Spawn of Satan: A Cautionary Tale

by The Flying Breadstick

When you're dead, unbaptised, the daughter of Jack Sparrow, and have committed the grave sin of learning to bounce before you could walk, threatening to kick God's arse really isn't a good idea... [Part of How My Perfect Life Was Inverted.]

1. We Come Bearing Hot Water Bottles

Disclaimer: No profit is being made from the following work, much as I'd like to. Anything that you recognise very probably is someone else's, and no copyright infringement is intended; if anything they're merely complimentary references cunningly interwoven into my text and disguised with glasses and a false moustache. I own only my own warped, twisted version of the afterlife, and I won't hesitate to kill anybody who dares to copy it…

AN: At long last, here it is: the prologue to Pearl's time in the afterlife, and how she attempts to escape it… If you possess Christian sympathies and are rather sensitive, you may want to look away; if you possess Christian sympathies and are looking for something un-Christian to flame, you may also want to look away; if you are an Enlightened Buddhist, then what the hell are you doing with a computer anyway, and if you're an atheist, none of this would really matter to you.

Spawn of Satan

Part I: We Come Bearing Hot Water Bottles

Little Pearl was tired and dazed and very much confused, and looking all the more adorable because of it, what with her silky black hair fluttering carelessly about her shoulders and her blue eyes heavy-lidded from sleeplessness. She was uncertain of where she was, or what she was doing there, or how she came across the pinstriped (yes, pinstriped) hot water bottle she now clung tightly to her chest; all she knew was that there were a lot of people, many of whom were taller and older than she herself was, and that they were all clutching their own multi-coloured bottles whilst they milled about on what appeared to be a misty moor, as complete strangers inexplicably gathered upon a misty moor with no apparent reasoning or purpose tend to do. If she had been a little more alert, she would have been wondering how she had got there, and would have casually queried whether this was a sort of underground pagan sex cult she was unwittingly attending, for if it was, she would very much like to leave as soon as possible and go bouncing over to her Papa and have Si-Si coo and fawn over her, if you'll be so kind.

Mind you, it wasn't as if such behaviour towards Pearl's adorability was lacking:

"Oh, look at these little fingers!" a dark regal woman fussed, pulling and prodding at the pale slender digits. "Such small little fingernails! And such soft skin!" She, like all the other millers of the misty moor, had a water bottle, only it hung from her slender waist on a long silver chain of diamonds, the woman having had the common sense to slip the intricate metal through a slight loop at the top of the container. Pearl found herself mesmerised by the glittering diamonds, and had long ago taken to batting at the precious gems in a manner not unlike that of a newborn kitten. Had she been living, the woman would have been suspicious of the child, thinking the girl naught more than a pretty-faced thief, but now that she was dead, such material items had ceased to matter to her.

Smiling her dark, enigmatic smile, the lady bent down so that her face was at the child's level, and asked her kindly, "Do you want it, little angel?"

Pearl fluttered her thick lashes, shaking her head even as her hand reached out to clasp the chain tightly in her little fist. The lady laughed, and gently tugged the precious jewels from out of the girl's grasp the better to unhook and untangle it. "There you go," the woman said to her, winding the gems carefully about Pearl's slender neck and rearranging the girl's sinfully soft hair. "Oh my, but don't you make a pretty picture!"

Pearl lowered her head shyly and murmured a thank you, admiring the way the gems glittered and sparkled and made her feel pretty and dizzy and giddy with delight at how much prettier she must now look, whilst the lady tucked her own hot water bottle under her arm and smiled at the happy child.

"What's your name?" she purred as Pearl twirled the gems about her fingers.

The pirate's daughter stopped playing with her present to frown at this, before saying sorrowfully, "My Papa always said not to give my real name to strangers…"

"Well," the woman smiled, "My name is Lady Anne; and you are…?"

"Pearl," she murmured in her most shy yet adorable voice. "No Lady, just little Pearl…"

"Little Pearl," Lady Anne repeated. "Well, Little Pearl, it's very nice to meet you." And she offered the child a hand to shake, which Pearl bashfully accepted, causing Lady Anne's heart to swell with affection (just as Pearl had intended).

"I take it you've only recently arrived here?" Lady Anne questioned, placing a light but protective hand on Pearl's slender shoulder.

The little girl shook her head, and held up her blue water bottle. "What is this for?" she queried, and the Lady shrugged, her black eyes scanning the other lost souls.

