Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Cairstina
I stare out my window at the moonlit sky, and for a brief moment, imagine myself sitting atop the large, glowing orb.
I’d dangle my feet, reaching for the stars with one hand while anchoring myself with the other.
Once I got a handful of stars, I’d swing right back up to the moon, nestling the stars in my lap and looking at each one in wonder.
They’re all unique, you see, just like people, no two stars alike.
I’m yanked out of my reverie with the crash of a door. I sit up in bed, gasping, my journal and pen falling to the floor. Shite. I try not to make noise when my brother comes home.
“Where the fuck is she?” Oh no. Oh no. He knows, then. He’s found out already. I toss off my blanket and look about for my shoes. If I hadn’t let my damn imagination take me away again, I’d have kept track of the time and realized my brother would be back from work at any moment.
I’d have already hidden until he got drunk off his arse and forgot about me.
Dammit.
“Where do you think she is?” my mother mutters in her oily, high-pitched voice. “In her fuckin’ bed being useless as always.”
Her words don’t hurt me like they used to. Now it’s more like a scratch on a scabbed wound. Still painful, but not as much.
I shove my mobile in my pocket, find one shoe, scrambling for the second, as his heavy boots come up the stairs. I find it just as he reaches the landing, shove them on my feet, and as the door to my room bursts open, I make my move.
I duck his swinging fist, using the element of surprise to my advantage. He’s clumsy when he’s drunk, and if it’s anywhere near past midday, he’s drunk.
“Fucking useless whore!” he roars. I’m halfway to the stairs when he grabs me by the hair. I open my mouth as if to scream, but as always, no sound comes. I thrash my hands at him, but it’s too late. He’s dragged me back to him and hauled me up in front of him.
“Think you can get away?” he says, his face contorted in fury so he looks like a rabid dog. I bat at his hands, but I can’t get away from him. Even when he’s drunk, he’s a damn man, and stronger than I am by mere biology.
There was a time Dougal and I were allies, but that was long, long ago.
So long ago, it might as well be another universe.
By the time he was ten, he’d learned from my father’s vicious blows and wicked strop that beating people weaker than you was a means to an end.
Make others fear you, and you can have anything you want.
“Why’d you do it?” he asks, yanking my hair so hard it feels as if he’s pulling it out. Tears blur my vision.
My mother laughs humorously. “As if she’ll answer you.”
“Why!” he bellows. I know exactly what he’s talking about, though even if I could speak, I wouldn’t tell him why I pilfered money from the broken jar in the kitchen.
What he doesn’t know is that I do it every week.
I have a stash under my mattress, along with the money I’ve earned from my photographs, and by this time next month, I’ll have enough to leave here for good.
This time, I took a risk, though. Instead of the typical pound, I took a tenner. Goddammit it I couldn’t help myself, though, I’m that close to freedom.
I can’t get a proper job. No one will hire the sister of Dougal Reilly, and even if I got a job, my brother would steal my money.
Holding my hair with one hand, he drags me back in the room and slams the door.
“Show me,” he orders, his eyes narrowed to furious slits. There was a time when he was a handsome man, with my father’s square jaw and even features, but now malice and alcohol have muddied his features. Now he’s nothing but a demon to me.
I shake my head, and without warning, he rears back and backhands me. My jaw snaps, and I taste blood. I stand up straight, not bowing to his assault. Not now. Not ever. I run my tongue along my teeth to make sure none have loosened and swallow the blood and bile.
“Where is it?” he says, rearing back to strike me again, but this time I duck his blow and come up swinging myself.
I knee him straight between the legs, catching him in the fucking bollox.
He howls in rage and lashes out at me, but he’s clumsy, and by the time he tries to hit me again, I’m already halfway down the stairs.
His hands are between his legs as he screams at me, “Run, then! You’ll have to come home!
And when you do, you’ll fucking regret it.
” He’s too lazy to give me chase. But a howl and cry make me almost slow my run.
Bailey. He kicked my dog Bailey again. I’d have rather taken his blows myself.
I blink, tears rolling down my cheeks. Why do bullies have to abuse those too weak to defend themselves?
