Fiona the Freak

“Fiona the Freak!”

Her father had been the first person to call her that word: Freak. She wished she could’ve blamed his behavior on something like alcohol abuse or a terrible childhood, but in reality, he was just a bitter man. Even before his wife abandoned him for a sea merchant, Fiona couldn’t remember a time he smiled.

“Get back inside and finish shucking, Fiona, for Christ’s sake! Goddamn freak!” He yelled the last two words without attempting to lower his voice. He had caught her standing in the middle of their fifty-acre farm staring at what he believed to be nothing.

Fiona ignored him as usual and focused on the squirrel digging a hole in the soft, parched earth. His voice hadn’t scared it away, and Fiona was so stoic it hadn’t even noticed her.

It was smaller than most squirrels, not a baby but not an adult either. Fiona towered behind it, her entire shadow swallowing the tiny creature so oblivious with its head in the dirt. How didn’t it hear her or her father? Shouldn’t it have sensed her footsteps, no matter how light? Her teeth clenched at the life in front of her, so weak and foolish.

Six-year-old Fiona pounced and captured the squirrel in her hands before it could blink twice, snapping its neck with the perfect amount of pressure. It’s weight doubled in death. A smile spread across her face at the realization.

She stood, one hand clenched around the neck of the limp body so the other could brush the dirt from her pants.

“Gotcha,” she whispered before hiding it under her shirt, its warm fur pressed to her stomach. Her footsteps were quiet as hurried back across the farmland and crept upstairs, ignoring her father and the task of shucking corn. She pushed open the rickety window in her bedroom and dropped the dead animal into the shrubs beneath her. There was no point in keeping the body, not when the thrill was over.

However, the killing of her first animal never overshadowed what her father had called her; it resonated like an echo off a cave throughout the rest of her life.

“Fiona the Freak!” Lilith exclaimed. “What’re you even writing in there, hm?” She flicked Fiona in the ear but Fiona didn’t flinch or stop scribbling in her notebook.

“What do ya think? She’s plottin’ to kill her daddy next! We all know her mama ain’t ‘missin,’” Timothy said loud enough to reach the corners of the room. The rest of the students whispered and gasped but they sounded faint and garbled in Fiona’s ears; she couldn’t be bothered by their trivial gossip. She focused on the scratch of her blunt pencil on the paper, where she wrote the same thing over and over in her semi-neat cursive: [i]I’m the one, I’m the one, I’m the one…[/i]

“I don’t know why they haven’t arrested her yet,” another voice said.

“Cuz the cops is useless! They don’t think her mama went missin’! We all know the truth, though,” Timothy said, an exasperated sigh running through his words. “Day’s comin’ though, I bet.”

“I feel sorry for her,” Lilith whispered while wrapping her finger around a strand of Fiona’s hair. “A freak and a murderer and a retard. How can God put all the worst things into one person? That’s so sad, so, so sad.” Her finger twirled around Fioina’s dark lock, and Fiona almost stopped writing just so she could focus more on the feeling. Instead, she focused on the scents of vanilla and baby powder she imagined watching her put on every morning.

The church-like bell rang and Lilth’s finger left with a tug as she laughed at her. Fiona held back a smile while she slipped her small notebook into the hidden bottom pouch of her book bag. It was insulated with extra fabric so that it would stay clean and dry if and when the kids dumped it in Great O’Shire Lake or a pile of horse manure.

Ms. Ernest settled in front of the class and began teaching what she always taught the 18-year-olds; God and Jesus and anything in the Bible. Fiona believed in what she saw, never in what she was told, and so she chose to worship the girl at the front of the class instead. The one that had skin like china dolls. The one with hair more honey-colored than the thick, sweet deliciousness she ate by the jar in the summer. The one that had eyes greener than the farms during their greatest harvest and bluer than Great O’Shire Lake on the sunniest day. Because she, Fiona could see with her very eyes whenever she wanted to.

It was difficult to contain her excitement while she looked at Lilith. Fiona imagined that’s what all of the kids around her felt about this ‘God.’ The giddiness became the blood filling her veins; there were earthquakes of tingles in every one of her cells. Sitting still was the hardest thing in that moment, she gnawed at her fingernails just to steady her hands. If her hands waited until nightfall, they would be all right. Just until nightfall.

