Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series Two#7) (15 page)

“Would capture him, put him in a cage, then open him up to see how he worked,” Isi-bore cut in.

They’d stick you in fucking jail – like that sonofabitch Murphy did to me, I thought as I listened to Melody explain the story to numb-nuts.  

“People don’t like
different
, do they?” I heard Isi-bore say.

No, people certainly don’t like different, you’ve got that right at least, I thought.

I hid amongst the trees, as Melody sat just a few feet away and helped Isi-bore to read. At times I was so bored, I snuck away before I lost the will to live. I found a tree to take a leak against, then headed back, just to make sure that they hadn’t wandered off and I missed the next exciting episode in their adventurous lives.

For the next few days they came back to the same spot, Melody sat patiently beside Isi-bore as she taught him how to read the words in the books she brought each day to the lake. The radio played in the background, and each time Heroes came on, Melody would sit and sing along, clicking her fingers and swaying from side to side. Once the song faded out at the end, Melody would go back to tracing her fingers under the words that Isi-bore was quickly learning to read and understand. And it was as I stood sloped against a tree and spied on them sitting together, I remembered how Father Paul had sat patiently with me as a boy, about the same age as Isi-bore, as I taught myself to paint and draw. Just like Melody sat patiently with Isidor, Father Paul had sat with me, teaching me how to use the watercolour paints he had bought me as a present.

“It reminds you, doesn’t it?” a voice said from beside me.

I glanced right to see the bride standing just a few feet away.

“Is Isidor so different to what you were like at his age?” she asked, her virgin white dress flapping gently as she spoke from behind it.

“That fuck-wit is nothing like me,” I barked under my breath at her.

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said, turning away, her long, white dress trailing out behind her in the dead leaves and mulch. “You’re nothing like the boy Isidor.”

I looked away, I wasn’t in the mood to play fucking word games with a figment of my own imagination.

The girl didn’t always come to the lake each day like Isi-bore did. I didn’t want to spend my days watching him. I had started to feel uncomfortable around him. I wasn’t sure why – but there was something. So instead, I followed the girl when she wasn’t with Isi-bore. I didn’t know where she went or what she did, so I headed for her home. It was still light when I arrived, guessing that she would be there as night drew in. I watched the house from the shelter of the trees that grew along each side of the narrow lane, leading to the house. Her mother’s car wasn’t out front and I wondered if Melody was home alone. It was still too light for me to climb the front of the house like I had done a few nights before, so I slipped from my hiding place and crept around the side of the house to where the basement was. I dropped over the stone wall and knelt down so I could peer into the small basement window. I pressed my nose against the dirty sheet of glass. It was dark inside and I couldn’t see very much at all, apart from the outline of the huge cross I’d seen before. I knelt back from the window and wondered if I could get it open, whether I might be able to squeeze through into the basement. I was tall and incredibly scrawny, so I might just fit through. Releasing my claws, I
hooked one finger and ran the sharp nail around the seal. I cut away some of the wooden window frame, making a big enough gap to slide my fingers through. I could feel the latch on the other side of the window. Glancing over the wall just to make sure that I wouldn’t be disturbed, I knocked the catch free with one of my long fingernails. Lifting the window open, my heart started to race at the rush of memories in which I had broken into the homes and apartments of so many women before.

Make sure you don’t hurt one single petal on any beautiful roses you might find
, I heard Noah whisper in my ear.

I blocked his voice out of my mind. Crouching so I was flat against the ground, I eased one of my rake-thin arms through the open window followed by my head and shoulders. I dangled over the edge of the window and slid down into the basement. Reaching out with my long arms, I braced my fall so as not to crack my head against the grey slate basement floor. I stood up and brushed the dust from my jeans and the elbows of my coat. After closing the window again, I started to check out the basement come makeshift chapel. The air stank of wax and incense. I screwed up my nose and sneezed. I stood in the semi darkness and looked up. I was waiting to hear any movement from above. If Melody was home, then surely she would have heard me sneeze. When I was quite sure I was alone, I made my way to the altar at the front of the chapel. I stopped before the giant cross and noticed that someone had placed a small wooden box before it. It was the size of a crate and was big enough to stand on. I was about to inspect the chapel further, when I
heard the sound of a car approaching along the dirt road leading to the house.