I should teach that dog of mine to fucking bite him.
I run until I get to the Cathedral. The one place in all of Inverness I feel safe. For a wee while, anyway.
He’s right about one thing. I’ll have to go home eventually, as I’ve no other place to go.
I have no friends but Father MacGowen, and the only family I have are back at the house.
If I plan it right, though, I’ll get home tonight after my brother’s passed out and I’ll escape his fury.
My mother will still be up, but she prefers to pretend I don’t exist. It’s the better of the two options anyway.
I crouch against the stone wall of the church and breathe in deeply.
Mmm. Incense. It’s one of my favorite smells on earth, though I’m not sure why.
I must have some pleasant memory from my childhood or something, but the imaginative me likes to pretend there’s a bigger reason.
Perhaps I was a priestess in a former life, or a cloistered nun in the quiet sanctuary of a monastery.
I close my eyes and breathe the incense in, briefly imagining it brings healing properties.
I open my eyes, and realize for the first time how dark it is outside.
The incense isn’t from mass, then, but from earlier.
A funeral, perhaps? I look over my shoulder and note there’s a light on in the church.
I shiver with cold. I ran out of my house with my mobile and shoes but no jacket, and it’s a chilly evening in town.
My thin jumper does little to protect me from the icy wind.
I walk to the steps of the Cathedral, and marvel at each one.
I like to imagine each step was set in place by an angel, one of the majestic beings.
Perhaps Michael the Archangel himself laid the final stone when the church was built.
I can almost see him, with his majestic wings, formidable sword, and terrible, beautiful scowl.
I know logically the sword is used to fight for the greater good, to cast demons into hell.
But I like to imagine sometimes he’d use that sword to fight in my defense.
I walk carefully up each step, enjoying my brief time of peace and quiet before I have to return back home. The scent of incense grows stronger as I ascend, my worn shoes noiseless on the stone steps. My heart does a little flip in my chest. The door’s ajar.
I nudge the door open so slowly, it doesn’t make a sound.
I slip through the open space. I’m small and slight, and used to moving quietly.
To being unseen. I imagine I’m a ghost, haunting this church, in search of her long-lost lover.
Does he come here to weep for love of me, as he recounts my untimely death?
I imagine Father MacGowen, his arms over the shoulder of my lover, speaking words of comfort and peace in his time of loss.
When I was a wee girl, back when I had the gift of speech, my mother would berate me for my imaginative ways.
“You’ll accomplish nothing in life pretending everything away,” she’d say, waving her hand at me and sometimes shaking me if she caught me in a daydream when I had a chore to do.
Little does she know now how rich my inner life is.
She has no power over my silent imaginings. No one does.
I walk with my head bowed low, down the center aisle of the church, my hands clasped as if in prayer.
I don’t know how to pray, though. No one’s ever taught me.
I imagine it has something to do with high words and flowery details, and I’m good at that.
I mutter my favorite line from Julius Caesar under my breath, "Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.”
I’m so caught up in mourning the pretend loss of my own life, tears actually blind my vision.
I kneel on one of the kneelers before the altar, and lift my face heavenward. I breathe in the cleansing smell of the church—that unique blend of incense, candle wax, and wood polish. I exhale in contentment, and pull out my mobile.
I swipe it on and go to the camera. I’ve never used it as a phone. I certainly have no one to call or text. It’s a hand-me-down from one of Father MacGowen’s friends, who upgraded my phone and said he liked the pictures I took. I marvel at its capabilities.
The altar’s still adorned with faded poinsettias from Christmas, though that was weeks ago.
I forgot how long the Christmas season lasts in the church, but the Catholics don’t like to pack things up on December twenty-sixth.
This weekend is probably the last weekend of Christmas or some such thing, I forget how they name it all.
I kneel on one knee before the altar, amazed that the vibrant red flowers have lasted this long.
I lift my phone, zoom in with the camera, and hold my breath as one of the flower petals falls to the ground.
I click the button that makes a shutter sound, and glee fills me when I realize I caught it.
It’s perfect, metaphorical and symbolic, the end of a season.