"I'm not actually certain," she replied honestly, looking at her own emerald bottle. "All I can remember is—is the—" and she stopped, dark eyebrows furrowing. "Actually, I can't," she confessed. "I can't remember; I feel as though I've been here for centuries, and… Actually," she sighed, her black eyes suddenly wistful, "all I can remember is my darling Elizabeth's face."

"Elizabeth?" Pearl queried, curious. "Who's Elizabeth?"

Lady Anne looked at her and smiled. "My daughter," she informed her softly. "My only daughter; I named her Elizabeth, after her grandmother."

"Oh," Pearl managed to say, feeling deflated and vaguely miffed that Lady Anne hadn't forgotten about all other children the moment she had clapped her eyes on Pearl's sweet, pretty face. But then her eyes roved over her newly-acquired diamonds, and the smart of rejection was soon replaced by the more familiar feeling of being young and sweet and pretty enough to make fully-grown women in odd black dresses relinquish their diamonds without resorting to the degrading and gauche use of threats.

And so they continued, Pearl and her Lady Anne, their respective activities (giggling over diamonds for one, cooing over the giggler for the other) for quite some time, until it suddenly struck Pearl to query as to where they were and what was going on.

And it was here that Lady Anne's aristocratic face creased into a frown, her thin lips pursed. "Well…" she began, fumbling with her own hot water bottle as an odd expression of confusion stole across her intelligent face. "To be honest, Little Pearl, I—"

And then something rather extraordinary happened: for though Lady Anne's lips continued to move, no words issued forth, causing Pearl to crease her forehead in a frown before hurriedly straightening her face with a slight squeak for fear of premature wrinkling. Barely a second had passed before the frown stole across her face once more, thus rendering this action futile, for it was then that Pearl realised that her squeak was one of silence. And all around her, the entire inexplicably amassed hot water bottle bearing mob of the misty moor had also fallen silent; why, even the rustling of their clothing was soundless.

Pearl should know, for, in a childish bid to ascertain whether she had been somewhat deafened or no, she had taken to jumping up and down as loudly as she knew how and pulling at the clothing of others (though not Lady Anne, of course, for she was too regal and refined to be subjected to such treatment from a sweet little lowborn creature such as her, and she had given her a very pretty expensive present) and, upon nearing the very ledge overlooking the chasm of desperation, smacked them with her hot water bottle, which was the only purpose that she could see of having one. When these rather discourteous actions bore no auditory results, little Pearl then proceeded to cover up her sweet little ears and scream in deafened fear, for if little Pearl was deaf, then how could little Pearl be perfect? Pearl Sparrow was always perfect; that's why people loved her so.

Of course, Pearl really needn't have worried as greatly as she had (overreacting was one of her very few flaws), for at that moment, a clear, omnipresent female voice announced in a detached, civilised manner,

"Could all Enlightened Buddhists please make their way to Gate 57. That's all Enlightened Buddhists—to Gate 57."

Pearl paused, perfect little white hands still pressed against her perfect little white ears, and blinked her sweet blue eyes once, twice, thrice in confusion.

"Please have your boarding pass and passport ready for inspection; management would like to remind all customers that the unlawful possession of prohibited articles and substances will result in an immediate reversion to Samsara."

Pearl squeaked and jumped into Lady Anne's arms as there was a sudden barrage of rather English-sounding curses (surely Buddhists don't use the word 'bollocks' so sparingly?) followed by the throwing away of various items including but not limited to alcohol, tobacco, sovereign rings, baseball caps, hash, MP3 players, well-thumbed copies of the Kama Sutra, and a stuffed yellow duck that quacked whenever its midsection was forcefully squeezed. This lackadaisical discard of various materialistic items no decent Enlightened Buddhist would possess in the first place took all in all a grand total of forty-seven minutes, so that when the vaguely irritated but overall unruffled voice of the omnipresent female returned with a composed, "This is the final boarding call for the 172541681245G to Mahaparinirvana," followed by a snappish, "Get to it, you feckless celibates!" there was a sudden stampede of Enlightened Buddhists making their way across the misty moor, hot water bottles clutched tightly in their hands.

