Her heavy despondent face stared morosely at the thick dust on the wooden floors. Just dust. Dust covering up the wear and tear of poverty. Dust proving the abandonment and desolation of happiness and love. Dust, dust, dust.
She herself was a mess. True, she was slightly more clean than her father or brother, but still, dirt stuck to her pale skin. Dirt covering up the wear and tear of poverty. Dirt proving the abandonment and desolation of happiness and love. Dirt, dirt, dirt.
A small cracked mirror hung on the peeling wall beside her, but she didn’t dare turn her head to it. She knew what she would see: a heavy set chin, blank grey eyes staring in odd directions, lank black ropes of hair, and dirt. Dust and dirt. Just dust and dirt reflected in the mirror.
No longer did she vocalize the weariness when she walked or stepped to her feet. No longer could she find a will to produce tears when everything came crumbling down on top of her. Tears and sighs were for the weak, for the unintelligent. Never mind that Marvolo, her father, or Morfin, her brother, had at times succumbed to the weakness. But hell broke lose when she, the miserable Squib, broke down. Not that she remembered much. Her conscience, overwhelmed by the pain and agony of eighteen years abuse, had rerouted itself, casting a blissful, yet disconcerting blankness on every terrifying memory. Still, she reacted to the disgruntled and disgusted tone in her father’s voice as though she had been tarred, feathered, and then burned at the stake.
Dirt didn’t burn, though. At least, one threw dirt onto a fire to make it stop. And it didn’t burn.
She was wasting time, she knew, sitting on the dusty floors, empty thoughts lazily sifting through her brain. Her father would return from whatever bar he frequented and then find her, doing nothing. Well, almost nothing. Staring at the floors was something. But it wasn’t putting dinner on the table. It was wasting precious time.
She wordlessly lifted herself off the ground and shuffled into the kitchen, the picture of defeat. Pots and pans cracking from years of usage banged onto the counter. Yellowing vegetables and bruised fruits rolled onto the table. No meat. Her father hadn’t bothered with getting any, instead squandering measly coins on alcohol. She knew she would get a beating for not having any meat prepared. It would make her the perfect picture of defeat.
Meat. She had long given up dreams of riches and succulent meats. But every so often, especially with the day settling down, she let her thoughts focus on insubstantial dreams, the wisps of smoke that she could not capture with her thin, deathly pale hands. Wisps of hams, of steaks; wisps of coins, of riches, of paradise.
A jingle caught her attention, and her face actually lit up as she eagerly rushed to hang out the window. The jingle meant company.
There he was. The other dream. Rich, handsome, and certainly not a wizard. She longed to detach herself from the magical world, be rid of her father and gain this good-looking man. But it seemed impossible. She was destitute, destined to live out in the hovel until her dying days. Courage didn’t take up house in her heart, and gazing at the passing man under the window only left her more hollow, despite the few seconds of joy she felt at his appearance. What she wouldn’t give to leave and escape with him…
The dream faded as quickly as the night was approaching. Dinner. Better to get dinner on the table, or she would face a darker nightmare, a crushed dream.
She noticed that she needed to go to the tiny pantry and gather some flour for the bread. Pantry! As if. It was more a miniscule closet, barely large enough to hold a sleeping child, but certainly able to shelf perhaps a few less perishable items. Like flour.
As she approached the pantry, her tired ears, so used to the long and welcome silence, picked up on a heart stopping sound. There was something rattling about in the closet. Her approach slowed.
She almost uttered a scream, but again, she had long lost the ability to do so. She did begin to tremble, unwilling now to open the door. Probably just a bird or rat. Or a snake. She could deal with a snake. It wouldn’t surprise her if it was a snake. Morfin was known for hiding them in the house as pets. So she wouldn’t scream. Not yet.
Driven more by the fact that she didn’t want to face an angry father, she unlatched the door, and reached in for the flour.
There was nothing in the pantry. Completely empty. Her breathing stopped, and panic began to set in. No flour. Nothing in the pantry. She was dead for sure now.
She slammed the door, and backed away, unsure of what to do. They could do without bread. But a dinner consisting of just –rabbit food,†as her father called it, would send her father into apoplectic rage. The blankness that had covered her memories dissolved, and she found herself remembering every beating, every hungry moment, every ounce of pain. She was unsure of what to make of it.
She collapsed to the dusty floor, heaving dry sobs. There had to be something in the pantry. There had to be. Collapsing wouldn’t save her.
She struggled to open the door, and this time, what met her caused an utter failure of reaction. Her father stepped out of the closet, menacing, brandishing his fist that bore the ugly ring with the stone. He was obviously drunk and filthy, two points against her odds.
She shrunk up against the wall, curling her knees to her chin, preparing for the worse. Her eyes shut instinctively, but her mind filled with terrifying images. Her body hugged that wall.
–The pantry is empty,†her father stated gruffly, a hint of a howl behind his angered tone. –Empty.â€
She gasped, her fists clenched so hard they were whiter than the richest pearls. –I- I- not know! I- no. Don’t- sorry. I-– She racked with sobs, unable to speak intelligibly, eyes squeezed shut as though it would save her. Gasping all the while.
–Why is it EMPTY? EMPTY!â€
She could smell his putrid breath sinking into the creases of her shirt and fogging up her already sticky skin. –No! I- not- sorry. Don’t- not-– She choked on the fumes from his rancid breath.
–You filthy Squib. I oughtta take ya out to the graveyard and bury ya for all the good ya do me! You treacherous Squib!â€
She was used to the Squib comment, but the rest of the threat sunk deep into her heaving soul. She didn’t want to die. At least, not in the way her father suggested. Dying would certainly be a blessing, but she didn’t want to. She didn’t know much about death. Only that the person seized up and didn’t wake any more. But she wondered if they felt pain. She would only accept death if she couldn’t feel pain anymore. And pain was seeping into her harrowed soul.
Nothing had swung at her, which was unusual. Her father usually screamed and hit her before really getting to the root of any problem. But he hadn’t struck. She hopefully slit her eyes open to see what he was doing. Maybe he wouldn’t hit her today.
He had disappeared. The space he had occupied was now devoid of anything, and the pantry in front of her was equipped with a single bag of flour and some other various ingredients. But he had disappeared.
Astonished, she slowly crawled to the pantry and hefted the flour of the shelf. It was real. Astonishingly real.
So what had just happened? What had just happened?
The emptiness of the pantry might have been a trick of her eyes, but her father- she had heard him, smelt him, seen his rage. But she hadn’t touched him. And he had suddenly vanished. Just a trick?
She pondered briefly on the fact that she may be stir-crazy. But it had felt so real! The anger, the fear, the helplessness. She couldn’t be crazy.
Shaken, she scurried away from the pantry, and set to making the bread for dinner. Perhaps her father had stormed out due to his uncontrollable fury. But then she would have heard his slamming footsteps and curses. It didn’t make sense. None of it. Not the empty closet, nor her father. Come to think of it, why had her father been in the pantry? Trembling, she began to roll the dough.
She concluded that it had just been a vivid nightmare, brought on by her stress. She should be used to stress by now, but she had realized it niggling her more every time she dreamed about Tom. Just a horrible nightmare.
If she had been listening properly, she would have heard a slight rattling coming from the pantry. But she was focused on shaking the memory from her mind, not realizing that it may happen again. But if she had, the rattling might have been attributed as being smug, having just defeated the fearful, silly girl. And the rattling lay in wait for the day it would face her again…
A Darker Nightmare by Nagini Riddle
Chapter Endnotes: Beware the dark enclosed spaces!
But the box below is a happy, open space, awaiting to be filled! :) Any thoughts?