The Banishing

The Banishing

By
Fiona Dodwell

Damnation Books, LLC.
P.O. Box 3931
Santa Rosa, CA 95402-9998

www.damnationbooks.com

The Banishing
by Fiona Dodwell

Digital ISBN: 978-1-61572-351-5

Print ISBN: 978-1-61572-352-2

Cover art by: Dawné Dominique
Edited by: Andrea Heacock-Reyes

Copyright 2011 Fiona Dodwell

Printed in the United States of America
Worldwide Electronic & Digital Rights
1st North American and UK Print Rights

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book is dedicated to my parents, Roger and Patricia, for their support. And to Matthew, for his love and encouragement.

Chapter One

Melissa Sanderson watched as the small pool of thick, dark blood spread across the white, tiled floor. She wondered—not for the first time—if she should end it all. If she should end everything. She leaned forward on her hands and knees, and began scrubbing at the blood with the damp cloth she found behind the bathroom sink.

She already locked the bathroom door in case he returned—which he often did—so that she could keep him away. Keep him out. The cloth smeared the blood into an arc around her, like an inverted rainbow of red. She tried to ignore the urge to vomit as she wrung the wet cloth over the sink and watched the blood trickle down the drain.

Her stomach tightened as she leaned forward, heaving over the toilet bowl. Nothing came up. Her stomach was empty, since she hadn’t eaten since the night before. She gagged, her stomach lurching and contracting in angry spasms.

There was a sharp knock at the bathroom door, and she wrestled herself slowly to her feet. Unsteady and shaking, she leaned back against the sink and waited.

“Hurry up in there. I need to get ready for work.” His voice was as hard as iron, unmovable. She wanted to open the door and hit him—hurt him—but that idea was laughable. She wasn’t capable of that, no matter what he did to her or how he treated her.

“I’ll be out in five minutes. I’ve just got to get cleaned up.”

She heard the footsteps of her husband dissolve down the hallway and back into their bedroom.
How has it come to this?
she asked herself. She turned around, stared into the large mirror on the wall beside her, and she recoiled at the face staring back at her from inside the glass world. It was barely recognizable. Her bottom lip was bruised, swollen, and split from where he had just hit her. A thick line of congealed blood clung to the bottom of her mouth, drying and clotting. She knew he was getting out of control. Her eyes scanned the face in front of her. He was never this bad, and she realized he would normally only hurt her in places that she could hide beneath clothes. This, however, was an ugly masterpiece he created for the world to see. What would she say to her friends and coworkers?

She dabbed at the cut on her lips and winced in pain. It stung badly.

Her hair—long, wavy, and dark—hung limply around her face, clinging to her damp skin. It was the eyes that worried her, though. Her eyes. They looked dead, lifeless, and hopeless. Brown pools of nothingness that looked empty and drained. The plug having been pulled long ago.

She looked at the floor and knew he’d be back in a moment. She had to clean up. Melissa snapped out of her internal fear and confusion and quickly wiped the cloth over the last remaining drops of blood on the floor.
So much blood from just one cut
, she thought. She wiped over the sink and then turned on the cold tap. Leaning over the sink, she splashed cold water onto her face. “Damn it!” Her face contorted as the cut on her face met the cold liquid, and she took a deep breath. She reached for a towel and pressed it to her face.

Turning back to the mirror, she saw that the swelling had gone down slightly, but her lip was still throbbing, wide with blood beneath the surface.

Footsteps. Another knock. “I need to get in there, Melissa.” He sounded calmer now, like the old Mark Sanderson. The one she had married. The one she used to know. The person he had been for the five years of their relationship. She threw the red, bloodied cloth back behind the sink and stepped quietly over to the bathroom door. She unlocked it slowly and pulled it open.

Mark was standing there, wrapped in his bathrobe—the one she had bought him for his birthday—a towel in his hand and a shaving razor in the other. He smiled weakly as she stepped outside, passing him. “I won’t be long. We can have breakfast together before work.”

Melissa nodded and headed to the bedroom. She wanted to get dressed.