Pearl, of course, was naturally rather confused, and after clinging tightly to Lady Anne's slender shoulders for a few more moments, slid down to hesitantly approach one of the many piles of prohibited articles left behind by the Enlightened Buddhists being perused by the remainder of the hot water bottle bearing throng. She found herself oddly drawn to the talking duck, which of course, was a late twentieth, early twenty-first century creation, but then again, the benefit of living (and the term 'living' is used quite loosely) in the afterlife was that they were more or less three centuries ahead of the current time. She also picked up one of the remaining MP3 players (although of course she did not know that this was the name of the item, nor the purpose of it), which were apparently a sought-after item by the scavengers, small and slender and a deep purple in colour, and after examining it closely for several minutes and batting childishly at the dangling black earphones, proceeded to bite into it, and failed, for Pearl's strong little white teeth were unable to penetrate the thick shell of mass-produced plastic, a result which caused her to frown and turn to Lady Anne, who candidly confessed that she herself did not know what to do with the lump, but suggested that it may be a form of jewellery.

"It's rather ungainly, don't you think?" Pearl asked, trying to slip the odd object about her neck. Of course the MP3, being such as it was, suffered greatly from that which was the curse of all portable music-playing devices, and that was the dreaded bane of tangled earphones.

Now Pearl, being the sweet bouncy pouting pirate's daughter that she was, should of course be expected to undo knots and tangles with relative ease; however, if we could pause for a moment to reflect on a seemingly innocuous but crucial aspect of little Pearl Sparrow's character, using the metaphor of knots, we could easily conclude that little Pearl, sweet impish little creature that she was, whilst skilled at creating a fantastically wide range of complicated and elaborate tangles, was quite unable to untangle them again, which could clearly be seen in Pearl's epic struggle with the MP3 player that mocked her so with its seemingly matted wires; and with this rather blatant character insight concluded, the author now breathes a sigh of relief, for she has successfully justified the presence of MP3 players in the eighteenth century afterlife in less than a page on Microsoft Word, and in doing so, has also established a firm yet shaky ground for further modern references to occur later on.

(Of course, the author could also have simply written "The afterlife is three centuries ahead of the current time" and left it at that, but it would have been far less eloquent and not have taken up nearly as much room, which would surely prompt a lazily browsing lecturer to question as to what, exactly, the author was doing that was far more interesting than an essay on the themes of Kate Chopin's tedious and unimaginative magnum opus The Awakening.)

But to return to the narrative:

"Lady Anne; oh Lady Anne," little Pearl lamented, shaking the current bane of her existence ruefully.

The dark lady took pity on the sweet, blue-eyed creature, and carefully plucked the object out of her sweet white hands. They spent several minutes in companionable silence, in which maternal Lady Anne set about elegantly attacking the knots, whilst Pearl picked up the inanely grinning duck and, clutching it tightly to her chest, sat at Lady Anne's feet with a calculated expression of lovable bewilderment, the occasional squawking of the duck being the only betrayal of her anxiety.

"Lady Anne," Pearl said after fifteen minutes or so had passed, "exactly how long have you been here—wherever here is?"

"Oh, Little Pearl," Lady Anne sighed, the black wires having been mostly straightened, with only a handful of entangled snares left to correct. "That I do not know; I feel as though I have been here for nigh two centuries." Her eyes, black and beautiful, looked down at the child, and Pearl was touched by the soft melancholy she saw there.

"So—So how long am I to stay here, then? Until—Until whatever comes next?"

Lady Anne did not reply—how could she? She herself did not know—and reached out to carefully stroke Pearl's silky black hair in a comforting gesture. In response, Pearl allowed her big blue eyes to slip closed as she leaned into the lady's hand, squeezing her big yellow duck and earning an indignant quack for all her troubles.

---

It did not take long for Pearl to see why Lady Anne was unable to keep track of her time at the place on the misty moor: there was no day, there was no night, there wasn't even the hint of a playful breeze; only a vast expanse of overcast skies streaked in grey, and a mild climate that neither warmed nor cooled Pearl's delicate skin, which itself had been born into the questionable embrace of the Caribbean sun. This still, perpetual, unchanging world unsettled little Pearl, who attempted to distract herself from her fears by talking rather animatedly with Lady Anne, and listening intently to what the woman herself had to say.

Lady Anne, Pearl had decided, was rather beautiful; true, her skin was darker than was fashionable, her lips perhaps a little thin and pale, and her long black hair hanging straight about her stiff black bodice in inadvertent rebellion to the flowing ringlets that were so in vogue (the lady having long ago abandoned her then-fashionable French hood). She was also slimmer than most, with a relatively flat chest despite being a mother, and Pearl could find no evidence of hips beneath that long black skirt; only a long straight waist that at some point ended at the beginning of legs. And yet, despite these somewhat boyish and supposedly unattractive defects, there was something about her—the poise with which she commanded herself, her intelligence, burning and sparkling like unquenchable flames—that Pearl found absolutely riveting.

