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n3m3sis43The first time he come, it was just after supper.
“D’you have any matches, ma’am?” he asked straightaway when I opened the door.
He couldn’t’a been more than ten or eleven, I reckoned then, the top of his curly head not even as high as my breastbone. And I could tell he weren’t from around these parts neither -- or leastways his family weren’t -- on account of the way he called me ma’am instead of missus.
Wherever he come from originally, I’d’a wagered the clothes off my back on one thing. It weren’t from a poor district like this one. Something about him just stank to the heavens of money.
Ain’t nothing I need less, I said to myself, than to find myself wrong-side of a HIgh-Ender’s kid.
I must’a looked at him sideways one minute too long, ‘cause he opened his big brown eyes impossibly wide and fixed them on me. “Please, ma’am?” he squeaked, his lower lip all aquiver.
“What on this green earth’s a child like you gonna do with matches?”
“It’s cold and I’m lost,” he said, but I seen how them doe eyes couldn’t quite meet mine.
“What’s your name, child?” I asked, just as gentle as I could.
His little body tensed all up at the question. He looked up at me again, his eyes near the size of dinner plates. For a hot minute he didn’t say nothing, just stared at me like a cornered deer.
“Eric Woods, ma’am,” he finally got out.
If that ain’t the fakest name I ever did hear, I said to myself then. In the Sentry Wood district, the forest’s both life and death. Ain’t nobody here named after it, though. I shook my head.
“Please,” he said again.
“You know you’re too young to play with matches,” I chided him. “Where’s your momma live? I’m more’n happy to help you find her. There’s leftovers from supper too, if you --”
My words caught in my throat and I seen I was talking to empty air. The boy was gone.
* * * * *
He showed up again a week later, still in the same plaid pants I seen him in before. The cuffs of ‘em was black this time, and the front of his grey shirt was streaked with the same black dirt.
Or soot, mayhap, I thought to myself. I reckon he found them matches after all.
He didn’t look like he’d found any means to warm his self, though, on account of the way he was hugging his self and shivering. And I couldn’t hardly blame him for that, with the wind howling through the trees like a wounded beast. He gave me the saddest little smile.
“D’you have any matches, ma’am?” he asked just the same as the first time I seen him.
‘Cept this time the words sounded wobbly ‘cause of how bad he was shaking.
“I told you, you ain’t old enough to be playing with matches,” I said. “But you’ll catch your death if you don’t warm yourself a bit. You can set by my fire for a spell if you --”
But just like that, I might as well’a been speaking to the stars, ‘cause the boy was gone again.
* * * * *
I started to fret in earnest, once he come knocking a third time. His cheeks had gone hollow by then and his dark curls were matted. Just like before, he come looking for matches again.
And just like before, he vanished as soon as I offered him anything other.
That night, I set up late and scoured the ‘net for a trace of an Eric Woods. It weren’t a surprise when I came up empty -- I knew all along it couldn’t’a been his real name. But by then, I couldn’t just leave sleeping babes to lie anymore. I’d already let that boy suffer alone for too long.
In my line of work you can’t hardly just sit by and watch when a child’s in danger like that.
It weren’t strictly legal, looking him up in the Citizens’ Record. A Care Assistant’s never meant to access the Record for personal reasons. But I reckoned the good I could do canceled out any sin on my part. ‘Sides, I never expected no more’n the goose egg I’d already found on the ‘net.
You could’a knocked me clean over with just a breath when his name and pic come up there.
And I near fell flat out when I read the last page of his record:
Citizen perished in a house fire on Wintertide Eve, one week after his twelfth birthday. The fire claimed the life of his mother, Drea Woods, as well. The only surviving witness was Sasha Tolliver, a classmate at Sentry Wood Middle Grade School. Tolliver died tragically less than three years later, while detained in the Home for the Intractably Insane on suspicions of --
I had to pause there, ‘cause I knew full well what they thought Sasha Tolliver done.
* * * * *
“Remind me again why you brung me here?” I fight the urge to squirm in my seat.
Doc Brinkley crosses his arms and leans ‘gainst the conference room table, tall and towering over me. I smooth down my skirt and cross my legs tighter ‘neath it. There’s something ‘bout being all by my lonesome with him that makes me feel naked as the day my ma birthed me.
