When the nurse – I don’t remember her name – left me alone with my runny eggs and soggy toast, I took the opportunity to study my new cage. There was one ugly fluorescent light hanging from the whitewashed ceiling, and one small window to my right, too high for me to reach, letting in a little actual light. Dear God, but I drank it in like the finest wine, that lonely little sunbeam. How long had it been, I wondered, since I’d seen, felt, even heard about sunlight? How many accursed days, weeks, years had I spent on the Darkside?
I smiled bitterly, remembering how I’d thought life would be better there. So clearly, I remembered Mr. Hindley, and his silver-tongued wheedling, remembered the way he had looked at Brendan. As if he was some sort of rare delicacy, something he just dreamed about getting his hands on. That memory would have taken away my appetite before, but I hadn’t eaten in forever, or maybe longer, so in a minute there was nothing left on my plate but a bunch of crumbs. Brendan would’ve laughed at that, a miserable voice in my head whispered. He would’ve told you to slow down, would’ve said something like, “Whoa, I’m pretty sure there’s enough badly-prepared food for all of us, Lav. No need to suffocate yourself just yet.”
Suddenly, too suddenly, it came back to me—that time before, that day, or night, or whatever godforsaken time it was. Mr. Hindley grinning his nasty wolf-grin, Brendan trying to stop him. The way…the way Mr. Hindley looked at him.
“Oh Bren, oh Bren, I could never be mad at you.”
He’d taken my big brother by the arm, ignoring his struggles, and before I could beg, protest, anything, Brendan was tied to the cheap radiator by the boarded-up window. I could see, in my mind’s eye, Mr. Hindley turning around, could feel his clammy hand on my cheek.
“Shame you never got your mother’s looks, little girl. It would be so much harder to do this…”
“Well then! Finished already?” The nurse’s voice cut through my waking nightmare, and I jumped, retreating under my scratchy sheets like some sort of silly turtle. Her smile was so…forced. She couldn’t even look me in the eye, couldn’t admit to what I already knew. I’d seen it in that dirty shop window on the Darkside. I’d seen what—“So! Got any relatives, anyone I can call who’ll come pick you up?” the nurse said, once again interrupting my thoughts.
Brendan, I want so badly to say. Brendan Darrow, please. He usually forgets to charge his cell but normally the battery doesn’t die on Tuesday and Fridays. And then I realized I had no idea what day, month, or even year it was, and that terrified me more than anything. “N-no,” I said finally, gulping down tears. He’s gone. He’s really, really gone. “N-nobody.”
“Tch tch,” sighed the nurse. “Very well. Would you mind staying with my brother, then? He’s just lost a maid, and to be honest, the silly man’s never been much good at picking and choosing his servants. So long as you don’t mind some good, honest work.”
“Better honest than dishonest,” I blurted, which wasn’t anything like me. But as the nurse stared at me, trying to figure out why I’d say that, I could only think of Mr. Hindley, and his silver tongue. “Th-thanks,” I finally managed. Then, “Sorry, ma’am. Not myself today.”
“Nobody would be,” I thought I heard her saying, as she went off to make the call. “Nobody would be.”
***
Living at Mr. Abrams’s house wasn’t so bad. There was a lot of cleaning out fireplaces, sweeping, dusting, and sometimes helping the cook, but I got Sundays off, and Monday mornings, every once in a while. People stared, yes—and then they got used to it. Shopkeepers started recognizing me, saying things like, “Hello, love. Same as usual?” And I would sit on a bench, watch the bustle of life and the funny stumbles of humanity. Days passed, weeks, months, until the Darkside was just a bad memory, Mr. Hindley a slowly fading nightmare.
Then there was Brendan. Every night I fell asleep to the sound of his voice in my mind, and every morning woke with his face burned into the inside of my eyelids. I talked to him sometimes in my little closet-room, when no one was around. Told him about how nice Mr. Abrams was, how he paid me well, how Miz Beauregard, the head cook, would sneak me cookies sometimes. She’d wink, say, “Can’t you ever get some meat on those skinny little bones of yours?”
I’d talk about the three other maids I knew by name, Flora, Hannah, and May. I’d say how they used to be kind of mean, track mud in just so I’d have to clean it up, and how, when I never complained, they felt real bad and stopped, just like that. I thought Brendan would be proud of me for that. He’d smile, ruffle my hair, I thought, and chuckle his little, croaky chuckle. Atta girl, Lav. And sometimes that would make me cry, picturing his smile, his funny eyes, the feeling of his hand in mine, all big and rough.