It reminded her a bit of her Si-Si; of course, Pearl's Si-Si was an extremely attractive woman, and she knew it well, but having spent time with both Lady Anne and, seemingly long ago, her own Si-Si, Pearl was led to conclude that the two were rather alike, albeit in exceptionally different ways: Lady Anne was not conventionally attractive, yet could hold one in thrall, whilst Si-Si, whose own initial appearance was one of a woman whose beauty was matched only by her arrogance and superficiality, was somehow able to charm those around her to see her as more than a pretty, petty whore. And they were both very intelligent and highly-educated, in spite of their sex, which, considering Pearl's own precocity, made them all the more endearing to her sweet little heart.

Currently, Lady Anne was telling little Pearl tales of little brown-eyed, golden-haired, toddler-aged Elizabeth, and wondering where she was now, and what she looked like, and how old was she, and was she married, and how did her father treat her now that she, Lady Anne, was here, wherever here was?

Pearl had reached out with a delicate little hand to assure her newfound mother figure that her "darling little Princess Elizabeth" was quite all right, and that she was, more likely than not, engaged to a handsome, strapping manual labourer whilst 'secretly' lusting after a dark criminal figure of ambiguous identity, and that this little love triangle was all taking place amidst adventures of the most exciting and spellbinding nature before ultimately culminating in a life or death scenario which resulted in "Princess Elizabeth" choosing the handsome strapping manual labourer whilst leaving her own feelings towards the dark criminal figure as hazy and ambivalent as ever, thus spurning a great many tales and yarns of her actually preferring the ambiguous criminal figure and choosing him either before or after a night of uncontrollable passion which more often than not concluded with her bearing him the first of many children.

"…Or she could have just tossed a coin," Pearl concluded sweetly, which caused Lady Anne's smile, which had been a strong, constant presence upon her attractive face throughout Pearl's longwinded speech, to split into delighted laughter.

"Oh my! But what a delightful imagination you have!" she cried, clapping her hands in delight. She smiled fondly at the child, and, with some hesitancy, leaned closer to place a kiss on the girl's smooth forehead.

This sweet, intimate moment was smothered by the sudden spell of silence that stealthily crept across the misty moor, much like it had done long ago, and the invisible woman's polite, monotonous voice once again echoed across the sky,

"Could all English Christians and atheists please make their way to Gate 24. English Christians and atheists to Gate 24, please."

Lady Anne stiffened and clung tightly to Pearl, who in her turn clung tightly to her newfound toy duck, which gave an annoying quack.

"Oh," Lady Anne whispered, stroking Pearl's arm to soothe her own fears. "Oh, dear me; it's finally happening."

"What is?" Pearl asked fearfully, not at all liking the apprehensive timbre of Lady Anne's voice. "Lady Anne, what is happening? Is it bad?"

"What I've been waiting for," Lady Anne told the child, stroking the girl's soft, silky hair. "What we've been waiting for."

"But Lady Anne, please do tell me—what is that?"

Lady Anne looked down at confused little Pearl, and smiled comfortingly.

"That I do not know," she confessed, gently pushing Pearl away from her and urging the child to stand. "But I am certain that all will be well."

She took the child's hand and carefully led her away, following in the footsteps of the other people that were moving in a steady, certain direction, just as the omnipresent female announced,

"Please have your boarding pass and passport ready for inspection; management would like to remind all customers that the unlawful possession of prohibited articles and substances will result in imminent damnation regardless of whether you have led a life of sin or no, because hey, when it comes to Christianity, isn't that ultimately the bottom line?"

Little Pearl blinked and frowned and looked up at her older companion in pretty-faced confusion. "Lady Anne," she queried most politely, "oh Lady Anne; who is that, and why does she keep making such horrible anti-religious comments?"

Lady Anne smiled softly down at the adorably curious child and replied that, like so many of Little Pearl's big questions, she did not know the answer, or she would have happily answered them all, and in great detail with numerous diagrams and illustrations too.

"But just hold on to my hand, and I assure you that all will be all right."

"Do you promise?"