He smiles the same fake smile my instructors always did when I asked why a girl couldn’t grow up to be a doctor -- or even a measly Care Tech -- instead of a stupid Care Assistant.
“I’ve brought you here,” he corrects me, speaking nice and slow like I might be too thick to understand him, “because the boy trusts you as much as he’s capable of trusting anyone. Which means the Board will take your word if you --”
“If I betray that trust?” The words spill past my lips like bile before I can stop ‘em.
“If you present evidence supporting my case,” the doc says, that smile near cracking his face.
My eyes narrow of their own free will. “You know full well I ain’t got that evidence.”
He leans in, near enough so’s I feel his hot breath on my face. “I know ‘full well’ that the boy’s real name is Sasha Tolliver. That he’s suspected of setting a house fire that killed his best friend.” He takes my hand and squeezes, hard enough that I’m biting my lip so’s not to cry out.
“And I know about your career aspirations, Ms. Page, along with the allegations against you before you came to work at the Home. It’d be a shame to --”
I stand up, my blood fit to boil. “I ain’t never laid a hand on that man.”
It’s a lie, a’course. They told me the records were sealed, when they helped me smooth it all over. Said I deserved a second chance on account of how my husband-to-be hurt me. But it don’t change the law. It won’t change what’ll happen to me if word of what I did gets out.
The doc smiles again, for real this time. It’s the grin of a wolf on the hunt. “And I never laid a hand on the Tolliver boy. It appears it’s not only my future that hinges on proving it now.”
* * * * *
The Wood’s ablaze, the trees on three sides of me in flames. I’m running for safety, my lungs fit to burst and my feet pounding hard ‘gainst the forest floor. The sound of my shoes on the hard-packed dirt swells ‘til it fills my ears and I can’t hear nothing else, and --
My eyes fly open. I set up with a start, my head full of fog, and blink at the Wintertide log still burning merrily in my fireplace. I must’a fallen asleep in my chair -- on a holiday eve, no less.
I shake my head. It’s been a dog’s age since I had a full night’s rest.
Someone’s pounding at the door, I realize, loud enough it’s a wonder the windows ain’t rattling in their frames. I hold my breath, my heart slamming into my breastbone. It’s him, I just know it.
‘Cept it can’t be him, can it? He’s been dead nigh on four years and I know that now. It’s my guilt getting to me, ain’t it? On account of me selling out that Tolliver boy to save my own --
“Joyous Wintertide, ma’am,” pipes a sweet, clear voice from behind me.
I leap from my seat like I seen a ghost. Which I s’pose I have. He’s covered in soot from head to foot, ‘cept for clean tracks on his cheeks -- mayhap from tears, but he’s smiling softly now.
For once, it ain’t him shivering. “I told you, child, I ain’t gonna give you any matches.”
He bites his lip. I reckon he’s gonna plead with me again, but he don’t.
“You don’t need to, ma’am,” he says, in the saddest little voice. “I’ve got something better now.”
His hands are behind his back, I notice. And whatever he’s got in ‘em, it’s… bright. He holds it up to show me -- the kerosene lamp I keep in the shed out back. It’s lit up and I don’t understand how I ain’t seen the shadows it’s casting ‘til now. I shake my head.
Mayhap I’m still dreaming.
He shakes his head too, his filthy curls bouncing. “Believe it or not, I’m sorry to do this.”
The lantern’s sailing through the air before I can say boo. I duck, but it ain’t headed towards me. It hits the fireplace dead-center with a tinkle of shattered glass, and it hits me that I oughtta run.
I turn to do just that. There’s a thwump from behind me, along with a rush of heat.
And then his little voice: “Joyous Wintertide, Sasha.”
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Date: 2020-10-27 12:19 am (UTC)I read it twice and I'm still a little confused. I want to be like oh yes, I totally understand it all! But I'm a bit lost when it comes to piecing together things sometimes, I admit. Ok, so! The narrator woman worked at the home for the insane asylum, and Sasha Tolliver was suspected of setting a fire, because narrator lied that she had evidence that the Tolliver boy did set the fire, because Dr. Brinkley wanted her to? Because he'd hurt the Tolliver boy and was trying to shut him up by having him blamed for a crime? So then she/the narrator cooperated with the Doc so as not to let her own past get out, and now this boy is the ghost of Eric Woods, getting revenge because she's actually Sasha, and Sasha was a girl and not a boy? And Sasha did actually set the fire??