Mr. Hindley’d thrown me out that night, but not Brendan, oh no. Brendan was still stuck to that stupid radiator, shouting, practically dislocating his arm trying to break free. I remember, through a haze of fuzzy, achy pain, seeing his wrist where the rough ropes chafed against it, seeing how it’d gotten all cut up and bloody. Mr. Hindley had always tied very tight knots.
For me. All for me. And then another voice, as I pushed out of my closet-room and headed to the front room, to see what my duties were for the day. Yeah, for you, Lav. All of it. You were the one who dragged him to the Darkside in the first place. You you you, and all your fault, too.
“Miss Darrow! So glad you could join us!” came a snide, nasty voice, and I blanched, snapping back from my little self-hate reverie. Oh yes. The one big, ugly stain on my new, happy-enough life.
Thorne.
I mumbled a reply and came to stand next to May. She mouthed, Late? and I shrugged, wishing I could point out that by the clock on the hall, I was only ‘late’ by about fifteen, thirty seconds. Bracing myself for the familiar shock of frustration, fear, and outright hatred, I looked up, right into Thorne’s eyes.
He was, to say the least, rather intimidating. Taller even than Mr. Abrams, so much so his head nearly brushed the ceiling, with coal-black hair that was slicked back so not even the tiniest, most rebellious strand dared stick out. He managed to lounge while standing totally straight at the same time, and gave you the impression that you were doing everything wrong, and only Thorne himself knew how it was really done right. He seemed to be saying, with those low-lidded, peeled blue eyes of his, that it was honestly just a mistake that you existed at all, and he wasn’t sure he was willing to forgive you for it.
“Yes?” I asked, because apparently, as I stared hatefully at him, he’d said something vitally important. Which, as usual, I hadn’t heard.
“So sorry to interrupt your happy little daydreams, Miss Darrow, but the rest of us are actually trying to earn our keep. Isn’t that correct, Miss Willoughby?” He turned his icy gaze on Flora, who was standing frozen at the other end of the line, next to Hannah. She could only nod, lower lip trembling. Poor Flora! She was the thinnest, smallest of us all, with hair like a sheet of paper and tiny, soft doll’s hands. If she weren’t so skinny, she’d’ve been much prettier, but the rumors went she kept feeding most of her meals to the mice infesting the kitchen. A lightheaded, sweet little nitwit, if ever I saw one.
“I don’t think Mr. Abrams pays you to scare the chambermaids,” I pointed out, and, as if on cue, all the other girls gasped, taking half a step back. But I was determined to hold my ground, and as Thorne turned his nasty, soul-shriveling eyes on me once more, I stuck my chin out, smiling. “Doesn’t that mean you’re stealing from him right now?”
May was muttering something under her breath, something like, “Stop, stop, stop,” and as Thorne leaned down towards me, I thought maybe I should do that more often. “Do tell me,” Thorne said, in a voice like icicles, “does Mr. Abrams pay you to talk back to your superiors? I would very much like to hear what he has to say about that, Miss Darrow. I hear women pay rather steep prices these days, for stealing. Would you like me to tell you how one would go about paying these prices?”
I shook my head, afraid if I spoke I might say something utterly damning. Besides, his breath smelled like rotten eggs and I much preferred not open my mouth, in case I threw up my dinner all over his shiny black shoes. On second thought…
“Very good,” he said, “here are the work schedules for the week, then. Do get about them at once—I wouldn’t want to have to report any slacking off.” As we four filed out once more, Thorne called me back.
“Yes?” I said again, raising my eyebrows.
“Miss Darrow, I’ve no earthly idea why Mr. Abrams hired you. You’re young, lazy, and not terribly good at housework. Besides, the whole point of housemaids is that…well. However, while you are here”—he said it like he thought I wouldn’t be, not for much longer—“I’d advise you not make any useless remarks, especially such dull, uninspired ones. Let’s just say I’m keeping an eye out for older, more efficient chambermaids, yes? Now shoo, I’ve work to do.”
Through a thin haze of anger at his cruel words, I made my way to the open door. As if he didn’t know why I was here! As if he didn’t see my hideous scars, just like everyone else! Stupid stupid stupid—
“And Miss Darrow?” His voice was soft now, but cool as ever.
“Yes, sir?” I hissed between clenched teeth, unable even to turn back at him. To be honest, I didn’t trust I wouldn’t go utterly crazy and rip him to pieces. My hands curled into fists; the work schedule I held crinkled in protest.
“Scars don’t make you better than everyone else. Just uglier.” I heard the sounds of his footsteps as he left through the other door, heard it shut, quietly.
And no one saw me cry.
---
Well? Hope you liked it! No nitpicks please, I'm sure if you just let me know they're there I'll find them. Eventually. ;-D
! I have absolutely nothing else to say except I thought this piece was so wonderfully written and I can't wait to read more!