The pair did not cease their steps, though their pace did slow slightly, and Lady Anne turned to look down at Pearl's anxious blue eyes, her expression hesitant.

"I…" she began, then stopped. "Oh, Little Pearl, if I could I would, but as it is I can't so I shan't."

Pearl scowled at this, and tightened her hold on both her duck (which quacked in response) and hot water bottle whilst with the other she clutched Lady Anne's hand.

Gate 24 loomed suddenly before them, a tall, iron-cast structure that in the swirling mist and grey light looked vaguely sinister. The gate must have had a cunningly-disguised chimney, of a sort, for above the tall, clean, interwoven metalwork, the words Gate Twenty-Four arched and twisted like smoky dragons, sometimes darkening, sometimes lightening, but ever twisting and turning and writhing like a ghostly trinity of airborne snakes.

Pearl hated snakes; she stopped in her tracks and clutched tightly to Lady Anne's hand, shaking her head adamantly.

"Lady Anne! Lady Anne!" she cried in alarm, for, being the small sweet slender creature little Pearl irrevocably was, the child found that, no matter how hard she tried, she could not root herself into the soft yet springy grass beneath her feet, and through a combined effort of Lady Anne's pulling and the crowd's pushing, was swept away, swept forward, faster, faster, faster as the pace of the English souls increased.

"Pearl has a bad feeling about this!" was her final squeak of panic before she was forced pass the gate.

It slammed behind her with a clang of finality that made her start, clutching tightly all the while to the stuffed duck, which offered a sort of half-hearted quack of consolation.

And suddenly, Pearl Sparrow was moved to tears, and threw herself at Lady Anne's feet, weeping bitterly into the fine black skirt.

There's no going back, she thought wildly, even though she did not know what or where back was. There's no going back, there's no going back, there's no going back…

And I want to go back. I don't know what or where it is, but I don't like it here!

I want my Papa; I want my Si-Si; I want my Mama.

I want to go back.

She did not know it, but she had been scooped up into Lady Anne's arms once more, and was being patted, and comforted, and loved… by a complete stranger. This odd strange woman who little Pearl had never set eyes upon before was more affectionate than her own Papa was, and it was this single thought, more than anything else, that drove her to the edge of despair.

And then suddenly, she was being pried out of Lady Anne's arms and into those of another woman, and the girl was far too distraught by her own loveless hopelessness to protest, or even wonder what became of her newfound friend.

Waves upon waves upon waves of desolation tore at her heart as steadily and continuously as her papa's beloved sea broke upon the sandy beaches and jagged rocks of all the world's shorelines as everything terrible that had ever happened to her, her very life, flashed before her eyes: Being born the unwanted bastard daughter of a pirate and a whore; locked away in another room, in some cases a closet, when that same whore entertained her clients, whilst the pirate's own interest and affection in her was merely one of perfunctory obligation; her mother being struck unconscious and left to die for want of a shilling when she was barely four; being suddenly uprooted soon after and told to stay out of sight as her mother made the clearly painful decision of returning to the brothel she had run away from as a teenager; her papa when he had found out what his lover had done, and the nights of screaming and shouting that had followed…

But it wasn't just all of these terrible events that had happened to her that made her feel so unhappy and desolate, oh no; it was also her, little Pearl, that made her upset. She was born a bastard ('natural daughter' would have been the polite term, but Pearl had not grown up amongst polite people), and had not been baptised, had not been christened, had not been taken down in the registry of her parish… And she'd been a terrible, spoilt, self-centred little girl, and a terrible daughter; she had never truly honoured her mother or her father whilst she still had the chance—why, if anything, she went to great lengths to tease and mock them both! And her taste in company certainly wasn't very good either, because the first real friend that she had ever had was Si-Si, and that friendship had swiftly morphed into a bond of unconditional love and affection shared between that of a mother and child, and Si-Si herself had been a cheap, good-for-nothing whore, and she was such a horrible, selfish child in her life who not once had attempted to rectify her atheism, and—

Wait a minute, Pearl thought, frowning suddenly as she clung to the faceless, nameless woman's shoulders. Why would I ever wish to rectify my atheism? Religion has never played an important role in my life. And why am I getting so upset about what had occurred and subsequently been happily resolved many years ago? My parents love me, I know they do; it was only when I told them that I knew how unhappy they truly were with another, and how I would rather they go their separate ways than sacrifice their own personal happiness for mine that they finally ended their relationship. And whilst Si-Si is a whore, there's actually so much more to her than an occupational title, and I love her regardless of how she earns her coin, and I know Papa does too, even if he doesn't want to admit it. Why am I suddenly so fixated on her source of income? Papa is a pirate captain, which is far, far worse than being a prostitute, and yet I did not even question him. Why am I thinking like this? I never think like this.