“Make mine eggs on toast,” he called behind her, his voice full of life and enthusiasm. It was as if the morning that had just happened never did.

Chapter Two

Melissa rinsed their breakfast plates and cups and left them on the kitchen sideboard to drain. She didn’t have time to dry or put them away, though it did occur to her that if Mark got home before her that night, he wouldn’t be happy about it. Lately, Mark had wanted things to be done a certain way, and if they weren’t done that way, he would make sure she knew he was unhappy about it.

They have to wait
, she thought, glancing at the clock. It was nearly 8:30 AM, and she had to be at the hospital in half an hour. Mark had already left the house, which she was thankful for.

It took her almost ten minutes to cover her face in makeup. Melissa wanted to laugh when she stared at her reflection in the bedroom mirror. She looked like a clown, but it was better than showing up to work looking battered and bruised. She caked her face in a layer of foundation and blotted some extra cream around her lips, trying desperately to lessen the angry, swelled bottom lip that protruded.
It makes me look like a petulant child
, she thought, regarding herself. She ran a layer of cherry lip gloss over her lip and sucked in air sharply as she felt the sting of it against the cut.

Melissa ran the brush through her hair and tied it back into a simple ponytail. After pulling on her work uniform—a pair of black trousers and a white shirt—she left. She was only starting her day, but she felt weakened and tired by the world already.

It was raining hard. The water fell in heavy, sharp drops against the roof of her car, drumming persistently. Fluid nails tapped the ground beneath. She pulled out of the driveway, switched the local radio station on, and pulled out onto the main road.

The car slid into the road, lost in the traffic like an ant in a forest. Each one like the next, moving forward, moving somewhere.

Melissa checked her reflection in the rearview mirror.
A mess,
she thought limply.

The rain seemed to be bearing down harder, now. Melissa hunched forward in the driver’s seat, trying to concentrate on the road ahead of her as it dissolved into a blur beyond the glass.

She knew she could walk to work in less than fifteen minutes, but since October arrived—bringing with it the darkened skies and wet mornings—Melissa had started driving to work.

She didn’t mind her job. In fact, Melissa was glad to have it. It was an escape from home—a refuge, in a way. She worked there as a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit. Every day, she would watch people come in unconscious, bruised, and battered. Some could not even take a breath without the aid of a machine.
It was sad, but it was like looking into a mirror
, she thought. Every time she stepped through the front door at home, it was like entering a limbo, where each breath was uncertain, each step possibly her last.
At least that’s how it
felt,
she conceded.

The staff at Saint Peter’s Hospital was good. Tight. Having worked just under a year there, Melissa had made some good friends. Not
close
friends. Not people she would share the intimate details of her life with, but at least they were good people to work with. People she could laugh with and share lunch with. The only exception to that rule was her close friend—her best friend—Sharon Harp. Melissa had met Sharon on her induction, her first day on the ward, and she was assigned to work alongside Sharon during those first few days while learning the job and the routine. Since then, they had remained close, often meeting up for meals out or to catch a movie.

Mark had started to make it clear that he didn’t like Melissa having friends. As a result, Melissa had started avoiding seeing Sharon socially over the last few weeks. What Sharon thought about that— if she thought anything at all—was anyone’s guess, but Melissa felt, with a stab of guilt, that she’d rather have her friend angry at her than provoke Mark.

As she neared the hospital, weaving her way through the morning traffic, Melissa heard her mobile phone buzzing in her handbag. With one hand planted firmly on the wheel, she reached to the passenger seat where her handbag lay open and pulled out the phone. Its screen flashed on and off, illuminating the darkened morning. “Mark calling”, it said in black letters. She instantly felt a wave of fear twist itself into her stomach, around her body. Like a snake coiling a tree, it felt alive with a mind of its own.

She left it ringing as she pulled into the parking lot. It didn’t take her long to secure a space, and as she slid the car back into the empty slot, she took a deep breath, pulled her keys out of the ignition, and answered the phone.