During lunch, Fiona sat in the far back of the cafeteria and watched Lilith, a sacred part of her routine that curse words and mushy jelly sandwiches to the face couldn’t break. Besides, she was light years - parsecs even - ahead of them. They’d go on to marry young and have too many babies and fall in debt to the king just to drink or beat themselves to death. Or, like her father, bitter themselves to death. Become so bitter the lemons growing on the dingy tree in their brittle farm would be jealous. But not her, and not Lilith either.

Fiona watched Lilith speak to a group of her friends and followers as she ate her own sandwich. Fiona likened her to God; just as God governed their world, Lilith governed their school. She didn’t even try, but her gravity attracted everyone. It was there in the lunchroom where she always sat with her right leg crossed over her left that Fiona could see the power she had.

As soon as the last bell rang, Fiona seized her bag and left the building in a hurry, holding it tight so it wouldn’t get ruined again. Her hood blocked out the light drizzle tapping her head but it did little to conceal her. People still shouted “Freak!” or “Filthy atheist!” when she passed by, and anybody walking towards her hurried away as if she were contagious. Fiona didn’t mind; she enjoyed a clear path on the way home rather than fighting through the crowds of lonely women and lazy men. Why would she be upset about people moving for her?

What she did mind was the woman that spat right in her face. The woman had turned her fat neck, reared her lips back like a donkey, and spat right on her left cheek; had it been a centimeter up it would’ve landed in her eye. Fiona stopped walking and wiped it with her thumb, the little drops from the sky unable to wash it away. Rather than knocking the woman down, she stared at her. Forced her eyes to meet the ones that had been so high and mighty moments ago. Now they were terrified, Fiona swore they were trembling.

The color drained from the woman’s damp and red skin watching the slow yet wide smile creep on Fiona’s face. She scurried off as fast as her fat ankles could take her. All so foolish and weak, Fiona thought.

The dirt road curved like a hook to her farm. Her father single-handedly ran it and sold whatever crops and milk to nearby villages because in West Amsdale it was unheard of to just be near Fiona“Freak” Priest, let alone purchase from the son-of-a-bitch who created her. At least her mother had enough sense to leave with a Spanish sea merchant five days before Fiona’s 6th birthday, although she went missing the very day she and her husband returned for fish trade 12 years later.

The rain had swelled into a full storm yet Fiona slowed to a stroll as she neared one of the trees along the muddied route. Without stopping or quickening her pace, she glanced over the tree the village had dedicated to her mother. There were no pictures because there were no cameras, but the best artists in town had concocted an amalgamation of what they felt was Henrietta Santos. It didn’t matter that she left years ago - becoming one of the few West Amsdaleans to leave - she had every right to with that daughter of hers. The one that somehow killed her when she came back. They grieved in the form of flowers and homemade fabric hearts and candles abandoned after the first vigil. And they chose a tree right along the path so that the ruthless killer still free from cuffs would see it and, hopefully, break from her guilt.

Fiona never did any of that though. Guilt was nowhere in her vocabulary, and why would it be for a woman who left her and her father? She didn’t understand, but always took the time to study every detail of the old bark now covered with drawings that ranged from somewhat like her mother to nothing at all. And she always felt nothing.

The wind was screaming by the time Fiona stepped into her house. She went straight up to her room, disregarding her father’s grumbles in the kitchen. That’s all he did anymore, as though his voice couldn’t go any higher. Fiona knew, as she changed into dry clothes, it was his old age and loneliness that kept him from throwing her out. One woman leaving him was bad enough, but two? Even if she was an alleged killer, she was company. Two social pariahs were better than one.

The thought almost made Fiona laugh, but as she pulled out her notebook from her wet bag, her mind refocused. The book remained dry but it was so worn her fingers wrestled to the correct page.

[i]9:45 - there

9:47 - out

10:15 - lake

10:35 - done[/i]

She knew the time stamps by heart but still read them over and over. Once the numbers were further ingrained in her mind, she retrieved the box hidden beneath a loose floorboard under her bed. Inside was a watch she stole years ago, the syringe, and a dried flower. Her blood rushed at the sight of those three items. It found its calling, its purpose in the small green box decorated with naked angels playing harps.