And why oh why oh why, she thought, now fuming slightly, did I start to call myself a horrible little girl, when everybody—particularly me myself—knows that I am the cutest, sweetest, smallest, bounciest, most irresistible creature to have ever been created in the entire history of the world?

And then she began to struggle, and bite, and kick, and hiss at her captor, hitting the woman multiple times over the head with the hot water bottle, and occasionally, the duck, which emitted a satisfactory quack of approving encouragement whenever she struck particularly hard.

When fifteen minutes of this yielded no result, she lowered her arms, thrust out her chin, widened her big blue eyes, and pouted.

The woman, a delicate redhead, cooed and immediately set her down on the ground, where she proceeded to gush, "Oh, what an adorable little child!"

It seemed that not even an angel—for that, Pearl suspected, was what the woman in white was—could resist Pearl's Potent Pout of Disarmament: She could've stopped wars and saved thousands and thousands and thousands of lives simply by walking onto the battlefield with that Pout of hers. Pearl smirked and proceeded to feel very smug with herself.

"Oh, honestly, Dorothy," a man in white sighed, materialising suddenly into the room—the last time Pearl had checked, she had been on a grey, overcast moor, having been locked in by a gate self-labelled as Twenty-Four, but she supposed that in the afterlife, nothing made sense, and time was not linear, and what she had taken for everyday normalcy should not have been expected to abound here.

"All you had to do," the man was saying to his kind-hearted, redheaded colleague, "was hold on to her long enough for the Almighty to eradicate her free will and so deem her fit to enter heaven. That was it!"

"I'm sorry, Gabriel!" Dorothy cried, wringing her hands in despair. "But she—her eyes and—and her lips, they—together, they—I'm sorry, but I honestly don't know what came over me!"

The man was silent for a moment, looking intently at the flustered, agitated Dorothy. Then, slowly, he turned towards little Pearl, who was now clinging more tightly onto her duck than ever, and inadvertently quacking as a result.

"Might I see your boarding pass?"

Pearl blinked at this. "My… My boarding pass?" she parroted, flustered.

"Your hot water bottle."

"Oh! Why, yes—yes, of course you may." And she proceeded to hand over the container, watching as Gabriel unscrewed it and pulled out a long white sheet of paper, studying the writing on it meticulously.

"I didn't know that that was what was in there," she commented uneasily, but he ignored her, furrowing his golden brow and pursing his lips in puzzlement.

"Interesting," he said to himself, releasing the page, which curled back into the pinstriped hot water bottle of its own accord. He then pulled out another page, just as thin, just as white, but at least twice as long, looking carefully over it before glancing at Pearl, who shifted and squeezed her duck once more.

"Could you come here, please? I need to verify your identity."

Still clinging tightly to her big yellow duck, Pearl reluctantly came trotting over, where she was instructed to hold out first one hand, then the other, to open and close her mouth several times, like a fish, and then to widen, narrow, and close her eyes before blinking them several times in rapid succession. This last action inspired the comment of "Dorothy, you're right, that is quite cute," before Gabriel straightened once more and said in a firm, businesslike tone,

"If I was to tell you that merely several moments ago, our Lord Almighty God was invading and attempting to… alter your mind, what would you—bearing in mind that He is listening as we speak—have to say to Him?"

Pearl blinked, confused, before looking up into the perpetual heavens (for though they were indeed inside and in a room, this was a room with no ceiling, the Purgatorial Construction Workers' Union having been on strike for the past three centuries) smirked, and lowered her gaze to look Gabriel directly in the eye.

"Well," Pearl began, in her sweetest, most sugary voice, "if I was to talk with your Almighty God, I cannot think of much to say, except to ask him why the world is the way it is, and why is there so much suffering, and why did he permit the Original Sin to occur, and what did I do to lead such a terrible life, really, because I honestly don't believe that I've done anything wrong, Mr. Gabriel, sir—and don't give me that, 'It is the will of God, now eat your potatoes' excuse.