Mother’s home
, I thought to myself, heading back across the chapel to the window. I pushed it open with my fingertips, a rush of air snaking inside and blowing my wispy fringe from my narrow brow. Through the open window I heard the sound of someone cry out.

“I’m sorry, Momma!”

It was Melody’s voice I heard.

“Get inside and go to the chapel,” her mother hissed.

Knowing that I would soon have company, I tried to scramble back up the wall to the window. I pushed the window open and poked one of my arms through. Even on tiptoe I couldn’t lever myself up and out of the window. I looked back at the box on the floor before the cross. The sound of a bolt being slid sharply back echoed like gunfire from above. This was followed by the sound of footfalls on the wooden stairs leading down into the chapel. Knowing that I wasn’t going to escape, I slunk back into the corner of the room, where a statue of the Sacred Heart stood. I pressed myself flat against the wall and hid behind it.

There was a sharp scratching sound, then a flame. It lit up Melody’s mother’s face in the gloom like a Halloween pumpkin. She lit several candles at the feet of the Madonna statue on the opposite side of the chapel from where I was hiding.

“I’m sorry, Momma,” I heard Melody sob.

I peered around the edge of the statue to see Melody cower
ing before the huge cross in front of the altar

“Slut!” her mother screamed, her breath blowing out the match that was burning down between her fingers. “Filthy little whore! You disgust me!”

“I’m sorry, Momma,” Melody sobbed through fear more than sadness.

“And you disgust the mother of Christ! Look at her! Look at her!” the mad-looking woman screeched, eyes bulging in their sockets as she forced Melody to stand before the statue of the Madonna. “Does she wear nail varnish? Does she wear lipstick? Does she dress up like a filthy-looking whore?”

“No, Momma,” Melody cried, lowering her head so she didn’t have to look at the statue which stared blankly down at her.

Raising the flat of her hand, the woman smacked her daughter in the face. There was an audible
crack
as Melody’s head snapped backwards, her bonnet falling free and hanging down her back, trapped by the black cord around her throat. The woman then made a fist as she grabbed Melody by the hair.

“Women who look like whores attract the devil,” she breathed into Melody’s face. “Do you want the devil to come for you?”

“No, Momma,” Melody sobbed, turning her head to the side as if her mother’s breath stank.

“Because the devil came to me once,” the woman hissed onto her daughter’s face. “He came and took me, put his seed inside of me – he
put
you
inside of me.”

“I’m sorry, Momma… forgive me…” Melody cried out.

“It’s not my forgiveness you need,” her mother screeched into Melody’s upturned face. “It is the Lord’s forgiveness you must seek.”

Melody cried out and threw her hands to her head as her mother grabbed her daughter by the hair, pulling her towards the altar. “Over the box,” her mother seethed, forcing her daughter to bend over.

“No, Momma,” Melody sobbed hysterically as if knowing what was coming.

To watch what was happening from my hiding place behind the statue I couldn’t help but be reminded of the relationship I’d had with my own mother. Her room had been adorned with statues of the Elders, just like this room had been decorated with figurines. I remembered my mother catching me drawing on the garden wall with chalk and she had forced me to take my clothes off and stand in the cold while I prayed for forgiveness from the Elders. 

You’re a sinner and you must repent!
Now get on your knees and pray to the Elders
. I heard my mother’s voice as if she were standing beside me.

I stood behind the statue and covered my ears with my hands, and in my heart I didn’t know if I were blocking out the sound of my own mother’s voice
,
or that of Melody’s momma.