It wasn’t until the rain stopped abruptly - as it always did in West Amsdale - and her father left to tend to the animals that Fiona snuck downstairs on the tips of her feet. She never talked to her father, and she looked at him more often than she spoke. Still, she didn’t want to be in his presence and hear his bitter melody. She enjoyed the peace as she swallowed three cups of water from the bowl full of leak-rainwater and scarfed down the last of the stale gingerbread. She wasn’t hungry but she knew it would be her last dessert.

By the time the sun set, the clouds had dissipated and allowed the sky to become blood-orange. If it weren’t for Lilith she would’ve worshipped the sky, because anything that could create such vivid and delicate colors was a powerful, powerful thing. Fiona watched it all from her window just to see the colors mix and flow like the watercolors of street artists. She was more than ready as she stood peering out the dingy glass, dressed in her hand-sewn black jumpsuit with a satchel on her shoulder. In it was her box and the rope she’d twisted from reeds and vines found in her village and farm. She’d tested its strength hanging a dog from it. When it died, she had been proud of how sturdy her woven creation was.

Once the moon sat in the sky, Fiona climbed out her window and began her walk back up the hooked path. Though it was no longer raining, its aftermath lingered and caked under her boots. She grimaced at the wet squelch and tension each time she took a step, but she powered on, knowing what lay ahead.

She stopped once, just five feet away from her mother’s memorial tree. Behind the damp bushes were the three bricks she hid in a shallow ditch. Set down like sleeping babies, she placed them one by one in her satchel. Then she continued her journey back to the main square, giving one last smile at her mother’s memorial outlined by the silver moonlight.

The cobblestone streets had quieted so all that was heard was the crunch of gravel with each footstep and scurrying stray dogs in the alleyways. There were no more horses dragging cargo from one end to the other, no small kids begging their mother for a caramel square, not even a drunken man stumbling around in search of something to yell about. Fiona was relieved; she disgusted them, and they revolted her. The prospect of getting away from them was sweeter than any candy in the grubby hands of the children now asleep.

To Fiona, the house always looked like honey. Maybe because the girl with honey-colored hair lived there, or because the wooden walls were the only ones in the whole village a luscious orange-yellow, or perhaps because it gave off an aura of warmth and the single warm thing Fiona knew of was honey. Whatever the reason, the word honey floated around in her mind and made her smile once she came to a stop. She gazed at it like she always did, memorizing the small white porch and matching white shutters and small bricked chimney before she headed around the left side.

Using the ladder, Fiona snuck through the second-floor window and planted herself on the plush carpet. She glanced around as if she didn’t know the inside of the small room like the back of her hands. It always felt like she was seeing it for the first time, even if it was mostly just Bible study books, bottles of baby powder, and hairbrushes. It was all still intriguing to her.

Fiona checked the watch. It was 9:44. She moved behind the door and grabbed the syringe hard enough for her nails to form crescent moons on her skin. Her grip tightened as she listened to the light footsteps edge closer.

The door creaked open and once it shut, Fiona pounced. She covered the girl’s mouth, her right hand pushing the syringe into her upper arm. Lilith’s lips parted against the hand but her scream was quieter than a kitten’s wail.

“Gotcha,” Fiona whispered in her ear, her smile uncontrollable. She placed the syringe away and then dragged Lilith toward the other side of her bedroom. The closet door creaked but Fiona didn’t worry too much. She simply dragged out the duffel bag she knew was underneath the pretty lace and satin dresses. The eighth time Fiona broke in, she wised up enough to stop touching Lilith’s clothes and shoes and search for what would make her plan easier. Fiona found the large duffel bag wedged in the corner and unfolded it.

Fiona placed Lilith in the duffel bag, her whimpers and small fidgets unable to stop the unfathomable event. Fiona did her best to give her a comforting grin, the one she’d seen Ms. Ernest give the kids failing her class or the deli man when he ran out of cured meats. She even patted her head a little and then finished zipping up the bag, leaving a small pocket for fresh air.

Despite the weight training she did in preparation, lifting Lilith proved to be difficult. Her teeth gritted as she strained to get to the window, her palms red from the thick straps. She contemplated how she would make it down the ground; she’d practiced walking up and down ladders with weights but none comparable to Lilith. Fiona once worshipped how light and skinny Lilith was but now her frame proved to be deceiving.