“Hi,” he said, his voice flat and quiet. In the background, Melissa could hear the muffled voices of colleagues at the courier service where he’d worked since they met. Conway Deliveries.

“Hello.”

“Where are you?” he asked, and Melissa could tell he had stepped into the office. The noise around him was dulled now, muffled. “Are you at work, yet?”

Melissa stared ahead, watching as the rain flowed in tiny rivers along the car window. “I’m about to go in, Mark. I’m actually late, so I better—”

“Don’t.” His voice was quiet, controlled, but he spoke sharply and with determination.

“What do you mean? I have to. I can’t not show up, now. I was due in five minutes ago.”

Mark took a deep breath, sighing. “Melissa, I’m sorry about this morning. I shouldn’t have. I know that. I’m sorry, but if you turn up to work like that…people will talk. They’ll ask questions.”

“I’ll say I fell down the stairs or something.”

Mark laughed. “Do you think they will believe
that
?”

I don’t care
, she thought inwardly.
Maybe they should finally know what you’ve been doing
.
Maybe then it can all end
. “They won’t even ask. I don’t care if they believe me,” she answered. Melissa could feel a warmth rising from underneath, her skin flushing red. She would annoy him if she continued pushing him, but from the safety and distance of her car, she felt defiant, stronger almost.

“
I
care! Jesus, Melissa. Listen to me. I said I was sorry. Please, turn the car back around, drive home, call work, and say you’re ill or something.”

It was spoken like an order.
Who are you?
Melissa wondered, feeling the warmth of her tears as they travelled down her cheeks.
I don’t know you, anymore. You’re a stranger to me. You’re not Mark
.

“People will talk more if I start avoiding work. That’s a sure way to get people’s attention. Best thing for me to do is to go in and carry on as normal.”

She could hear how exasperated he was becoming by the guttural tone of his voice across the phone. “Fuck it. Okay, fine. Go in if you have to,” he finally snapped. “But you damn well better make sure people believe you, Melissa. You have to.”

Melissa said yes and disconnected the call.

* * * *

Stepping into the ICU ward, Melissa felt the sideways glances and questioning looks fall on her as she began preparing for her day’s work. Looks that said they were wondering and that they noticed. They noticed every blotch and cut on her face and lip. It was to be expected. She would have reacted the same if one of the other girls turned up one morning looking like that.

The silence of the ICU ward was thick, almost tangible. Nurses seemed to speak only in tiny whispers, machines beeped rhythmically behind the scenes, and the unsung heroes were breathing life into unmoving bodies. The ward was small—only the critically ill were brought to intensive care, so beds were kept to a minimum. There were a total of eight beds, and Melissa noted, as she made her way to the main nurse’s desk, that only half of them were full. They must have lost the young woman they’d brought in last night—her bed was empty.

“Oh, you’re here. I was wondering whether I’d have to find somebody to cover your shift.” It was the nurse in charge, Rachel Harrow. From behind the desk, she looked up, her pen poised over a patient’s file. Papers were strewn over the desk and empty coffee cups littered the edges. Her voice seemed taut, as if it could snap; to Rachel, the manager always sounded really close to losing her temper. It was obvious she was annoyed at her late arrival.

“I’m so sorry. I got caught in traffic, and then I couldn’t find a parking space. It’s been a bit of a nightmare morning and—”

“Was there an accident?”

Melissa instinctively put a hand to her lip, then withdrew it. “No, not at all. I’m fine. How’s everything been on the ward?”

Rachel—one of the longest running members of qualified staff on ICU and probably one of the least popular on the team—raised an eyebrow. “I’d get that checked out if I were you. It looks nasty.”

Melissa felt her heart lurch and took a deep breath. “Really, I’m fine. I had a fall. How are things here?”

Rachel sighed. “Well, we lost Anne Holmes last night. Family informed. We have a new admission, name of—” Rachel paused, looked down at a sheet of paper in front of her, and scanned it, “name of Peter Lock. Age fifty-nine.”

“What’s he in for?”

“Car accident. Head-on collision. Most likely won’t pull through. The doctor will be here again in a moment to check on him.”