was closer to Richie than him." Marilyn set her knitting aside. "But now things are different, and you have to recapture that. I don't think either of them has put it into words, yet, but they can feel that something's different. You're cooler toward Richie, and that's because he'll want to be Scott one day, even if he doesn't know it yet."
She walked to the sink and started cleaning the dish that her daughter had held. "You're making him choose between the two of us. Keep this up and James will feel like he has to choose between you and Richie. And how will you explain this to your husband?"
"I…"
"That could blow up in any number of ways." Marilyn shook her head. "You have to be careful. I know that you'll always love Richie, but what you have to do is find out how to love Skeleton Scott too, or you'll hate a part of your family."
A Story Across Years
Chapter ten: Fractures
It was better than Allison would have hoped for. The boys didn't ask why they hadn't been able to meet their other grandmother for so long. Marilyn didn't ask if they would like to grow up to be masked criminals.
By unspoken agreement, neither adult spoke of certain matters that now lay in the past, buried like so many corpses. Rotting, falling apart, and… perhaps nourishing the soil in which they rested.
Allison hadn't let herself recognize the hunger that had been growing in her for years. The hunger that was a betrayal of her father and herself, the hunger that was merely a different flavor of a kind that she had known for many years before she had stopped talking with her mother. The hunger for her family, no matter what she had learned about some of them.
Allison still loved her mother. Missed her. Secretly, she was glad that her sons had forced her hand.
Perhaps this was what children were for, to make parents rectify the mistakes of their pasts.
Her siblings began to speak to her again. It was slow, but Marilyn had been furious to learn that they had cut off contact at all, and they were cowed easily enough by her tone. There were times that Allison wondered if her mother was able to get her voice just right because she was a killer. Or perhaps she was simply a more experienced mother, with more time to perfect it, more children to handle (Allison wants to think "change," but doesn't know why), and less support from others.
It didn't matter. They were a family again. And Allison was able to forget.
It could never last, of course.
#
In the (beginning of the) end, It was Richie who came to her.
Marilyn would have pegged James to be the Querent, if she had known for sure that there would be one. Oh she had hoped that there would be one (that's why she had made the title in her mind) but she hadn't known for sure that there would. She kept silent as she knew Allison wanted her to, but she didn't take proactive measures to keep her grandchildren from finding out.
And it was one of her Allison's boys who found out, as she hoped would happen. Her other grandchildren didn't have the stuff for it. They wouldn't have survived the stress. A stint in the military might change that (she was especially encouraging to Rachel on that front) but for now there were no other good options. Her daughter could think what she would, but Marilyn would not put the legacy of Skeleton Scott above the psychological well-being of her family. Even Father hadn't pushed her into it.
Always their choice (perhaps Allison might even take up the role, as Marilyn had originally wanted nothing more than the simple life, but she feared that this was only wishful thinking).
But she had supposed that James would be the one to find out, if indeed anyone did. Sweet, reserved James, who spoke little but watched everything. Surely he would hang the clues together on a string of deduction and know who his grandmother was and her grandfather had been.
It was Richie instead. Brash, forward, bustling Richie, who talked much— and, Marilyn realized, listened as much as he spoke. Perhaps he could have exercised a little tact or caution rather than pose the question in front of his brother and mother, but Marilyn wasn't going to be remembered as a liar. She had only ever withheld the truth from her grandchildren, never substituted it.
So she told him. To her credit (for patience that is) she refused to discuss the subject any further that day. She knew that he would come back later. Perhaps James would come with him.
But Richie came alone. Marilyn didn't ask, but she wonders if they had talked about it before Richie approached her. Perhaps James had been the first to know. Or perhaps he had simply declined the invitation.
One thing was for sure. Family get-togethers had suddenly gotten very awkward.
#
Marilyn pretended to focus on her knitting. She knew her daughter. The girl needed time to adjust (but five months?). She intended to give whatever time was necessary.
And yet, this was the most perfect time to take the first step. Richie and James had left the house for the evening, and none of her other myriad descendants were visiting at the moment. With others in the house Allison might censor herself, if censorship were necessary, and that might mean that things needing saying would go unsaid.
Marilyn wasn't sure exactly what Allison needed to hear or say, or when, or how, but she would stack the deck in their favor. And there was something else that needed saying, for someone else's benefit.
"You're going to let Richie take up the mask when I get too old to wear it," she said.
Allison didn't turn to face her. "Is that a commandment, Mother?"
"An observation. I've been your mother for as long as you've been my daughter. Assume that I know a thing or two about you."
Allison sighed. She started scrubbing another dish. "I have to let them make their own choices. Or else…" She paused, and let her hands work in the sink. Another dish went through her hands before she spoke again. "Or else I'm no better than you and… Grandpa."
"Then you can't judge them, love. Or make them take sides against family."
Allison stopped. The plate in her hands was laid to rest on the bottom of the sink. She looked at her mother. "What are you saying?"
"I've watched how you interact with your boys. Nothing wrong with having a better dynamic with one of them than the other. You can't help that, now can you? James understood, and he didn't seem to hold it against you. Something about you was closer to Richie than him." Marilyn set her knitting aside. "But now things are different, and you have to recapture that. I don't think either of them has put it into words, yet, but they can feel that something's different. You're cooler toward Richie, and that's because he'll want to be Scott one day, even if he doesn't know it yet."
She walked to the sink and started cleaning the dish that her daughter had held. "You're making him choose between the two of us. Keep this up and James will feel like he has to choose between you and Richie. And how will you explain this to your husband?"
"I…"
"That could blow up in any number of ways." Marilyn shook her head. "You have to be careful. I know that you'll always love Richie, but what you have to do is find out how to love Skeleton Scott too, or you'll hate a part of your family."
Monday, January 13, 2014
Fiction: A Story Across Years [chapter eight]
This story at Fictionpress.
A Story Across Years
Chapter eight: Second Time Around the Track
Allison knows that something's wrong as soon as she sees the cigarette burning in the ashtray. Her mother hasn't had a cigarette since when Dad died.
She picked it up when her own father died. Bookends to her smoking habit, Allison had thought. But then what inspired it again?
She takes a seat at the table beside her mother. Waits. Lets her mother take whatever time that she needs.
Despite the cigarette she appears to be in an uplifted mood. Some curious combination of worry and... optimism, maybe. That's a reasonable combination, Allison thinks.
"And they lived as happily as they could live, under the circumstances," her mother says. "Do you remember?"
"Of course." Allison had recognized the reference as soon as words spill out of her mother's mouth. "Pretty much the only story you ever told me that had a happy ending. Skeleton Scott and the Girl."
Her mother smiles. She stamps the cigarette on its end to put it out and drops it in the ashtray. The smell of tobacco lingers in the air.
She finally turns her eyes to meet Allison's. "It's... pretty difficult to talk right now. I hope..." She sighs. "To Hell with it. I never told you a story that wasn't history."
The seconds hang in the air before Allison responds. All five of them. "It's real." Her mother opens her mouth to say something (how must she look to her mother right now? what is the emotion that her mother sees?) but Allison barrels forward. "The story happened. Skeleton Scott took that girl. Took you." Allison practically launches herself out of the chair. She can't get away fast enough. "Grandpa was Skeleton Scott."
Allison shivers. Everything feels so wrong. This isn't her home. This isn't her mother. This isn't her skin that she's wearing. It's someone else's, somebody who belongs in this world that she's been dragged into.
"Allison," her mother begins. But she won't give it to her.
"I didn't ask for this!" she shouts. "You had no right!"
To put her in this situation? To have her be raised how she was? To leave her alone in the room with a mass murderer?
Any of it. All of it. She doesn't know.
But this isn't the worst of it. She knows that. She's nobody's fool. She's... She's Skeleton Scott's granddaughter.
Skeleton Scott, who died.
Skeleton Scott, who is still alive.
Skeleton Scott, who disappeared for the better part of two years. Who disappeared around the time when Grandpa got sick. Who came back a month after Grandpa died.
"You're Skeleton Scott."
"Twelve seconds from revelation to ramifications," her mother says. "I'm impressed." She smiles. "But then, I shouldn't be."
It takes all of the strength of will in the world for Allison to keep her legs from giving way beneath her. She controls it. Slowly, slowly she slides down, leaning against the wall for support. "Then you're a murderer. A criminal."
"Yes and yes, the latter on a technical basis."
"Why?"
"To keep this city safe. The crime rate will always be there, but there are so many things that aren't anymore. Was a time when half of this city wasn't safe after dark."
"He killed your father. He killed-"
"Skeleton Scott was my father longer than Alejandro ever was!" her mother roars. "I can love them both. I don't have to pick a side." Her face softens. "And neither do you. I know what you're thinking."
Allison remembers her mother coming home late. Hurt, sometimes. She remembers Dad waiting up late at night even though her mother wouldn't come home till early in the morning most times.
She remembers the arguments that her parents had had. Late night yelling matches and the two of them getting into the car to drive away where they could... Where they could yell about this, away from little ears.
"I thought that you were cheating on him."
Her mother stops. "No." She pauses. "No. Of course. Of course." She gets out of her chair to kneel beside Allison and extends a hand. "I'm sorry. That wasn't our intention."