Rather than let the minor setback become major, she assessed the ground beneath her. There was a crowd of bushes and flowers off to the left, and Fiona deemed them enough. It wasn’t ideal to drop the one person she cared for into thorny brambles but she couldn’t allow anything to delay her plan.

She exhaled and maneuvered her arms so her hands clutched the straps. Her face burned in the cool night air and a small grunt left her lips as she dangled the bag along the side of the house. In that moment she imagined how idiotic she looked and wanted to scream in fury. This was the reason for plans. Nothing was worse than a plan going wrong.

The crush of leaves and branches underneath one-hundred pounds wasn’t as loud as Fiona expected; snapped animal necks were louder. She hurried down the ladder, her jaw clenched due to frustration, not her aching muscles.

Carrying the duffel bag on solid ground was much easier, though she still had to switch the weight between her shoulders. It allowed her to stick to her schedule, which was most important.

The silence enveloped her once more, and Fiona was glad to be alone - save for the girl on her shoulder. She didn’t need to worry about the foolish people of her village casting glances or proclaiming shame or shooting spit, although none of those things affected her. In fact, more often than not she would contain her laughter whenever someone projected their anger because it was always from a distance. Everybody hated the so-called monster and bared their teeth to prove it, but deep down it was just to hide their fear; the terror that dripped into their dreams and saturated their days. It was the fright of being ‘next’ that kept them more than arm’s length away.

Fiona quickened her pace and within ten minutes she arrived at the village’s border, Great O’Shire Lake. The boat Fiona built lay hidden beneath the Weeping Willow’s expansive canopy, far away from the crowded South side of the village. Using the moonlight and her touch, she pulled the boat out and then gently lifted Lilith from the duffel bag. She grinned at the sight of the sleeping girl.

Once Lilith was safe in the boat, Fiona grabbed her hand-carved oars and rowed them out until they were no longer visible from the village. Fiona admired how the moonlight shimmered off the ripples and little waves as she propelled the boat forward. The diamonds only the king wore surrounded her. It was beautiful.

Fiona tucked the oars on the sides of the boat and tapped Lilith’s head.

She cleared her throat first before saying, “Wake up.” After tapping her harder, she watched the crease lines form on Lilith’s face as she stirred. For a few moments her eyelids struggled against gravity, but they flew open when she realized she was floating in a boat in the middle of a lake with the monster from her village. It amused Fiona to see her try to move around or call out for nonexistent help. She knew it was a waste of time though; she had given her the perfect amount of hemlock. Several dogs and foals had died in the process.

The wind lashed so Fiona buttoned every last one on Lilith’s pale pink sweater.

“This isn’t a revenge killing, Lily,” Fiona began and patted her limp knee. Lilith’s skin was smoother than it looked. “That’s so beneath me; an eye for an eye. Nobody would ever take my eye in the first place, and if they did I would take everything from them, not just an eye. Who would take just an eye?” Fiona shook her head up at the moon as if questioning it. Lilith just stared through teary eyes, it was all she could do.

“You think I’m the monster when really it’s this village. It’s a soul-sucking, mind-eating monster. Do you realize nobody is happy here? For years they’ve chastised me for being different from them as if they’re so great. They don’t seem to realize I don’t want to be like them, why would I? What kind of life is it to fake happiness in church and at school and then sob yourself to sleep, or drink yourself to death, or shoot yourself in the head like Duncan? Remember Duncan? Only thing he did right in his life was ending it, ha!” Fiona started laughing. It came from the belly of a teenage girl, not a monster. However, she regained her composure since she knew she didn’t have a lot of time left.

“Lily...I forgive you, I do.” She flashed another grin at the girl. “I’m not some monster here to stab you dead in the middle of a lake, that’s crazy.” She shook her head. “You only ever called me all those names so you can fit in. Or because that’s what you were told, just like everyone else. ‘Wake up, read the Bible, spit on Fiona Priest, go to church.’ But you know I’m none of those things, I know you do. I don’t blame you for wanting to fit in, living in the shadows is easy. And you can’t really be jealous of my attention, can you?” Fiona raised her eyebrows but didn’t wait for a response. She grinned again. The curve of her lips seemed unnatural, and the light in her eyes was forced. She looked like she had learned the action from a book.

“To me you’re always in the spotlight though, Lily. Never could honey be in the dark, could you imagine?” She twirled her finger around the soft honey strands like Lilith had done numerous times to her. She didn’t tug on it though, just played with the straight ends.

