Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The lonely streets in front of the 575th block of Egyptian Street were abandoned, just like the many meals she had skipped.
When was the last time she thought of smashing his sinister face?
Every single day.
But, when was the last time did that house came to use?
Elspeth Wallace didn’t know, neither did she care. It was simple to not care. Each year passed, making Elspeth take an oath to her inner self, ‘I’ll not care this time,’
But life can be unpredictable, addictions as uncontrollable as an addict’s mind and so did obsessions.
It wasn’t that bad to want something badly. In Elspeth’s case, she wanted to assassinate Angus Macleod badly.
Was it really an obsession?
No, not that much. It was just a wish, a dream coming true. Would your parents say that you are obsessed with being a doctor just because you’re working hard to get good grades?
Obviously, not.
Elspeth, like any of us, had a dream.
She could already fathom a pretentious sigh in Angus Macleod’s funeral. How wonderful would it be to see the whole town mourn?
And then, life would be predictable again.
She would be wearing her white satin dress, walking down the aisle, heart free of that cruel weight.
Elspeth knew the right ways to do so, to earn back her long-lost smile, her hands on his blood, right where it belonged.
Without even meaning to, Elspeth dialed a number in her old telephone (it worked just as fine as the roads Macleod had repaired).
Verne Nathy, always the reluctant conspirator, never had the stomach for murder. But Elspeth didn’t care. She needed his cooperation, not his moral objections.
“Hello, it’s Elspeth Wallace!” said Elspeth.
“I’ve been wondering if we could do it today,”
“That would be wonderful!” said Verne Nathy, equally enthusiastic, too much enthusiastic. It was his way of mocking her, wasn’t it?
“We can inform all of our other plot mates, right?” asked Elspeth, coming straight to the point. She knew the answer, hidden beneath his enthusiasm.
“Here’s the thing, Wallace,” said Verne. “I have important work to do. My mind isn’t ready for this madness,”
“Madness?” said Elspeth. “What do you mean? Did I buy that house to host puppet shows?”
“N-no, I mean,”
Verne’s line shivered, his clever mind searching for the correct words to calm her.
“Killing Angus Macleod wouldn’t be wise, considering his impressive pack of sniffer dogs.”
“So, what?” asked Elspeth, desperation written in her sentences, clearly on the verge of her deep-seated rage. “We all know that his smile is just a show-off! Many people hate him,”
“But others won’t. Have you seen his gang?” said Verne.
“We can be more powerful than them,” said Elspeth. “We just have to try harder,”
“It is not your typical adventure story, Elspeth,” said Verne. “We have to drop our plot,”
“No!” shrieked Elspeth.
“Please, try to understand,” said Verne, his tone desperate. “Assassinating the mayor would get us all in jail,”
“I don’t care,”
“But Mr.Flynn cares, Mrs.Fletcher cares, James cares, I care,” said Verne. “We can’t waste our life for this plot,”
“Stop ruining my mood, Verne,” shouted Elspeth, impatiently. “Just fuck off!”
The line went dead, leaving Elspeth with a pounding heart and a wicked grin. Verne was surely going down next time.
You see, she had a hard time convincing her intelligent members. They were too dull to understand their burning vendettas. But she wasn’t. She truly hated him, just like her father had loved him as a friend. That’s why she had this particular emotion that everyone hated. It was anger.
The students at her classes always mocked her calling different unfavorable nicknames.
Some even composed a rhyme and recited it while she strode through the Hallways.
There goes Elspeth Wallace,
Always angry with a red face.
Decades of teaching at St. Lumina had done nothing to extinguish the fire in Wallace’s green eyes – a fire fueled by a burning desire for revenge against Angus Macleod, the town’s mayor. That simmering rage, a toxic miasma clinging to Zephyr Borough, was starting to choke Elspeth, the fear of it bubbling up inside her like a poisoned well.
She imagined herself with a knife, fixing all the pain her parents had suffered from—the dying words of her brother.
“You h-have to s-seek j-justice, Elspeth,”
Elspeth tried to shut her mind with a sentence, bubbling inside like an antidote to fix her messy self.
‘Stop, don’t think about it!’
It wasn’t just a sentence. It was a mantra. In that small house in Eden Garden, Elspeth had to control her pupils. What if it fell on that photograph?
She couldn’t risk stinging her green eyes like onions. It was too much.
Finnegan Flynn had been her fiancé for nearly twelve years since she first joined St. Lumina. After two months of berating Angus MacLeod’s supporters, she’d met his gaze.
The wires of the telephone creaked under her grip. If Flynn dismissed her again, she’d snap more than the line. There was no time for their cowardice—every delay brought them closer to failure, closer to Angus’s smug grin mocking her once more.
The telephone rang, louder in her ears. Elspeth Wallace could already feel the heat rising in her cheeks, uncomfortable yet satisfactory. Was she angry anymore?
“Finnegan Flynn Speaking,” said that calm voice, soothing her spirits like another antidote.
“Hello, it’s Elspeth.” said Wallace restraining herself from shouting things like, ′ What the freak are you nutters waiting for!′ or ‘When will your damn work be finished?’
“Hey, honey,” said Finnegan. “Considering the wedding ring?”
“You know the rules, Finnegan,” said Elspeth, eagerly. “I am not doing anything to my life until I kill him,”
“Shh!” whispered Finnegan, gently getting past his colleagues, his footsteps audible through the line.
“Elspeth, why do you do this to yourself?” Flynn’s voice wavered, caught between love and dread. “Why can’t you let it go?”
“I’m not up for a lecture,” said Elspeth. “Listen to me,”
The line went silent, Finnegan’s soft breath audible through the line.
“I want the meeting to be today,” said Elspeth in her bossy tone which made Flynn act like a kitten. “It is not a request, it is an order. Today evening--”
Wallace was about to mutter ‘every nutter’, but she controlled her tongue and said, “Every one of our members should be present at the Egyptian street.”
“Okay, I’m gonna tell them,” Finnegan said, the words heavy with a disappointment that mirrored her own.
“Finnegan, hold on,”
Elspeth thought about it for a moment, silence bestowing between them.
“Yes?” Flynn barked, impatient, waiting for her to spit anger at him.
“Finnegan, I--”
Wallace’s mouth opened, the word ‘love’ trembling on her lips. She needed to say it, to make him understand. But it was too late.
The line died, leaving Wallace gasping with the broken wire, the word ‘love’ echoing in the empty space where his voice had been, a ghost of what might have been.
“No!” she cried. Why was there pain everywhere? Why did it hurt seeing the wire? Why were her hands strangling her?
She threw it on the floor, slammed her hands on the table, and glared at the photograph on the wall, the one thing she couldn’t destroy. Not until Angus MacLeod’s face joined it, frozen in black and white.
Could she ever succeed in keeping her dear ones near her?