Am I close? lol
This is such a fun read, truly. :)
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Date: 2020-10-27 02:37 pm (UTC)I was worried it would be confusing. Writing for a deadline isn't really a strength for me and I think in general I struggle to get some of the details inside my head onto the page anyway. This miiiiight have been too many characters to introduce in a short piece without more explanation (and I'm open to concrit from you on how/if it could've been clearer).
You were really close! Sasha Tolliver (who was a boy, fwiw) was suspected of setting the fire that killed Eric Woods. The narrator (Ms. Page) worked in the Home where Sasha was sent after he (allegedly) set the fire.
Ms. Page was a Care Assistant in the Home, which is kind of a step down from a social worker; if you've ever been on an inpatient psych ward (I used to work on one many manyyyy years ago), it's like a Clinical Assistant or whatever they call them these days. They do a lot of the work with patients that isn't actual licensed therapy; when I was a CA, I used to run a grief group and an anger management group and then I also had to do things like make sure patients went to their groups and ate and didn't kill each other or themselves and sometimes help restrain them (ugh).
Brinkley was a doctor in the Home and he was accused of some sort of abuse toward Sasha. Ms. Page had a past she didn't want anyone to know about because it could destroy her career and actually her life; this is where more detail might have been helpful, I think? Basically, she's an abuse survivor and she harmed her abuser out of self-defense. Brinkley used her history to convince her to lie for him and Sasha ended up dead in a way I probably needed to specify, lol.
Ghost!Eric felt he needed to take revenge on Ms. Page for betraying Sasha. I'm not sure exactly what he felt that was going to accomplish, but maybe ghosts aren't always logical?
Thanks for reading! :)
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Date: 2020-10-27 03:07 am (UTC)But also I just fucking love the voice in this. It reads so fucking smooth, sounds like being right back in North Carolina and I absolutely adore the progression of this. Eric is the cutest, creepiest revenge ghost and I love him.
And Ms. Page, well. If she survives I wonder what she'll do to atone for the hurt she caused Sasha.
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Date: 2020-10-27 02:46 pm (UTC)Thanks for your support and letting me bounce off ideas, etc. And for supporting me in trying to write more weird first-person voices, which is always a fucking adventure. For someone who grew up in the Deep South, I feel like I have surprisingly little understanding of how Southerners speak sometimes. xD
I felt really bad for ghost!Eric tbh. Can ghosts get cold? It seemed like he was suffering.
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Date: 2020-10-27 08:22 am (UTC)Very well-written!
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Date: 2020-10-27 02:43 pm (UTC)Most of the time, I really enjoy writing dialogue. It can be so hard to make it flow organically, though. And I keep feeling compelled to try and write first person with distinctive voices, which I think I only sometimes pull off, haha. Challenges are good, though, right?
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Date: 2020-10-27 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 04:25 pm (UTC)Well done! Brava!
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Date: 2020-10-28 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 07:45 pm (UTC)What a horrifying and thrilling and engrossing tale, and I would read way more about it if I could!
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Date: 2020-10-28 09:20 pm (UTC)My favorite section was:
"Something about him just stank to the heavens of money.
Ain’t nothing I need less, I said to myself, than to find myself wrong-side of a HIgh-Ender’s kid."
I like the imagery of stinking to the heavens of money, and high-ender's kid is an interesting way of phrasing. I haven't heard it before and it made me wonder if it was a new sort of world or maybe a dystopian setting at first. In the end, I didn't really know where it went, but I was glad there was some kind of ghost attack in it. I figured something like that might come up for not giving the kid his dang matches! (turns out there was more at work there, but you know!)
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Date: 2020-10-28 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 11:03 pm (UTC)And I love the spooky feeling, and how the ending has an air of unreality to it. I'm not sure what it all means, but it feels like what I think of as a "Hell loop." Whoever that woman and that boy are, the tragedy and betrayal keep circling in on each other, with everything being both the cause and effect over and over again.