"He didn't like it."
"No."
"He wanted you to stop."
"Desperately," her mother admits.
"Did you kill him?"
"This is a day for shocking questions that I never expected," her mother finally says. She sweeps her legs beneath her and sits cross-legged. "Allison," she says, "whether or not my finger pulled the trigger... I am still responsible for his death."
Allison remembers the funeral. She remembers the closed casket. She remembers being left in the care of her other grandparents and her mother disappearing for two days.
The pain on her mother's face is real. But she chose it. Allison had this world forced upon her. A world without her father.
A world without her mother, she realizes. Because this isn't where the conversation is going to end tonight.
She struggles to her feet, ignoring her mother's outstretched hand.
"I can't do this."
"Allison."
"You used me! Are using me!"
"Allison-"
"You want me to learn what I need to know to take over after you're too old to continue!"
The silence confirms it.
"I can't do this," she says as she tries to walk toward the door. "I can't do this. I can't be your murder hobo, Marilyn." Her mother's name rolls off her tongue without her even realizing it, but the sting that she sees on her mother's face tells her what she's done. "I can't do this."
Allison opens the door. Looks behind her one last time. "Don't tell Sarah and Jack. If you try to destroy their lives like you've done to me right now then I swear, I swear, Marilyn, I will make you regret it. You had no right."
She leaves.
And never, ever comes back.
A Story Across Years
Chapter eight: Second Time Around the Track
Allison knows that something's wrong as soon as she sees the cigarette burning in the ashtray. Her mother hasn't had a cigarette since when Dad died.
She picked it up when her own father died. Bookends to her smoking habit, Allison had thought. But then what inspired it again?
She takes a seat at the table beside her mother. Waits. Lets her mother take whatever time that she needs.
Despite the cigarette she appears to be in an uplifted mood. Some curious combination of worry and... optimism, maybe. That's a reasonable combination, Allison thinks.
"And they lived as happily as they could live, under the circumstances," her mother says. "Do you remember?"
"Of course." Allison had recognized the reference as soon as words spill out of her mother's mouth. "Pretty much the only story you ever told me that had a happy ending. Skeleton Scott and the Girl."
Her mother smiles. She stamps the cigarette on its end to put it out and drops it in the ashtray. The smell of tobacco lingers in the air.
She finally turns her eyes to meet Allison's. "It's... pretty difficult to talk right now. I hope..." She sighs. "To Hell with it. I never told you a story that wasn't history."
The seconds hang in the air before Allison responds. All five of them. "It's real." Her mother opens her mouth to say something (how must she look to her mother right now? what is the emotion that her mother sees?) but Allison barrels forward. "The story happened. Skeleton Scott took that girl. Took you." Allison practically launches herself out of the chair. She can't get away fast enough. "Grandpa was Skeleton Scott."
Allison shivers. Everything feels so wrong. This isn't her home. This isn't her mother. This isn't her skin that she's wearing. It's someone else's, somebody who belongs in this world that she's been dragged into.
"Allison," her mother begins. But she won't give it to her.
"I didn't ask for this!" she shouts. "You had no right!"
To put her in this situation? To have her be raised how she was? To leave her alone in the room with a mass murderer?
Any of it. All of it. She doesn't know.
But this isn't the worst of it. She knows that. She's nobody's fool. She's... She's Skeleton Scott's granddaughter.
Skeleton Scott, who died.
Skeleton Scott, who is still alive.
Skeleton Scott, who disappeared for the better part of two years. Who disappeared around the time when Grandpa got sick. Who came back a month after Grandpa died.
"You're Skeleton Scott."
"Twelve seconds from revelation to ramifications," her mother says. "I'm impressed." She smiles. "But then, I shouldn't be."
It takes all of the strength of will in the world for Allison to keep her legs from giving way beneath her. She controls it. Slowly, slowly she slides down, leaning against the wall for support. "Then you're a murderer. A criminal."
"Yes and yes, the latter on a technical basis."
"Why?"
"To keep this city safe. The crime rate will always be there, but there are so many things that aren't anymore. Was a time when half of this city wasn't safe after dark."
"He killed your father. He killed-"
"Skeleton Scott was my father longer than Alejandro ever was!" her mother roars. "I can love them both. I don't have to pick a side." Her face softens. "And neither do you. I know what you're thinking."
Allison remembers her mother coming home late. Hurt, sometimes. She remembers Dad waiting up late at night even though her mother wouldn't come home till early in the morning most times.
She remembers the arguments that her parents had had. Late night yelling matches and the two of them getting into the car to drive away where they could... Where they could yell about this, away from little ears.
"I thought that you were cheating on him."
Her mother stops. "No." She pauses. "No. Of course. Of course." She gets out of her chair to kneel beside Allison and extends a hand. "I'm sorry. That wasn't our intention."
"He didn't like it."
"No."
"He wanted you to stop."
"Desperately," her mother admits.
"Did you kill him?"
"This is a day for shocking questions that I never expected," her mother finally says. She sweeps her legs beneath her and sits cross-legged. "Allison," she says, "whether or not my finger pulled the trigger... I am still responsible for his death."
Allison remembers the funeral. She remembers the closed casket. She remembers being left in the care of her other grandparents and her mother disappearing for two days.
The pain on her mother's face is real. But she chose it. Allison had this world forced upon her. A world without her father.
A world without her mother, she realizes. Because this isn't where the conversation is going to end tonight.
She struggles to her feet, ignoring her mother's outstretched hand.
"I can't do this."
"Allison."
"You used me! Are using me!"
"Allison-"
"You want me to learn what I need to know to take over after you're too old to continue!"
The silence confirms it.
"I can't do this," she says as she tries to walk toward the door. "I can't do this. I can't be your murder hobo, Marilyn." Her mother's name rolls off her tongue without her even realizing it, but the sting that she sees on her mother's face tells her what she's done. "I can't do this."
Allison opens the door. Looks behind her one last time. "Don't tell Sarah and Jack. If you try to destroy their lives like you've done to me right now then I swear, I swear, Marilyn, I will make you regret it. You had no right."
She leaves.
And never, ever comes back.
Monday, January 6, 2014
Fiction: A Story Across Years [chapter seven]
This story at Fictionpress.
Also included this week:
Secret Life: Chapter eleven. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
A Story Across Years
Chapter seven: Childhood
--
Are you going to start her on guns yet?
No, not yet. She's too young. I got her a few more disentanglement puzzles, though. She's solved all the old ones. But if I start her on disassembling guns, next thing you know, she'll want to learn how to shoot. I'll wait until she's eight.
"No, no, no," Marilyn said, despairingly. "Don't swing your arm," she told her daughter. "Anybody could block it. Like I just did. You've got to move straight, like this." She demonstrated, and then stood back to watch the young girl, who repeated the motion, and did it four more times before her mother decided that she'd done it right.
"Now, try to draw it faster." Marilyn paused. "When you can finally catch me off my guard, we can go to that arcade with the talking rat."
"Chuck E. Cheese's?"
"Sure. That's the name."
No matter how mature they are, there are some things a young child will do anything for.
How's my granddaughter doing since I saw her last, girl?
Great, Father. She loves the gift you got her. Two months ago.
That's okay. I don't ask for thank-you notes until the box actually gets opened.
It was by the time she was five years old that she had managed to learn to look at her grandfather's presents in a... "special" way, so to speak. She wasn't being forced to wait to get to her present until she could open the box, she was getting two presents: the puzzle box, and whatever was inside.
Considering that she had just recently been able to open up the puzzle box she had been given for her first birthday, this was an extremely useful mindset to have.
So what does she know about me?
About you, or about you? I told her the story, but she thinks that it's the first bedtime story I ever told her which wasn't history. Nah, the only people who know that you were a masked criminal back in the day are me and a few of your old partners. More coffee, Father?
It was the oddest story she'd ever heard, the young girl quickly decided. It was a qualified happy ending ("as happily as they could be expected to") but that was still a miracle, when she thought that she'd have to fight tooth and nail to get a happy ending like what might be found in the Book of Job. Normally, her mother thought that Alexander the Great had a happy ending, failure and premature death notwithstanding. Or Julius Caesar. She had a thing for telling stories about people who died, and calling those "happy endings." Her mother, it seemed, was more concerned with the end results of a person's works, than whether that person was ever really happy.
But then she was told the story of Skeleton Scott and the Girl, or at least a very brief glossing-over of it, and of how, when Skeleton Scott killed a police officer and his wife, he took the girl to raise as his own, in order to keep her from growing up to hate him.
It was... odd. Disturbing, in some ways. But the girl couldn't deny that it had perhaps the happiest ending of any story her mother had told her. Scott grew to love his adopted daughter, too, in the end.
A shame that it wasn't true. She'd have liked her mother to have given a happy ending for a true story.
"Hello again, Father. I'm sorry about not popping by sooner."
"It's okay. You've had to wait on me enough times. I owe you the same. They say I've got a year, maybe."
"You'll beat it. You've survived worse."
She was seven, when she heard that her grandfather was sick. It was some disease she couldn't even begin to pronounce. She missed him terribly, already, even when he was so near, and she became even closer to him, in that time. Whenever her mother flew back to see him, she made sure to tag along.
