by D I Russell
Striding to her desk, she clicked on the lamp and rummaged through the accrued mess. Make up brushes and hair ties were swept onto the floor. Paperback novels, deserving more respect, were quickly set aside in a small pile. Handouts from art class, outlining the course, timetable, and assignment requirements, were still scattered beneath the mess from the first week of college. Satisfied, Samara pulled them free and turned the sheets of paper over to hide the text and reveal the potential. Dropping into her chair, she snatched up a sharp pencil and touched its tip to the paper. A plethora of nightmares struggled for position in her frantic mind, fighting to emerge victorious, to be rewarded, to emerge into the real world, born by her hand, delivered in hard, dark strokes.
Her bedroom door slammed open, striking the wall.
“Don’t think you can skulk away in here,” bawled her mother, stepping across the threshold from the brightly lit hallway. “You can’t hide from this.”
The pencil paused on the paper without so much as a line. “Get out.”
“What did you say?”
Samara took a steadying breath. “I said get out. We don’t need to talk about anything.”
“We don’t need to talk about anything?” said her mother. “After your little stunt, no, make that two stunts, today? That scene you caused in the shop, Sam, Christ! I’ll never be able to show my face in there ever again after that shit. And what about your sister? Did you for a moment think of the repercussions if any of her friends had seen your behaviour? It would be all around the school come Monday. Oh, did you hear that Kelly’s psycho sister had a breakdown in a bookshop…”
“Oh get real,” spat Samara. “Didn’t you think how it would affect me the way you came barging into the pub like that?”
“Your father is furious.”
Samara slammed the pencil onto the desk. “Yeah, I see. So furious he can’t pull himself away from the football.”
Her mother inhaled, long and slow, her nostrils flaring.
Why couldn’t she just leave her alone? This wasn’t about the bookshop, this was about the mould they wanted her to fit, be the person best suited to their simple dynamic. Everything had to be normal. Her family had a set trajectory, a prescribed altitude and direction that allowed no deviance. All her mother’s talk of getting out of her room, living life, meeting people… Her mother should’ve been over the moon finding her in the pub, drinking with boys. But this wasn’t done under her terms.
“Your father will be up here soon, so you’d better have a damn good reason for what you pulled today.”
“You know, I think I could’ve pulled, if you and Kelly hadn’t come storming in when you did.”
“Nice, Sam, real nice. Now I get it.” Her mother laughed and waved her hand at the grotesque creatures leering at her from the posters and drawings covering the walls. “I get all of this. I don’t know what we did to make you hate us so much. Your father and I work very hard to provide for you girls—”
Samara crashed her fist on the desk, toppling the stack of horror novels. “It’s always about you, isn’t it? You have this fucked up vision of the perfect family, and I don’t fit into it on purpose just to piss you off? God…I just…I just can’t…”
“This isn’t normal,” her mother screamed. “A girl your age shouldn’t be obsessed with all this rubbish!”
Samara grimaced, too far gone to stop now. “All because I don’t like pink coats.”
“This is a waste of time,” fumed her mother, finally turning back towards the door. “I don’t know what I can do with you anymore.”
“I had a few drinks!” wailed Samara. “Just a few drinks!”
“And where did you get the money, eh? You were begging me for a few quid this morning.”
“Lily.”
“Oh. Lily.” Her mother approached the open bedroom door. “Gavin! Get up here!”
Samara swallowed and started to busy herself. Her mother could rant and rave all day, but her father seemed to store all his attention for these rare, concentrated moments. Samara could go days without exchanging a word with him, but with a whiff of trouble he’d hunt her like a shark on a blood trail. His discipline was usually fierce and blunt, resistant to explanation or innocence.
His own footsteps boomed up the stairs. They all had their distinct rhythms on the creaking wooden steps.
Samara turned on her VCR and television just to give her hands something to do, anything to quit their trembling. She started to rewind Outside 2: The Return of Woe back to the beginning. No doubt ninety minutes with her favourite demon take her mind off the wreck of a day.
The shape of her father filled the door. “She apologised yet?”
Her mother crossed her arms. “Far from it. Proud of the whole thing.”
“Apologise to your mother!”
Samara looked up from the desk, meeting his eyes. While the girls had enjoyed their day out shopping, he’d been down the pub with a few other cabbies, watching the afternoon match and throwing a few notes on the horses. He’d done the usual Saturday routine and been home in time for his feeding before lying on the sofa to watch the news and Match of the Day. She could smell the beer radiating from his pores from the other side of the room.
Yet a few pounds for a new book was out of the question; a few drinks a cardinal sin.
“No,” she said. “This is bullshit!”
“Okay,” said her father, heading over to her bookcase in loping strides. “Like that, is it? You’re right, Brenda. Something’s going on here. We’ve ignored it for too long.” At the bookcase, he ran his finger across the vertical titles on the spine, just as Samara had done herself in the bookshop earlier. She doubted he was searching for a particular title, unless he sought a copy of The Satanic Bible. Oh, wouldn’t that just confirm everything?
“What are you doing?” she pressed.
He ignored her and continued his slow survey of the books.