The woman forced Melody into a kneeling position over the box before the huge cross. Melody’s momma had that crazy, wide-eyed look
that my own mother had in her eyes when she had punished me for such minor indiscretions.

She hitched up the girl’s skirt, revealing the backs of her bare legs. Melody tried to pull her dress down again and I understood why. I remembered those feelings of embarrassment I had felt as my own mother had made me strip in the garden. I hadn’t wanted her to see me like that – it had been humiliating. And I felt Melody’s humiliation now. I closed my eyes over the tears that stung in them. The urge to leap from behind my hiding place and rip Melody’s mother’s fucking head clean off was almost unbearable. But I remembered what Lilly Blu had said – she had told me not to get involved – not to change anything in this world. The woman who was now torturing her daughter before me wasn’t my mother, and I had to find a way of letting go.

So however much I wanted to kill that fucking bitch, just like I had killed my own mother, I had to stay hidden as Melody’s momma took what looked like a small leather whip from the pouch on the front of her apron. With one hand gripping the back of Melody’s neck, forcing her into a kneeling position, the woman whipped the back of her daughter’s legs.

With each deafening crack of the whip lashing across Melody’s skin, I flinched in the darkness behind the statue. Melody screamed in agony, her young voice sounding shrill. I placed my hands over my ears. Melody’s cries reminded me too much of my sister Kara’s screams as she died in my arms all those years ago. The sound of Melody’s screams and my own memories were un-fucking-bearable. I rocked forward, the sound
of my weeping, drowned out by the sound of the whipping being given to Melody.

When Melody was unable to scream no more, her mother stopped
. The woman sagged backwards, gasping for breath. The exertion of whipping her daughter had obviously exhausted her. Panting, she wiped the sweat from her wrinkled brow. Melody dropped to the ground like a broken doll.

“Get out of here,” her momma breathed.

Melody tried to stand, then dropped to the floor again.

“Get out,” the woman hissed, still struggling to catch her breath.

I watched Melody pull herself up onto her hands and knees and crawl away from her mother like some kind of beaten animal. I turned around and faced the wall, not only because I couldn’t bear to watch any more, but the smell of blood running from the cuts crisscrossing the backs of Melody’s legs was driving me half insane with hunger and lust. I heard the sound of Melody limping and falling as she made her way up the stairs and out of the makeshift chapel.

“I will beat the beast out of that child,” I heard the mother say. She was so close now, I feared that I had been discovered and she was talking to me.

I glanced back over my shoulder to discover the woman now standing before the statue I was hiding behind. She gazed up into the Sacred Heart’s face – a look of ecstasy gleaming in her eyes.

“The devil tempted me once,” she whispered up into the statue’s
face. “I won’t let him tempt my daughter.”

She then turned away, blew out the candle, and left the chapel. No sooner had she bolted the door closed at the top of the stairs, I raced from my hiding place and snatched up the box. I placed it against the wall beneath the window, and scrambled from the chapel.

It was almost dark and I ran towards the trees lining the road. I looked back at the house, still fighting the urge to go back and kill the woman living inside of it. The front door opened. Melody appeared on the porch, and over her shoulder she carried the rucksack I had seen her with before. Had she plucked up the courage to leave the sick bitch behind? Had she decided to take Isidor up on his offer and run away with him?

I watched her stagger down the front path. She winced at every footstep she took. Melody bit into her lower lip, fighting the urge to scream in pain as she limped past me. Hoping that she had decided to leave and find peace with Isidor, just like I had found sanctuary with Father Paul, I followed her. As the last rays of sunlight faded in the sky over the lake, Melody reached the shore. Isi-bore was sitting before the dark waters, crouched over what looked like some kind of notebook. He looked up to see Melody approach him.

From the safety of the woods, I watched Melody limp forwards, dragging her rucksack behind her in the sand. She took a folded piece of white paper from her apron. Isi-bore jumped up and ran towards her. I watched as he took the rucksack from Melody.