There was nothing that made him happy so much as seeing her beat the last record she'd made on the 5x5 Rubik's cube he'd put in the puzzle box she had gotten from him for her fifth Christmas. At this point, doing it fast enough to be, figuratively speaking, a blur, wasn't nearly so hard as making sure she didn't break it in her haste. A professor's cube was a notoriously fragile thing, and not generally up to the rigors of speedcubing.
Please don't leave me, Father. Not like Dad.
That was entirely not his fault, you know. A few bullets in the vital organs can make a man leave his daughter whether he wants it or not, you know.
That doesn't mean I want you to die, too.
She was nearly eight, when her grandfather died. She was not allowed to attend the funeral. Her mother thought it might be... dangerous for her. Some very bad people might be there, her mother explained. She was distracted, during those days that her mother was gone. She didn't hear half of what was said around her, and she had to be actively engaged in something in order to actually do anything. The moment people stopped bothering her, the life seemed to go out of her. She just sat down, and stared at the wall, as she thought.
Her mother came back three days later, and there was a brief moment of irrational panic when she saw the gun in her mother's hand. Not a minute later, though, they were alone in the workshop, and something seemed to fall into place as they began Lessons again. The gun fell apart so easily, and the pieces went back together just the same. They went through three guns that day, and by the time that she could do it with her eyes closed, she was already yawning, and she was brought to bed
She dreamed of puzzles.
Also included this week:
Secret Life: Chapter eleven. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
A Story Across Years
Chapter seven: Childhood
--
Are you going to start her on guns yet?
No, not yet. She's too young. I got her a few more disentanglement puzzles, though. She's solved all the old ones. But if I start her on disassembling guns, next thing you know, she'll want to learn how to shoot. I'll wait until she's eight.
"No, no, no," Marilyn said, despairingly. "Don't swing your arm," she told her daughter. "Anybody could block it. Like I just did. You've got to move straight, like this." She demonstrated, and then stood back to watch the young girl, who repeated the motion, and did it four more times before her mother decided that she'd done it right.
"Now, try to draw it faster." Marilyn paused. "When you can finally catch me off my guard, we can go to that arcade with the talking rat."
"Chuck E. Cheese's?"
"Sure. That's the name."
No matter how mature they are, there are some things a young child will do anything for.
How's my granddaughter doing since I saw her last, girl?
Great, Father. She loves the gift you got her. Two months ago.
That's okay. I don't ask for thank-you notes until the box actually gets opened.
It was by the time she was five years old that she had managed to learn to look at her grandfather's presents in a... "special" way, so to speak. She wasn't being forced to wait to get to her present until she could open the box, she was getting two presents: the puzzle box, and whatever was inside.
Considering that she had just recently been able to open up the puzzle box she had been given for her first birthday, this was an extremely useful mindset to have.
So what does she know about me?
About you, or about you? I told her the story, but she thinks that it's the first bedtime story I ever told her which wasn't history. Nah, the only people who know that you were a masked criminal back in the day are me and a few of your old partners. More coffee, Father?
It was the oddest story she'd ever heard, the young girl quickly decided. It was a qualified happy ending ("as happily as they could be expected to") but that was still a miracle, when she thought that she'd have to fight tooth and nail to get a happy ending like what might be found in the Book of Job. Normally, her mother thought that Alexander the Great had a happy ending, failure and premature death notwithstanding. Or Julius Caesar. She had a thing for telling stories about people who died, and calling those "happy endings." Her mother, it seemed, was more concerned with the end results of a person's works, than whether that person was ever really happy.
But then she was told the story of Skeleton Scott and the Girl, or at least a very brief glossing-over of it, and of how, when Skeleton Scott killed a police officer and his wife, he took the girl to raise as his own, in order to keep her from growing up to hate him.
It was... odd. Disturbing, in some ways. But the girl couldn't deny that it had perhaps the happiest ending of any story her mother had told her. Scott grew to love his adopted daughter, too, in the end.
A shame that it wasn't true. She'd have liked her mother to have given a happy ending for a true story.
"Hello again, Father. I'm sorry about not popping by sooner."
"It's okay. You've had to wait on me enough times. I owe you the same. They say I've got a year, maybe."
"You'll beat it. You've survived worse."
She was seven, when she heard that her grandfather was sick. It was some disease she couldn't even begin to pronounce. She missed him terribly, already, even when he was so near, and she became even closer to him, in that time. Whenever her mother flew back to see him, she made sure to tag along.
There was nothing that made him happy so much as seeing her beat the last record she'd made on the 5x5 Rubik's cube he'd put in the puzzle box she had gotten from him for her fifth Christmas. At this point, doing it fast enough to be, figuratively speaking, a blur, wasn't nearly so hard as making sure she didn't break it in her haste. A professor's cube was a notoriously fragile thing, and not generally up to the rigors of speedcubing.
Please don't leave me, Father. Not like Dad.
That was entirely not his fault, you know. A few bullets in the vital organs can make a man leave his daughter whether he wants it or not, you know.
That doesn't mean I want you to die, too.
She was nearly eight, when her grandfather died. She was not allowed to attend the funeral. Her mother thought it might be... dangerous for her. Some very bad people might be there, her mother explained. She was distracted, during those days that her mother was gone. She didn't hear half of what was said around her, and she had to be actively engaged in something in order to actually do anything. The moment people stopped bothering her, the life seemed to go out of her. She just sat down, and stared at the wall, as she thought.
Her mother came back three days later, and there was a brief moment of irrational panic when she saw the gun in her mother's hand. Not a minute later, though, they were alone in the workshop, and something seemed to fall into place as they began Lessons again. The gun fell apart so easily, and the pieces went back together just the same. They went through three guns that day, and by the time that she could do it with her eyes closed, she was already yawning, and she was brought to bed
She dreamed of puzzles.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Fiction: A Story Across Years [chapter six]
This story at Fictionpress.
Also included this week:
Secret Life: Chapter ten. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
A Story Across Years
Chapter six: Ten Colors for Marilyn
Red: It's the blood she sees spilling out of her parents as he picks her up and walks away, and the spaghetti dinner their heads are resting in. It's the hair of the man who tried to rape her when she was twelve, who her protector made her murder after he'd been cut half to death already. It's the frosting on the cookies which her mother made with the special family recipe, and which she'll never have again. Red is the color of change, but even more, it is that color which signifies things lost, which can never be regained.
White: The color of his mask, carved from wood and painted like a skull, the only thing she could look at as he carried her away, saying that it would be alright. Her parents' china, which she never saw again after that day. The clothes she favored, especially after a good wash, when all the grime had gone away, and they were out of the dryer, fresh and warm and comforting. White is death to some, and purity to others, but for Marilyn, it is security, and the memory and promise of it. It's all she needs to feel safe.
Silver: Knives are silver, no doubt about it, and more than a few of the scars on her body are from when she didn't move fast enough during sparring in her older years, when he started using a knife, too. It's the needle she uses to stitch him up after he's removed the bullets, and it's the cover of the medical book she's studied often before but rereads twice in one sitting after she learns that she's going to be removing them from him next time. It's the color of lessons, and hard-earned knowledge, and often tied to red things.
Green: She has received many puzzle boxes from him, often with prizes inside, but occasionally with the threat of undesired consequences if she does not solve it within the time given to her. She was given a garden, and the plants were so difficult to grow at first, but though he did not help her in any way except to give her the right books, she persevered, and succeeded. For some, green is death and resurrection, and to them resurrection was never an easy affair. But it was possible, and to Marilyn green is the solution contained within the problem.
Yellow: The copper jackets of bullets. Shining, gleaming gold. The covers of the crime stories she would read, and so forevermore an association with crime and criminals. The sun, hanging high above her in the sky. It was power and self-determinacy, but in the hunk of orpiment sitting on her dresser since she was eleven, that which the alchemists of old sought in vain to turn into gold, it also represented false promises of such. Yellow was a promise of something great, but it was also a warning, because those promises could be false. Duality, contradictions, so many opposing things.
Black: The darkness of a room in which she had been locked away, the lights turned off. She did bad things, like any child, but he wouldn't beat her just because she had failed. It meant "bad choices" to her, but never something to fear. An opportunity to do better, because nobody could start off perfect and make no mistakes. The darkness just let her know that she had made a bad decision. Black was close to blue, and that made perfect sense, but ultimately, black was the color of consequences, tied to yellow, like a bumblebee and its sting.
Purple: Bruises, before anything else at all. But when she thinks of the bruises, she doesn't think of those few beatings after she did something so completely stupid and endangering to herself that it was impossible to blame him for what he would do, to make sure she never risked hurting herself like that again. When she thinks of purple, she thinks of bruises, but when she thinks of bruises, she thinks of the ones she's garnered in sparring practices. It isn't just learning or experience, but being better than she was before. It is painful but entirely worth it.