Samara noticed it wasn’t the novels that held his interest, but the tight gaps in between. He prised books apart, eying each opened space.
“Dad! They’re my books. What are you doing?”
“It’s here somewhere,” he said, either to himself or her mother. “Stu said his son had some and could stash them on the shelves like this. Found it between two computer game boxes.”
“Just tell him, Samara,” pressed her mother.
“Tell him what?” she wailed. “That you wouldn’t lend me money for a book? That I didn’t want a stupid pink coat? That you came into the pub and embarrassed the fuck out of me?”
Her father turned with the speed of a striking cobra, his open hand raised.
Samara stared at his palm. It shook, barely held in check.
“Don’t you ever, ever, speak to your mother like that,” her father snarled. “You hear me?”
Samara shut her mouth and quickly nodded, gazing up at him. He hadn’t hit her since she’d been a kid.
“Now,” he continued, his hand closing into a fist with his forefinger out. He aimed it at her face. “I want to know what it is, and who you got it off.”
Samara remained locked in his stare, heart kicking up once more. “I…I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do!” snapped her mother. “Don’t lie to us!” Next to her stone-like husband, she resembled a yapping dog. “You don’t just start acting like this, Samara.”
“For the last time,” rumbled her father’s low voice, “because I’ll turn this room upside down if you don’t tell me: what is it, and who did you get it from?”
Samara blinked, the words finally sinking in.
“Drugs? You think I’m on drugs?” She threw her head back with a relieved bark of laughter. “Oh my god! You think I’m on drugs? I wanted money for a book. A book! And Lily bought me a few drinks. I got a bit tipsy with some lads and suddenly I’m a junkie?”
Her father reached down, grabbing her by the forearm.
Samara winced and rather than fight the pull, allowed herself to b
e escorted from her seat at the desk. He gently pushed Samara to her mother, who gripped her by the shoulders, should she try and escape the inquisition.
“In here,” said her father, reaching for the desk drawer. “Let’s have a little look, shall we?”
Samara flinched in her mother’s hold. “Going through my room? Come on, Dad!”
He slid the drawer open, peering into the mess and poking through the contents.
“Mum, come on! I have my things in there!”
“Nothing your father hasn’t seen before, dear. That card isn’t going to work.”
Her father grunted and turning towards her, lifted out a packet of pills, the foil shiny.
Samara smirked. “Read the label. Aspirin. Or is that an offence too now?”
He dropped the packet back into the drawer and continued the search.
“This is bullshit,” said Samara, trying to shrug free of her mother.
Exhibit B was a folded-up piece of paper. Her father plucked it from the clutter and began to unfurl the tight wad of paper.
Think, she screamed at herself. What’s on that paper? Some awful poetry I’ve written? A torn-out journal page?
What ammo has he found?
Her father examined the opened paper with a grimace. “More of this shit,” he said, showing his wife.
Another early test of Samara’s painting. Instead of opening up her ribcage and reaching for the heart trapped inside, the forlorn girl had started to strip away the skin from her face. In the grey of pencil, the injuries didn’t pop as much as the final chosen method of abuse, and Samara had decided that she wanted the face unmarked. Despite the gratuitous damage on the finished piece, it was the face that showed the pain as an emotional construct, and she needed it untouched, the feeling exposed to her audience.
Her father tossed it on the desktop like a piece of rubbish.
“Now,” he said. “What have we here?”
He lifted out a white unsealed envelope.
“That’s private,” said Samara, fighting the grip of her mother once more. “You can’t do this! You can’t go through all my personal stuff!”
Her father slid a piece of paper from inside. It had been folded once.
“I’m not on drugs, for fuck’s sake,” Samara barked, stepping forwards and reaching for the envelope.
Slipping her arms around Samara’s body, her mother held fast, watching her husband spread the paper.
A small metal object, glinting in the light from the lamp, fell to the carpet and landed silently.
“I don’t know,” said her father and sighed. “I don’t know whether we need a bloody head doctor or a priest…” He also showed the next masterpiece to his wife, but Samara knew what resided on this page.
A more literal depiction of Woe grinned from the paper. No wistful sadness, as displayed by the girl that would ultimately become her final submission. The creature revelled in its pain. Her jaw was stretched beyond breaking but somehow remained in one piece, threatening to split down the centre of her chin. Tiny enamel pins poked from glistening gums, pointing inwards to catch and hold her prey. Black orbs, with a dash of white paint for wet reflection, were set in the narrow, ashen face, almost a skull with skin so tight. Finally, her hair, turbulent about her head, reaching inky tendrils, a black anemone in swirling waters.
The small painting was marred by grimy brown slashes, like streaks of rust.
Her father reached down to retrieve the fallen object.
“What the hell is this?”
He brought it closer to the lamp, careful not to slice open his fingertips.
The sharp edge of the short razor blade shone gold in the light, stained at the corner.
“Why do you have this stashed away?” said her father, the hard determination gone from his voice. Realisation had drained his momentum. He’d come looking for drugs, and had his raving lecture prepared. “What…what have you been doing, Samara?”
“It’s…” Samara scrambled to find the words, grip the explanation that might worm her out. “It’s just…art.”