Fiona paused to check her watch. 10:26. “If I’m honest, I think I worship you because we’re so similar. You act like you’re better than everyone else because you are, and you know it. I know it too, just like I know I am as well. Both of us are. It’s what makes us unique, and anything unique in this village deserves a pedestal. You get it, don’t you? I hope I’m clear enough. Explaining feelings is odd, isn’t it?”

She shook her head before continuing. “I want to say again that I do forgive you, Lily, I need you to know that. In fact this is how I’m showing you; by giving you this gift. Nobody else in this village is strong enough or cares enough to do it but me. I really care about you, as deep and far as this water goes.”

Lilith’s response was the clear lines dribbling down her cheeks and neck. Her throat bobbed like an apple for more air as her shallow breathing turned into wheezing, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out every haunted word.

Fiona stopped twirling her hair at the sound. Her hands laid stoic in her lap as she studied Lilith. Everything about her was still the same, all of the things Fiona worshipped like her village’s God. She was wheezing and struggling to move and sobbing as much as her weak lungs could let her but still the same; honey hair and all.

“I promise you’ll be alright, Lily,” Fiona eventually said after listening to the lullaby of her ragged breaths. She turned her attention to her satchel and pulled out the long rope, fastening it to the bricks. While holding Lilith’s dainty ankle and admiring her polished pink toenails that made her want to smile, Fiona spoke: “I don’t need or want to be a hero but I am saving you, Lily. I’m the one saving you. Me. I’m the one. Before they cage you away forever. Why live a horrible life here when there’s a beautiful one awaiting us moments away?”

Lilith’s squeaks were more desperate and her ankle jerked in Fiona’s hand. It did nothing and would do nothing, not with all three bricks already tied to her feet. Fiona looked at her sweet face now crumpled in anguish and terror. Her eyes were so glassy the hue looked lost in them, Fiona wondered if the color would drain away with her life just as the pink of her skin had.

Fiona slid over to Lilith and pulled her closer, cradling her in her arms. She heard her breath grow fainter but kept her eyes on their motionless surroundings. It wasn’t until the harsh yet quiet wheezing stopped and the weight in her arms grew that Fiona let out the breath she had been holding. She peered down and grinned at the sight of Lilith. She looked asleep, and it was more precious than when she was in her bed because now she was in Fiona’s arms.

Fiona mustered up enough courage to kiss Lilith’s forehead and whisper, “See you soon,” before lifting her out of the boat and into the water. It took mere seconds for the honey to disappear beneath the tar water, the silence layering like a blanket once the bubbles and ripples ceased. When she was sure Lilith wouldn’t return anytime soon, Fiona took out the last item in her box; the lily she had plucked right from the school’s garden on the day she began to worship Lilith in 6th grade. She promised to keep it until she saved them both.

She kissed one of the crisp petals, caressed another, and then tossed it into the lake too and watched it float away. After a few more seconds, she grabbed her oars and rowed back to shore without another look over her shoulder.

~~~

The cops arrested Fiona the moment Lilith was reported missing without waiting for a confession, warrant, or evidence. It was unlike them but once there was talk of a mob hellbent on killing the girl in a devilish fire, they intervened. Had it not been for their paycheck, they might have carried torches as well. Either way, West Amsdale seemed lighter and happier now that such darkness was in custody.

“Does the defendant have anything to say?” the judge asked in a voice mightier than anyone else’s. Her trial was the very definition of ‘speedy’; just one day after her arrest. Her appointed lawyer did very little to make a case for her, and whatever witnesses called spoke poetry of Lilith and spat disdain towards Fiona. Nevertheless, their words blurred into white noise in Fiona’s ears; all she felt was relief that she saved her Lily from such a horrible place. A monster.

The crash of the gavel faded into the uproar of the spectators. Anybody able to make the journey to the courthouse that Monday morning had. People flooded onto the streets in hopes of catching a glimpse and kids sat on their parents’ shoulders to get a better view. This was the girl who hadn’t believed in God; who nobody had ever heard utter a word; who never set foot in church after her mother left; who stared at people like she knew the very thing they prayed nobody ever would. This was Fiona ‘Freak’ Priest.

Fiona tilted her head up so that her voice could carry through the packed room.

“My mother’s in the lake too.”