Orange: Oranges, of course, and tangerines, and even carrots. Pumpkins and carving the Jack-O-Lantern with him as Halloween drew near, although only hard (and foolhardy) souls dared to walk out in that part of the city on a normal night, let alone on Halloween. The sunset as she sat on his lap in the summer, watching from a chair on their rooftop as it sank beneath the horizon. The warmth of a warm fire on an exceptionally cold night. It is, put simply, the little pleasures in life, which require nothing more than the ability to sit back and enjoy.
Brown: It is the dirt upon which she sits, as she gazes at his gravestone, and traces his name with her finger. It was the sign that it was finally time to harvest the seeds from the sunflowers in her garden, the seeds which he once loved so much, and which she placed gently beside the stone. It was in the withered leaves which fell soon before his death, but she would not let herself think anything of, convinced that he would survive this. Before, she had never thought much of brown, but now it represents reality, cold and unyielding.
Blue: His knives were silver and his mask was white, his hair was brown, and his guns were black, but the eyes of the man who killed her parents and took her away, who she would soon after call "Father," were blue, and so were the frames of his coke-bottle glasses. It's the woad of the Celts in the stories he tells her so often, and when he finally let her drink alcohol, the wine was so dark blue that it looked almost black to her, but in the end, it was his wine, and blue is her Father's color.
Also included this week:
Secret Life: Chapter ten. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
A Story Across Years
Chapter six: Ten Colors for Marilyn
Red: It's the blood she sees spilling out of her parents as he picks her up and walks away, and the spaghetti dinner their heads are resting in. It's the hair of the man who tried to rape her when she was twelve, who her protector made her murder after he'd been cut half to death already. It's the frosting on the cookies which her mother made with the special family recipe, and which she'll never have again. Red is the color of change, but even more, it is that color which signifies things lost, which can never be regained.
White: The color of his mask, carved from wood and painted like a skull, the only thing she could look at as he carried her away, saying that it would be alright. Her parents' china, which she never saw again after that day. The clothes she favored, especially after a good wash, when all the grime had gone away, and they were out of the dryer, fresh and warm and comforting. White is death to some, and purity to others, but for Marilyn, it is security, and the memory and promise of it. It's all she needs to feel safe.
Silver: Knives are silver, no doubt about it, and more than a few of the scars on her body are from when she didn't move fast enough during sparring in her older years, when he started using a knife, too. It's the needle she uses to stitch him up after he's removed the bullets, and it's the cover of the medical book she's studied often before but rereads twice in one sitting after she learns that she's going to be removing them from him next time. It's the color of lessons, and hard-earned knowledge, and often tied to red things.
Green: She has received many puzzle boxes from him, often with prizes inside, but occasionally with the threat of undesired consequences if she does not solve it within the time given to her. She was given a garden, and the plants were so difficult to grow at first, but though he did not help her in any way except to give her the right books, she persevered, and succeeded. For some, green is death and resurrection, and to them resurrection was never an easy affair. But it was possible, and to Marilyn green is the solution contained within the problem.
Yellow: The copper jackets of bullets. Shining, gleaming gold. The covers of the crime stories she would read, and so forevermore an association with crime and criminals. The sun, hanging high above her in the sky. It was power and self-determinacy, but in the hunk of orpiment sitting on her dresser since she was eleven, that which the alchemists of old sought in vain to turn into gold, it also represented false promises of such. Yellow was a promise of something great, but it was also a warning, because those promises could be false. Duality, contradictions, so many opposing things.
Black: The darkness of a room in which she had been locked away, the lights turned off. She did bad things, like any child, but he wouldn't beat her just because she had failed. It meant "bad choices" to her, but never something to fear. An opportunity to do better, because nobody could start off perfect and make no mistakes. The darkness just let her know that she had made a bad decision. Black was close to blue, and that made perfect sense, but ultimately, black was the color of consequences, tied to yellow, like a bumblebee and its sting.
Purple: Bruises, before anything else at all. But when she thinks of the bruises, she doesn't think of those few beatings after she did something so completely stupid and endangering to herself that it was impossible to blame him for what he would do, to make sure she never risked hurting herself like that again. When she thinks of purple, she thinks of bruises, but when she thinks of bruises, she thinks of the ones she's garnered in sparring practices. It isn't just learning or experience, but being better than she was before. It is painful but entirely worth it.
Orange: Oranges, of course, and tangerines, and even carrots. Pumpkins and carving the Jack-O-Lantern with him as Halloween drew near, although only hard (and foolhardy) souls dared to walk out in that part of the city on a normal night, let alone on Halloween. The sunset as she sat on his lap in the summer, watching from a chair on their rooftop as it sank beneath the horizon. The warmth of a warm fire on an exceptionally cold night. It is, put simply, the little pleasures in life, which require nothing more than the ability to sit back and enjoy.
Brown: It is the dirt upon which she sits, as she gazes at his gravestone, and traces his name with her finger. It was the sign that it was finally time to harvest the seeds from the sunflowers in her garden, the seeds which he once loved so much, and which she placed gently beside the stone. It was in the withered leaves which fell soon before his death, but she would not let herself think anything of, convinced that he would survive this. Before, she had never thought much of brown, but now it represents reality, cold and unyielding.
Blue: His knives were silver and his mask was white, his hair was brown, and his guns were black, but the eyes of the man who killed her parents and took her away, who she would soon after call "Father," were blue, and so were the frames of his coke-bottle glasses. It's the woad of the Celts in the stories he tells her so often, and when he finally let her drink alcohol, the wine was so dark blue that it looked almost black to her, but in the end, it was his wine, and blue is her Father's color.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Fiction: Bubblegum Peculiarity
This story at Fictionpress.
Also included this week:
A Story Across Years: Chapter five. "Tradition, of course. I wonder when it started."
Secret Life: Chapter nine. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
Bubblegum Peculiarity
Was it a peculiar home? A peculiar family? Oh, indeed.
"If you continue to fight me about your vegetables then I can assure you that you won't be happy."
But some things are part of every family, no matter how peculiar.
Miss Taylor could hear the mother from the other side of the door. And the girl responded. Too quietly for Miss Taylor to make out the words, but the tone that she used conveyed the impression that she wasn't worried.
That was good. That was very good.
Miss Taylor knocked on the door.
It meant that she probably wasn't afraid of her mother.
"Elizabeth Taylor," she announced as soon as the door opened- which was very, very quickly. Miss Taylor held up her identification. "Child Protective Services."
Miss Taylor hoped that this would be a false alarm. But the problem that had been brought to their attention had nothing to do with whether or not the woman was doing anything that might make her daughter afraid of her.
Still, it didn't seem that the woman was afraid of CPS. That was either a sign that everything was alright or... or that she was such an unfit parent that she couldn't even begin to conceive of what she might have done wrong. Which would mean that they probably wouldn't be able to get her to fix the situation.
The apartment that Miss Taylor walked into was a modest one. There was a kitchen but the living room was doubling as the dining room. The girl- Nancy, according to their reports- was eating dinner on a TV folding tray. The woman... did not appear to be eating dinner.
"Not hungry?" Miss Taylor asked.
The woman laughed. "Oh no. I'll be eating later. I have a very restrictive diet."
Nancy appeared to be nine. Her mother couldn't have been older than twenty-five, and that was pushing it. At most, she couldn't have been older than sixteen when she had given birth to Nancy.
"I apologize," the woman suddenly said. "I'm Autumn Frase." She shook Miss Taylor's hand energetically, then gestured for Miss Taylor to take a seat beside Nancy.
The couch was leather. Probably older than Nancy.
There didn't seem to be more than two people living here, just as the report said- Hell, there seemed in some ways to be only one person living here.
Which, actually, gave weight to the unfortunate side of the report.
But definitely no father in the home. That was something that she could confirm right away.
Autumn pulled up a seat in front of the two of them. She sat with grace, and gave a stern look at her daughter. "Green beans. You. Now." Something peculiar came into her eyes. "Or you won't grow up to be like me."
Whatever was behind those words- and there had to be something- it got Nancy to resume eating.
"I'm sure that you didn't come here to make a social call," Autumn said, "social worker though you may be. If you'll forgive the pun." She paused just long enough for the silence to become awkward and for Miss Taylor to wonder if perhaps she was expected to respond. But as soon as she opened her mouth to do so, Autumn went on. "So if you'll get down to the business of, well, your business..."
"To cut to the chase, we've gotten reports that your daughter has been left at home alone."
"Well, that happens here and there, doesn't it?" Autumn replied.
"Not for days on end, it shouldn't. And not repeatedly." Miss Taylor smiled, and hoped that it reached up to her eyes. "But I'm sure that we can get to the bottom of this and discover that it was all just a big, big misunderstanding." She hoped. She couldn't figure out why she was in this line of work sometimes. Always hoping so desperately that she was wrong. Sometimes it was so, and she stressed for nothing. Sometimes it wasn't so, and the stress was added to by horror.
Autumn practically stared into her soul, her gaze was so intent. Beside her, Miss Taylor noticed, Nancy had stopped eating again.
Not out of curiosity- no, it was out of curiosity. But not only. There was stress there as well. Who the fear was for, or exactly what part of this meeting was triggering it, Miss Taylor couldn't determine, but it was there. That had the potential to not be good- or to be very good, because day-to-day life was always so peaceful that she was hypersensitive to stress. With as little as she had to go by right now, Miss Taylor thought that it was a very good toss-up.