“Art?” screeched her mother, snatching her daughter’s long sleeve before she had a chance to jerk it away. She tugged it down, revealing the pale skin of Samara’s forearm. “Is this art?”
Gavin, a simple man who drove a cab by day and liked a bit of television at night, stared at his daughter’s arm. What the razor had threatened, the flesh confirmed.
“I…” He closed his eyes, pinching them shut with one hand, the razor still clutched in the other. “Jesus Christ. Oh, love. What have you done to yourself?”
8.
The words had flowed, more from her mother than her father. He’d always wanted boys; more suited to offering advice on playground scuffles, football, shaving, and sex…though Samara wasn’t sure he’d have the fortitude to handle the last one sensitively. More likely to crack a joke and consider the job done. Her father had very few areas in which he’d consider himself an expert and depended on traditional family roles to scurry and hide away from the others. She wasn’t sure her father knew of her periods of the last five years. It had never been raised. Her mother had dealt with the eventual pubic awkwardness that milestone evening: ready to share her own products and experience. Samara had emerged from her room sometime later that night changed. Her dad, of course, had been watching the football, or rugby, or horseracing, and had barely looked up. Full on ignored her, in fact. She never knew if her mother had divulged the latest developments to him, but either way, that was the first time she had felt separated from the family. Contaminated. A bleeding leper.
No. He’d never wanted daughters. He worked. If you wanted something, speak to your mother. The avoidant style of parenting.
Samara was laid in bed, curled up on her side, the glow from the television in the dark room beginning to give her a headache.
At least he’d not taken the aspirin.
She replayed the evening’s performance in her mind, watching but not seeing the brutality on screen as Woe despatched more character fodder. Unfamiliar comfort took her by surprise: her father had actually cared about her. It couldn’t be attention that she craved, feeling more at ease in her own company, slapping paint on a canvas. Perhaps the slightest touch of a connection…? Sometimes a spark can flare between two separate live wires. She thought back to Vicki’s goddamn painting. Perception. Outside and looking in, the home warm and welcoming, but Samara always trapped beyond as the observer. Had one of the painted figures beyond the window looked up from their humble yet content existence and seen the cold figure out there?
Not quite. He’d inevitably left the deep and meaningful to her mother, who was in no mood for such pandering. This latest offense was yet another on the long list of insults. A new depth of weirdness beyond which her mother could handle. Both parents had left the room, taking the razor blade to stop “any more silliness”, and slamming the door behind them. If not for the embarrassment and awkwardness they’d locked inside with her, Samara would have been grateful for the alone time.
Living above the lounge, she’d heard them discuss the matter, muttering not quite loud enough to make out the words. The occasional raised voice sounded as a point was forced across.
Samara had started the tape just to drown them out, to distract herself with a tale of horror and carnage, where those that deserved it felt the pain, and she who was different found her place.
On screen, the female lead and soon to be romantic interest were fleeing down a dark alleyway, jumping over piles of trash and hiding behind dumpsters. In the far background, the lurching figure of Woe stepped into shot, limbs trembling in a seizure, her body metamorphosing.
Samara understood the suffering of the entity. The demon blossomed in the kill scenes, finally shedding its human skin and becoming something purer, something authentic. Its human form held a certain emotional weight onscreen, always in the grip of an internal struggle: the truth fighting from within, and the outside, forcing it into this conf
orming shape. Woe only killed in the retaliation of rejection.
Samara felt sorry for the creature.
It tried so hard to look like the people in the city, strove to act like them, sound like them, be one of them. Yet the alienist nature, a miasma of the strange, hung about her. In the film, the characters were either immediately disturbed or outright hostile the moment they set eyes on her. And then…was it easier for her to smile and continue the act, or to finally let go, reveal her veracity, no matter the bloody consequences?
The two leads pressed their backs against the grimy dumpster, holding their breaths, trying not to make a sound.
Woe had pursued them halfway down the alleyway; her dark eyes glinted in the light from the street, the only feature from the stalking, shadowed form. Did she hunt them for food? Sport? Samara believed differently. She’d seen it at high school: the unpopular girls, perhaps first years blessed with neither looks nor ability, following the older or more popular girls like lost little puppies.
Accept me, their faces pleaded. I’m human just like you. If you’d just give me time.
Please, accept me.
Woe chased the couple, just like the lost little girls at high school. But the popular, good looking kids, shitting themselves behind a dumpster, would never give her what she needed. They never do. Her difference hung about her like an aura, an almost physical barrier between the typical and atypical.
All refused to cross it; all paid the price.
Samara’s desk lamp cast a low golden glow across the room, the dark scene on her television almost ruined by the reflection. The ghostly image of herself, curled up in bed with streaks of thick mascara running down her wan cheeks, overlaid the drama in the alleyway. She failed to sink into the fantasy. Her own image anchored her to reality, a constant reminder of the trouble she found herself in, the yet unknown repercussions, the feeling of a lead ball in the pit of her stomach. She even ruined her favourite movie. Her own sense of disparity had spoiled her time to heal.
Samara sat up, ready to turn it all off. If one was forced to ponder all this, better to do it in the dark, to see nothing, rather than witness the ruin.