Miss Taylor supposed that she ought to say something, but then Nancy spoke up. Miss Taylor wondered if perhaps she had caught some sort of... some sort of glance shared between the two before Nancy had spoken, but then Nancy repeated herself and continued talking. "It's late. I know because my mom is up and she gets up really late. Also, the clock says that it's five past seven. So."
"So?" Miss Taylor repeated.
"So we're your last people!" Her eyes lit up. "We can make hot chocolate! Can't we mama?" she asked. Nancy looked at her mother with imploring eyes.
"Well, I suppose that that depends on Elizabeth," Autumn said. "I can call you Elizabeth, can't I?"
This was confusing. Everything was confusing. Where had this come from? "Sure." Really. She couldn't remember the last time that a family had asked her to drink hot chocolate with them. Probably because there had never been such a time before now.
"Well then." Autumn grinned. "Do you have to return to the office at the end of the day or do you normally go home?"
"I can go straight home if I have to, but I don't see what-"
"But will they miss you?" Nancy asked, adopting a pouting expression. "That is, will they expect you to come to the office, and be worried if you don't?"
Miss Taylor also couldn't remember the last time that a nine-year-old child had prefaced a clarifying statement with the words "That is." For much the same reason as her other recent failure at recollection. "No, I suppose not. Why?"
"It makes things easier," Autumn said. "I don't have to wear your skin and mimic your voice for a few hours in order for everyone to see you end your day as normal."
If that wasn't the strangest thing that Miss Taylor had ever heard- and she had heard no fewer than three very strange things in the past two minutes- then she was going to give up trying to understand anything at all in the world.
Before she could think about it any further, though, Autumn moved. And there was only the barest fraction of a second for the words "People don't move that fast" to flash through her mind before her neck was snapped and she stopped being surprised forever.
Autumn looked the woman over. "It isn't often that dinner comes to me, Nancy. Might be the last time I get to eat before we have to move. They'll start looking for her soon." She turned to her daughter. "You need to mind yourself better. There was a moment when you didn't sound like a normal nine-year-old."
"What would you know about normal nine-year-olds, mama?" Nancy retorted. "You haven't been one since forever."
"1750 is hardly 'forever,'" Autumn replied. "And being old doesn't make me blind." She chuckled. "Actually, for our kind, it makes me less blind."
"Your kind," Nancy muttered. She turned away.
"Oh, Nancy. Nancy," Autumn said, and she gently nudged Nancy's chin so as to make her daughter look into her eyes. "You just haven't grown into your wings, dear. You'll be fit for immortality yet."
"Y-you sure?"
"Of course." Autumn stood. She picked up the social worker's body and began to take it into the back. "And don't forget to eat your vegetables. That's important while you're still human."
"But mama..."
FIN
Notes for this story.
Also included this week:
A Story Across Years: Chapter five. "Tradition, of course. I wonder when it started."
Secret Life: Chapter nine. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
Bubblegum Peculiarity
Was it a peculiar home? A peculiar family? Oh, indeed.
"If you continue to fight me about your vegetables then I can assure you that you won't be happy."
But some things are part of every family, no matter how peculiar.
Miss Taylor could hear the mother from the other side of the door. And the girl responded. Too quietly for Miss Taylor to make out the words, but the tone that she used conveyed the impression that she wasn't worried.
That was good. That was very good.
Miss Taylor knocked on the door.
It meant that she probably wasn't afraid of her mother.
"Elizabeth Taylor," she announced as soon as the door opened- which was very, very quickly. Miss Taylor held up her identification. "Child Protective Services."
Miss Taylor hoped that this would be a false alarm. But the problem that had been brought to their attention had nothing to do with whether or not the woman was doing anything that might make her daughter afraid of her.
Still, it didn't seem that the woman was afraid of CPS. That was either a sign that everything was alright or... or that she was such an unfit parent that she couldn't even begin to conceive of what she might have done wrong. Which would mean that they probably wouldn't be able to get her to fix the situation.
The apartment that Miss Taylor walked into was a modest one. There was a kitchen but the living room was doubling as the dining room. The girl- Nancy, according to their reports- was eating dinner on a TV folding tray. The woman... did not appear to be eating dinner.
"Not hungry?" Miss Taylor asked.
The woman laughed. "Oh no. I'll be eating later. I have a very restrictive diet."
Nancy appeared to be nine. Her mother couldn't have been older than twenty-five, and that was pushing it. At most, she couldn't have been older than sixteen when she had given birth to Nancy.
"I apologize," the woman suddenly said. "I'm Autumn Frase." She shook Miss Taylor's hand energetically, then gestured for Miss Taylor to take a seat beside Nancy.
The couch was leather. Probably older than Nancy.
There didn't seem to be more than two people living here, just as the report said- Hell, there seemed in some ways to be only one person living here.
Which, actually, gave weight to the unfortunate side of the report.
But definitely no father in the home. That was something that she could confirm right away.
Autumn pulled up a seat in front of the two of them. She sat with grace, and gave a stern look at her daughter. "Green beans. You. Now." Something peculiar came into her eyes. "Or you won't grow up to be like me."
Whatever was behind those words- and there had to be something- it got Nancy to resume eating.
"I'm sure that you didn't come here to make a social call," Autumn said, "social worker though you may be. If you'll forgive the pun." She paused just long enough for the silence to become awkward and for Miss Taylor to wonder if perhaps she was expected to respond. But as soon as she opened her mouth to do so, Autumn went on. "So if you'll get down to the business of, well, your business..."
"To cut to the chase, we've gotten reports that your daughter has been left at home alone."
"Well, that happens here and there, doesn't it?" Autumn replied.
"Not for days on end, it shouldn't. And not repeatedly." Miss Taylor smiled, and hoped that it reached up to her eyes. "But I'm sure that we can get to the bottom of this and discover that it was all just a big, big misunderstanding." She hoped. She couldn't figure out why she was in this line of work sometimes. Always hoping so desperately that she was wrong. Sometimes it was so, and she stressed for nothing. Sometimes it wasn't so, and the stress was added to by horror.
Autumn practically stared into her soul, her gaze was so intent. Beside her, Miss Taylor noticed, Nancy had stopped eating again.
Not out of curiosity- no, it was out of curiosity. But not only. There was stress there as well. Who the fear was for, or exactly what part of this meeting was triggering it, Miss Taylor couldn't determine, but it was there. That had the potential to not be good- or to be very good, because day-to-day life was always so peaceful that she was hypersensitive to stress. With as little as she had to go by right now, Miss Taylor thought that it was a very good toss-up.
Miss Taylor supposed that she ought to say something, but then Nancy spoke up. Miss Taylor wondered if perhaps she had caught some sort of... some sort of glance shared between the two before Nancy had spoken, but then Nancy repeated herself and continued talking. "It's late. I know because my mom is up and she gets up really late. Also, the clock says that it's five past seven. So."
"So?" Miss Taylor repeated.
"So we're your last people!" Her eyes lit up. "We can make hot chocolate! Can't we mama?" she asked. Nancy looked at her mother with imploring eyes.
"Well, I suppose that that depends on Elizabeth," Autumn said. "I can call you Elizabeth, can't I?"
This was confusing. Everything was confusing. Where had this come from? "Sure." Really. She couldn't remember the last time that a family had asked her to drink hot chocolate with them. Probably because there had never been such a time before now.
"Well then." Autumn grinned. "Do you have to return to the office at the end of the day or do you normally go home?"
"I can go straight home if I have to, but I don't see what-"
"But will they miss you?" Nancy asked, adopting a pouting expression. "That is, will they expect you to come to the office, and be worried if you don't?"
Miss Taylor also couldn't remember the last time that a nine-year-old child had prefaced a clarifying statement with the words "That is." For much the same reason as her other recent failure at recollection. "No, I suppose not. Why?"
"It makes things easier," Autumn said. "I don't have to wear your skin and mimic your voice for a few hours in order for everyone to see you end your day as normal."
If that wasn't the strangest thing that Miss Taylor had ever heard- and she had heard no fewer than three very strange things in the past two minutes- then she was going to give up trying to understand anything at all in the world.
Before she could think about it any further, though, Autumn moved. And there was only the barest fraction of a second for the words "People don't move that fast" to flash through her mind before her neck was snapped and she stopped being surprised forever.
Autumn looked the woman over. "It isn't often that dinner comes to me, Nancy. Might be the last time I get to eat before we have to move. They'll start looking for her soon." She turned to her daughter. "You need to mind yourself better. There was a moment when you didn't sound like a normal nine-year-old."
"What would you know about normal nine-year-olds, mama?" Nancy retorted. "You haven't been one since forever."
"1750 is hardly 'forever,'" Autumn replied. "And being old doesn't make me blind." She chuckled. "Actually, for our kind, it makes me less blind."
"Your kind," Nancy muttered. She turned away.
"Oh, Nancy. Nancy," Autumn said, and she gently nudged Nancy's chin so as to make her daughter look into her eyes. "You just haven't grown into your wings, dear. You'll be fit for immortality yet."
"Y-you sure?"
"Of course." Autumn stood. She picked up the social worker's body and began to take it into the back. "And don't forget to eat your vegetables. That's important while you're still human."
"But mama..."
FIN
Notes for this story.
Monday, December 9, 2013
Fiction: A Story Across Years [chapter four]
This story at Fictionpress.
The previous chapter of this story, if you didn't catch the link in last week's fiction updates.
Also included this week:
Secret Life: Chapters five and six. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
A Story Across Years
Chapter four: Another Bedtime Story
Another Bedtime Story
"And now, it's time for you to close those eyes, and go to sleep."
"But mom, you haven't read me my story yet."
"Oh, of course. How could I forget?" Marilyn grinned and picked up a book, but her daughter frowned when she saw the cover.
"You read The Prince all last week!"
Marilyn blinked. "Really? What about Crito?"
"Socrates wants to die and won't listen to anyone else. That's the whole thing."
"Thus Spake Zarathustra?"
"I'm tired of Nietzche."
Marilyn was silent, thinking. "Have I ever told you the story of Skeleton Scott?"
"That... sounds rather like an actual story someone might tell at bedtime," her daughter said. "So I'm pretty sure you haven't." She stared at her mother. "You're still trying to work lessons into bedtime, aren't you?"
Marilyn smiled. "Yes, but not the one you think. He may be real, but I'm not trying to give you a history lesson. Now, let's see... Oh, I know. Here's a story you won't hear in read in any history book. If you know Skeleton Scott, you know, then, that the whole city was afraid of him. The coppers couldn't track him down, the costumed vigilantes died more often than they managed to crawl away bleeding, and the masked criminals just kept an eye out for him and broke group like rats at the first sign of him."
Her daughter snorted.
"But there was one man who stood up to Skeleton Scott. An officer of the law, and one of the few people Scott could respect. Understand, now, that Scott owned the city. He owned little, but when he wanted something, he took it, whether life, limb, or property, and nobody could stop him."
"But he was able to do it, right? What?" she asked, as Marilyn stared at her. "That's how these stories go, right?"
"Officer Alejandro Edgar Hess and his wife both ended up with two bullets in the heart and another in the head," Marilyn answered flatly.
"Oh." Her daughter sounded, quite understandably, disappointed at this news.
"How many stories have I told you with happy endings?"
The young girl thought about it. "Er... Two?"
"Just that? But what about-"
"Julius Caesar got assassinated, mom. By Brutus. His friend!"
"But he kicked off the Roman Empire. That was good, while it lasted. Okay, what ab-"
Her daughter groaned. "How about Job? I'd settle for Job, okay?"
"So you want a different story?" Marilyn asked.
"No, it's fine. Just, tomorrow, could you tell me a story that ends happily?"
"Guy Fawkes?"
"Guy Fawkes was killed."
"Which is a very happy ending," Marilyn said, smiling, "if you're rooting for the Protestants." She paused. "Alejandro had a daughter. Like you."
"And the daughter was kil-"
"And Skeleton Scott took her."
"Close enough. And what horribleness did he do to her?"
"He would run her till she threw up, and then run her farther. He would lock her in her room for days, sometimes, letting her out only for the bathroom, and giving her rather tasteless, if nutritious, food. He beat her... twenty-six times," she said, taking a moment to think back and double-check the number. It was hard to forget, though. "These were punishments, of course. He made her torture and kill a man in cold blood. The other man had tried to rape her, true, but she was twelve. Very young, for wetwork.
"It could be argued that the cruelest thing of all which he did was cause her to love him. By the time she realized that she should hate him, she had thought of him as 'Father' for far too long, and had spent far too much time listening to him tell her stories at night, and doing nothing but things which would get her a hug, or even a simple 'Well done, girl.'"
"Why did he..." The young girl yawned. "Why did he do it?"
"Look at The Face," Marilyn said. "Skeleton Scott, if he'd spent twenty years in the asylum first. But he killed some people for no reason at all, and some orphan becomes his nemesis, decades later. Oh, Scott wasn't going to make the same mistake. Usually, he just killed the kids. But this girl..." She closed her eyes, thinking. "I don't know why he did it. But he took her in, thinking that if she could be taught to love him, then he wouldn't have an enemy in the future. Maybe he also wanted an heir. But take her in he did, and then, against all reason, especially his own, he grew to love the girl, too; there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for her, in the end.
"He didn't skimp on her education. He taught her everything she could possibly learn. Sometimes I think that she could have done very well, had she been forced to take his mantle up even at fifteen. But for everything he ever did for and, yes, to her, he still surprised her, sometimes. The little gifts he'd give her, after a job exceptionally well done. Or..." Marilyn smiled. "Or when she said that what she wanted was a normal life, and he gave her his blessing. Most surprising of all, though, was when he showed up, quite unexpectedly, for his grandchildren. He retired soon after. He claimed he was getting slow, but... I think he wanted to be able to focus on his daughter."
"What happened after that?"
"They... They didn't live happily ever after, but things were as happy as one could expect."
Her daughter looked at her, sleepily, skeptically. "Wow. A happy ending, with only the basic qualifier. Wow." She hugged her mother. "Good story. Maybe you can improvise another, tomorrow night?"
Marilyn grinned. "Of course. G'night," she said, and she closed the door behind her, and walked to the kitchen. She had a call to make.
One couldn't say "Thank you, Father," enough. All things considered, he deserved it.
The previous chapter of this story, if you didn't catch the link in last week's fiction updates.
Also included this week:
Secret Life: Chapters five and six. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
A Story Across Years
Chapter four: Another Bedtime Story
Another Bedtime Story
"And now, it's time for you to close those eyes, and go to sleep."
"But mom, you haven't read me my story yet."
"Oh, of course. How could I forget?" Marilyn grinned and picked up a book, but her daughter frowned when she saw the cover.
"You read The Prince all last week!"
Marilyn blinked. "Really? What about Crito?"
"Socrates wants to die and won't listen to anyone else. That's the whole thing."
"Thus Spake Zarathustra?"
"I'm tired of Nietzche."
Marilyn was silent, thinking. "Have I ever told you the story of Skeleton Scott?"
"That... sounds rather like an actual story someone might tell at bedtime," her daughter said. "So I'm pretty sure you haven't." She stared at her mother. "You're still trying to work lessons into bedtime, aren't you?"
Marilyn smiled. "Yes, but not the one you think. He may be real, but I'm not trying to give you a history lesson. Now, let's see... Oh, I know. Here's a story you won't hear in read in any history book. If you know Skeleton Scott, you know, then, that the whole city was afraid of him. The coppers couldn't track him down, the costumed vigilantes died more often than they managed to crawl away bleeding, and the masked criminals just kept an eye out for him and broke group like rats at the first sign of him."
Her daughter snorted.
"But there was one man who stood up to Skeleton Scott. An officer of the law, and one of the few people Scott could respect. Understand, now, that Scott owned the city. He owned little, but when he wanted something, he took it, whether life, limb, or property, and nobody could stop him."
"But he was able to do it, right? What?" she asked, as Marilyn stared at her. "That's how these stories go, right?"
"Officer Alejandro Edgar Hess and his wife both ended up with two bullets in the heart and another in the head," Marilyn answered flatly.
"Oh." Her daughter sounded, quite understandably, disappointed at this news.
"How many stories have I told you with happy endings?"
The young girl thought about it. "Er... Two?"
"Just that? But what about-"
"Julius Caesar got assassinated, mom. By Brutus. His friend!"
"But he kicked off the Roman Empire. That was good, while it lasted. Okay, what ab-"
Her daughter groaned. "How about Job? I'd settle for Job, okay?"
"So you want a different story?" Marilyn asked.
"No, it's fine. Just, tomorrow, could you tell me a story that ends happily?"
"Guy Fawkes?"
"Guy Fawkes was killed."
"Which is a very happy ending," Marilyn said, smiling, "if you're rooting for the Protestants." She paused. "Alejandro had a daughter. Like you."
"And the daughter was kil-"
"And Skeleton Scott took her."
"Close enough. And what horribleness did he do to her?"
"He would run her till she threw up, and then run her farther. He would lock her in her room for days, sometimes, letting her out only for the bathroom, and giving her rather tasteless, if nutritious, food. He beat her... twenty-six times," she said, taking a moment to think back and double-check the number. It was hard to forget, though. "These were punishments, of course. He made her torture and kill a man in cold blood. The other man had tried to rape her, true, but she was twelve. Very young, for wetwork.
"It could be argued that the cruelest thing of all which he did was cause her to love him. By the time she realized that she should hate him, she had thought of him as 'Father' for far too long, and had spent far too much time listening to him tell her stories at night, and doing nothing but things which would get her a hug, or even a simple 'Well done, girl.'"
"Why did he..." The young girl yawned. "Why did he do it?"
"Look at The Face," Marilyn said. "Skeleton Scott, if he'd spent twenty years in the asylum first. But he killed some people for no reason at all, and some orphan becomes his nemesis, decades later. Oh, Scott wasn't going to make the same mistake. Usually, he just killed the kids. But this girl..." She closed her eyes, thinking. "I don't know why he did it. But he took her in, thinking that if she could be taught to love him, then he wouldn't have an enemy in the future. Maybe he also wanted an heir. But take her in he did, and then, against all reason, especially his own, he grew to love the girl, too; there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for her, in the end.
"He didn't skimp on her education. He taught her everything she could possibly learn. Sometimes I think that she could have done very well, had she been forced to take his mantle up even at fifteen. But for everything he ever did for and, yes, to her, he still surprised her, sometimes. The little gifts he'd give her, after a job exceptionally well done. Or..." Marilyn smiled. "Or when she said that what she wanted was a normal life, and he gave her his blessing. Most surprising of all, though, was when he showed up, quite unexpectedly, for his grandchildren. He retired soon after. He claimed he was getting slow, but... I think he wanted to be able to focus on his daughter."
"What happened after that?"
"They... They didn't live happily ever after, but things were as happy as one could expect."
Her daughter looked at her, sleepily, skeptically. "Wow. A happy ending, with only the basic qualifier. Wow." She hugged her mother. "Good story. Maybe you can improvise another, tomorrow night?"
Marilyn grinned. "Of course. G'night," she said, and she closed the door behind her, and walked to the kitchen. She had a call to make.
One couldn't say "Thank you, Father," enough. All things considered, he deserved it.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Fiction: A Story Across Years [chapter two]
This story at Fictionpress
Regretfully, I have only one other piece of fiction to post this week. Many apologies.
Secret Life: Chapter two. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
A Story Across Years
Chapter two: Lessons
Click, click, click, and the girl finishes snapping all the pieces of the gun together, and she sets it aside. Father is coming home today, and she wants to show him how good she is. She's been practicing.
He says that it's very important that she learn these things.
She knows other things, too. She's just eight years old, but she can make sandwiches and use knives and turn on the microwave, but never, never the oven. The mark hasn't ever gone away, from where she got her punishment, when her father had seen her using the oven. That was very dangerous. She wasn't old enough.
But that's okay. She can do all sorts of things. She can do her own laundry, and make her bed, and clean up after herself, and fix little things if they get broken while Father is away, and if she can't use the oven yet, then she'll just keep on watching Father as he uses it, and one day, she'll be old enough, and even though she wasn't able to practice, she'll use it right, the first time.
Her memories are muddled, when she goes really far back. She remembers hearing loud cracks, sounds like thunder, and she was so very scared, and she tried to hide, but then Father came, and picked her up, and brought her with him, to his home. "Your parents are dead, girl," he told her, in a tone that could have been used just as well for a conversation about the weather. "I'll be taking care of you from now on."
The little girl is able to take apart the guns and put them back together again, though. Father says that it's very important for her to know things like that, but she is never allowed to touch the bullets. She's not old enough for that, yet.
It's okay, though. She's been timing herself, and she's done it so fast this time that she's sure she'll make Father happy, when he comes home.
In a way, she understands what happened that day, so long ago. Father tells her the story about Skeleton Scott, when she can't sleep, and how he had to kill a police officer because the other man wouldn't accept a bribe, and wouldn't turn away in fear, "no matter how many bloody masks of newly-dead crimefighters Scott nailed to the copper's door."
She understands who Father is, though he never says he is Skeleton Scott, that he is the man that the entire city fears, even the rest of the underworld. In some perverse way, the little girl takes pride in her dead father.
It takes a very strong man to stand up to Father. The front door opens up, and she almost runs to greet him, but she remembers what happened when she forgot that lesson. "You are to stay out of the way and hidden until you know it is me," he told her, and she can trace the line that shows she forgot that lesson, once. He wants her to stay safe.
"You can come here, girl!" he yells, and she comes bounding down the hall, nearly jumping onto him.
He's hurt, and what follows is an introduction to the human biology, as she watches him remove a bullet, and patch himself up. Sometimes, she hands him a tool, and she always pays close attention, and never, never looks away.
It doesn't occur to her that normal people are usually turned away by the sight of blood. She merely examines it analytically. He teaches her of Alexander the Great, he has her memorize the dialogues of Socrates, he teaches her mathematics, he teaches her how to kill, and how to make explosives from common household items, and he teaches her about the masked men in the city, both criminals and crimefighters, and at eight, she is getting an introduction into Carl Jung and she has nearly finished Huckleberry Finn for the twelfth time.
He teaches her how to take care of herself, while he is away, sometimes for days at a time, and she knows not to ask about what he does, because sometimes he doesn't want to talk about it. He never hurts her, when he asks, but the disappointed looks which Father give her, whether because he does not want her asking a question, or because she has put herself in danger, are able to hurt her far more than any physical pain could. But his eyes light up, when he sees her wrap the blindfold around her eyes and quickly manipulate the handgun, disassembling and reassembling it as quick as her small hands can move, and to see it, when she lifts the cloth up, is worth all the hours she spent practicing. She should hate him. He killed her parents, and even though she can barely remember them, she should hate him for taking them away from her, for making impossible for her to remember them more clearly, because they were taken from her at such a young age. At least, that's what she'll be telling herself, a few years from now. But she doesn't know, right now, that she should hate him, that it's even possible to hate him, and by the time she understands, she will realize that, perhaps unfortunately, she loves him too much to ever hate him, as much as this sometimes makes her hate herself.
Regretfully, I have only one other piece of fiction to post this week. Many apologies.
Secret Life: Chapter two. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
A Story Across Years
Chapter two: Lessons
Click, click, click, and the girl finishes snapping all the pieces of the gun together, and she sets it aside. Father is coming home today, and she wants to show him how good she is. She's been practicing.
He says that it's very important that she learn these things.
She knows other things, too. She's just eight years old, but she can make sandwiches and use knives and turn on the microwave, but never, never the oven. The mark hasn't ever gone away, from where she got her punishment, when her father had seen her using the oven. That was very dangerous. She wasn't old enough.
But that's okay. She can do all sorts of things. She can do her own laundry, and make her bed, and clean up after herself, and fix little things if they get broken while Father is away, and if she can't use the oven yet, then she'll just keep on watching Father as he uses it, and one day, she'll be old enough, and even though she wasn't able to practice, she'll use it right, the first time.
Her memories are muddled, when she goes really far back. She remembers hearing loud cracks, sounds like thunder, and she was so very scared, and she tried to hide, but then Father came, and picked her up, and brought her with him, to his home. "Your parents are dead, girl," he told her, in a tone that could have been used just as well for a conversation about the weather. "I'll be taking care of you from now on."
The little girl is able to take apart the guns and put them back together again, though. Father says that it's very important for her to know things like that, but she is never allowed to touch the bullets. She's not old enough for that, yet.
It's okay, though. She's been timing herself, and she's done it so fast this time that she's sure she'll make Father happy, when he comes home.
In a way, she understands what happened that day, so long ago. Father tells her the story about Skeleton Scott, when she can't sleep, and how he had to kill a police officer because the other man wouldn't accept a bribe, and wouldn't turn away in fear, "no matter how many bloody masks of newly-dead crimefighters Scott nailed to the copper's door."
She understands who Father is, though he never says he is Skeleton Scott, that he is the man that the entire city fears, even the rest of the underworld. In some perverse way, the little girl takes pride in her dead father.
It takes a very strong man to stand up to Father. The front door opens up, and she almost runs to greet him, but she remembers what happened when she forgot that lesson. "You are to stay out of the way and hidden until you know it is me," he told her, and she can trace the line that shows she forgot that lesson, once. He wants her to stay safe.
"You can come here, girl!" he yells, and she comes bounding down the hall, nearly jumping onto him.
He's hurt, and what follows is an introduction to the human biology, as she watches him remove a bullet, and patch himself up. Sometimes, she hands him a tool, and she always pays close attention, and never, never looks away.
It doesn't occur to her that normal people are usually turned away by the sight of blood. She merely examines it analytically. He teaches her of Alexander the Great, he has her memorize the dialogues of Socrates, he teaches her mathematics, he teaches her how to kill, and how to make explosives from common household items, and he teaches her about the masked men in the city, both criminals and crimefighters, and at eight, she is getting an introduction into Carl Jung and she has nearly finished Huckleberry Finn for the twelfth time.
He teaches her how to take care of herself, while he is away, sometimes for days at a time, and she knows not to ask about what he does, because sometimes he doesn't want to talk about it. He never hurts her, when he asks, but the disappointed looks which Father give her, whether because he does not want her asking a question, or because she has put herself in danger, are able to hurt her far more than any physical pain could. But his eyes light up, when he sees her wrap the blindfold around her eyes and quickly manipulate the handgun, disassembling and reassembling it as quick as her small hands can move, and to see it, when she lifts the cloth up, is worth all the hours she spent practicing. She should hate him. He killed her parents, and even though she can barely remember them, she should hate him for taking them away from her, for making impossible for her to remember them more clearly, because they were taken from her at such a young age. At least, that's what she'll be telling herself, a few years from now. But she doesn't know, right now, that she should hate him, that it's even possible to hate him, and by the time she understands, she will realize that, perhaps unfortunately, she loves him too much to ever hate him, as much as this sometimes makes her hate herself.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Fiction: A Story Across Years [chapter one]
This story at Fictionpress
Also included this week
Hunting the Frilljaw: Sci-fi. Safari across multiple worlds.
Secret Life: Chapter one. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
A Story Across Years
Chapter one: Bedtime Story
But I can't sleep, you cry, and I swear, there are such things that I want to do to you, girl. You could at least go back to your room and stay in your bed, and not bother me. Just because you can't sleep doesn't mean I'm not allowed to, either.
But I reign in my temper, sigh, let the frustration out. The punishments don't mean anything if the bruises never have time to fade away. You'd just get used to them, like I did, and I may not dislike it like some might say I should, but I still never do it except when you've truly done wrong, when you need the lesson imprinted on your mind so that you don't get yourself killed. These streets are mean, girl. Better that I hurt you a little bit, than that someone out there does. They'll do more than just hit you, and they'll take more than just your money.
So what do I usually do, in these situations? The same as always. Anything else, and you would be locked in your room, or worse. That's always worked, for the little things, when you don't listen, or you rebel a little bit.
Faa-therr! I can't sleeeep. Tell me a story?
But tradition must be observed. You'll go to sleep, soon enough, I know. Hell if I know how this started. "Then will you go off to bed?"
Yes! you squeal, with glee.
Shaking my head, I get out of bed, and pull on a shirt, and you say Wheee! as I pick you up, and bring you over to the sitting room. You're heavier than you were, a few years ago.
"What story would you like to hear tonight?"
The one with… The one with Skeleton Scott, and the— The same answer, every time, although sometimes, like now, you choke a little bit on it. I think it scares you. I don't go into details, but there's still another reason why you might be scared. Even the barest story can be scary, if it's true.
"Alright then." Why ask you, when I know what it'll be?
Tradition, of course. I wonder when it started.
I hit the stereo, to turn on something low, to drown out the screeching cars outside, so that we don't have to hear the yells and screams, and only the occasional gunshot ever intrudes in on us, a reminder that there is indeed an outside, but it's okay, because nobody ever tries to come in here.
"It wasn't that long ago," I begin. "Just seven years ago. There was a mother, and a father, and their little daughter. The little girl's father was a copper."
This little place just has that sort of reputation. It's an old house, and I have more than added to its reputation, in years gone by. I got it because of you. The litter on the streets, the blood staining the sidewalk three blocks west of here since last Tuesday, the broken windows and the low, tired way that everyone carries themselves— it'll remind you of the world. No illusions. No difference between any of them. Vigilantes, boys in blue, criminals, all in uniforms, costumes. Reach out and seize the day. That's my girl.
"He was… Maybe he was a stupid man. Or he was just too principled. It's hard to tell. But he wouldn't give up. Skeleton Scott was a reasonable man. He offered to pay off the girl's father, he did everything he could, because while he liked killing very much, killing was messy, and caused problems, and Scott didn't kill unless it was necessary, though he always savored it when he had to do it. A practical man, who enjoyed his business, but who did not indulge too much."
Despite myself, I actually care for you. I think I first realized this about five years ago. You're not mine, of course. Not mine. It took a little while to actually care about you. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing this for purely sentimental reasons, to do right where my parents didn't.
My leg hurts sometimes, but it has healed, mostly, from when he hit it. I barely ever notice it, and it's only pain. I can still move more than well enough.
"But the man wouldn't listen to reason. He continued his crusade, relentless in his attempt to see Skeleton Scott behind bars. But not even the vigilantes were able to catch him. They tried, of course, but all there would be to show for their efforts was a bloody mask left on the steps to the copper's house. A warning. Skeleton Scott gave him so many warnings, but one day, the man came too close to catching Scott, and then, there was nothing at all to be done about it, except for one thing.
"He broke into the house. He killed the copper fast enough, and it was unfortunate, perhaps, but the girl's mother was there, too, and what was necessary was necessary. Perhaps he enjoyed it, but that wasn't why he did it. But he hadn't expected the girl.
"He knew what would happen, if he left the girl alive. She'd grow up hating him, and it was even odds that she would try to succeed where her father failed. A mere mugging had made The Face's worst enemy. There was nothing more dangerous than an orphan whose parents had been murdered before her very eyes. She had to go. But then a thought occurred to him. He could let her live, if he took her with him. He could watch over her, and if she grew to hate him, he could kill her."
Foolish Scott. He was just as stupid as the girl's father. It's hard to raise a child and still be able to kill her.
And Skeleton Scott took her home.
"Yes."
I move on to another story, and another, and soon enough, you fall asleep, and soon enough, I follow you.
Also included this week
Hunting the Frilljaw: Sci-fi. Safari across multiple worlds.
Story notes for Hunting the FrilljawWildflower Blues: Horror. "In those days, the only fever that she had was in her dreams."
Secret Life: Chapter one. Sci-fi horror. "He is afraid. Afraid that he knows why he is here."
A Story Across Years
Chapter one: Bedtime Story
But I can't sleep, you cry, and I swear, there are such things that I want to do to you, girl. You could at least go back to your room and stay in your bed, and not bother me. Just because you can't sleep doesn't mean I'm not allowed to, either.
But I reign in my temper, sigh, let the frustration out. The punishments don't mean anything if the bruises never have time to fade away. You'd just get used to them, like I did, and I may not dislike it like some might say I should, but I still never do it except when you've truly done wrong, when you need the lesson imprinted on your mind so that you don't get yourself killed. These streets are mean, girl. Better that I hurt you a little bit, than that someone out there does. They'll do more than just hit you, and they'll take more than just your money.
So what do I usually do, in these situations? The same as always. Anything else, and you would be locked in your room, or worse. That's always worked, for the little things, when you don't listen, or you rebel a little bit.
Faa-therr! I can't sleeeep. Tell me a story?
But tradition must be observed. You'll go to sleep, soon enough, I know. Hell if I know how this started. "Then will you go off to bed?"
Yes! you squeal, with glee.
Shaking my head, I get out of bed, and pull on a shirt, and you say Wheee! as I pick you up, and bring you over to the sitting room. You're heavier than you were, a few years ago.
"What story would you like to hear tonight?"
The one with… The one with Skeleton Scott, and the— The same answer, every time, although sometimes, like now, you choke a little bit on it. I think it scares you. I don't go into details, but there's still another reason why you might be scared. Even the barest story can be scary, if it's true.
"Alright then." Why ask you, when I know what it'll be?
Tradition, of course. I wonder when it started.
I hit the stereo, to turn on something low, to drown out the screeching cars outside, so that we don't have to hear the yells and screams, and only the occasional gunshot ever intrudes in on us, a reminder that there is indeed an outside, but it's okay, because nobody ever tries to come in here.
"It wasn't that long ago," I begin. "Just seven years ago. There was a mother, and a father, and their little daughter. The little girl's father was a copper."
This little place just has that sort of reputation. It's an old house, and I have more than added to its reputation, in years gone by. I got it because of you. The litter on the streets, the blood staining the sidewalk three blocks west of here since last Tuesday, the broken windows and the low, tired way that everyone carries themselves— it'll remind you of the world. No illusions. No difference between any of them. Vigilantes, boys in blue, criminals, all in uniforms, costumes. Reach out and seize the day. That's my girl.
"He was… Maybe he was a stupid man. Or he was just too principled. It's hard to tell. But he wouldn't give up. Skeleton Scott was a reasonable man. He offered to pay off the girl's father, he did everything he could, because while he liked killing very much, killing was messy, and caused problems, and Scott didn't kill unless it was necessary, though he always savored it when he had to do it. A practical man, who enjoyed his business, but who did not indulge too much."
Despite myself, I actually care for you. I think I first realized this about five years ago. You're not mine, of course. Not mine. It took a little while to actually care about you. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing this for purely sentimental reasons, to do right where my parents didn't.
My leg hurts sometimes, but it has healed, mostly, from when he hit it. I barely ever notice it, and it's only pain. I can still move more than well enough.
"But the man wouldn't listen to reason. He continued his crusade, relentless in his attempt to see Skeleton Scott behind bars. But not even the vigilantes were able to catch him. They tried, of course, but all there would be to show for their efforts was a bloody mask left on the steps to the copper's house. A warning. Skeleton Scott gave him so many warnings, but one day, the man came too close to catching Scott, and then, there was nothing at all to be done about it, except for one thing.
"He broke into the house. He killed the copper fast enough, and it was unfortunate, perhaps, but the girl's mother was there, too, and what was necessary was necessary. Perhaps he enjoyed it, but that wasn't why he did it. But he hadn't expected the girl.
"He knew what would happen, if he left the girl alive. She'd grow up hating him, and it was even odds that she would try to succeed where her father failed. A mere mugging had made The Face's worst enemy. There was nothing more dangerous than an orphan whose parents had been murdered before her very eyes. She had to go. But then a thought occurred to him. He could let her live, if he took her with him. He could watch over her, and if she grew to hate him, he could kill her."
Foolish Scott. He was just as stupid as the girl's father. It's hard to raise a child and still be able to kill her.
And Skeleton Scott took her home.
"Yes."
I move on to another story, and another, and soon enough, you fall asleep, and soon enough, I follow you.
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