"And—And—And—And I would also… request of him to please not go into my mind and play with it again, for if He does, then I can assure you that, even if I was damned to the deepest circle of Hell itself (not that I will be, seeing how I'm so terribly sweet and bouncy and lovable), I would climb my way up to Heaven, slip through the gates, knock on His front door, and all so that I could put my sweet little foot up His omnipresent arse, not only for being such a meddlesome git, but also because he did absolutely nothing but stand idly by when the concept of taxation first formed in the human mind; for if taxes had never been created, I'm sure my Mama's Mama wouldn't have had to sell my Mama into a brothel, you see."

This speech would have indubitably been infinitely more offensive had it been voiced by anyone other than Pearl; and even so, the misleadingly saccharine tone did nothing to disguise the hateful, almost playful venom beneath.

The atmosphere in the room seemed to change then, becoming hot and stifling rather than mild and barely perceptible, and it was in these conditions that the three of them found themselves standing there for an eternity; not a noise made, not a breath released, nothing but the frozen, fickle silence between the unlikely trio.

"So it's true then," Gabriel said eventually, his eyes hard as he lowered his gaze to the page. "The First Daughter of Pleasure has at last return."

"Oh Father, help us," Dorothy whispered, stumbling suddenly back, and Pearl frowned at the palpable fear that seemed to pulse from every inch of the female angel, confused and more than a little taken aback.

"Gabriel…" Dorothy murmured, her voice low and fragile. "Gabriel, he's here… The… The Devil…"

"The Devil cannot be here!" Gabriel snapped, rounding on her in annoyance. "He and His Wife are attending the Almighty's Annual Tea Party! Get a hold of yourself, Dorothy."

"I didn't mean… Him," Dorothy continued. "I meant… him. The Devil's Henchman. He's behind both you and the Daughter."

An arctic wind stole up of Pearl's spine, and she shivered, clinging further onto the duck, which released a quack of panic: As though it had been a pre-arranged signal, both Gabriel and Dorothy melted into thin air, leaving little Pearl all alone in the clean white room, with only the… Devil's Henchman… for company.

Pearl Sparrow, of course, was still as frozen as ever, her heart having long ago stopped beating out of an overwhelming fear for her wellbeing. Satan's henchman: good God, what horrifying monster could be lurking behind her that so frightened the two angels that they had rather flee like cowards than stand and fight?

Papa once told me that he made a deal with the Devil, she thought to herself, terrified that she wasn't remembering to breathe. But he never told me what it was; he never told me whether it had ever been settled.

Perhaps that's the reason why whatever… thing is behind me is doing here: Perhaps that's why I couldn't go straight to Heaven; the Devil's called in his debt, and Papa refused to pay it, so… so…

So he came after me instead.

And it was only then that little Pearl truly began to feel afraid.

She had never believed in Heaven or Hell or immortal souls and eternal damnation; oh, she'd grown up with the Christian teachings and mythology all around her, of course, as most colonial children of her day and age did… But whilst other children accepted the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit with a cold, unquestioning solemnity, Pearl would raise her hand and squeak questions of exactly what was Original Sin, and how could it be that it was 'inherited' but all other sins were not, and why did the Devil choose a serpent, and why was it the woman and not the man that had been tempted, and if man was stronger and morally superior to woman, then why was he so easily swayed by his wife, because that certainly didn't sound like something a natural leader would allow himself to do, and was the eating of the forbidden fruit really as terrible as it seemed, for how stupid—sorry, 'innocent'—could Adam and his wife have been to not have realised they'd been frolicking naked since the dawn of time, and could she please go to the toilet? (Not that Pearl was speaking from personal experience or anything.)

Suddenly, Pearl wished that she had been more Christian in her life; her Papa, she remembered, had never seemed very interested in the topic of religion, and little Pearl, in a bid to mimic her Papa's casual atheism, had taken it a little too far, as children were wont to do, and now she was going to burn in Hell, Christian Hell, because of it, and it was all because she was secretly hoping it would impress her Papa, but it hadn't impressed her Papa, and now her eternal damnation would be for naught.

The slow, lazy footsteps approaching her were what made her spring into action; with a high-pitched battle cry bordering upon a scream of fear, she had hurled herself forward, moving only two feet before tripping on her long blue skirt, the big yellow duck being the only item that broke her fall.

She didn't stay lying there, though; she could hear him, feel him coming closer, closer, closer with those slow, mocking steps, and she knew—oh, how she knew!—that the henchman was only about four feet—perhaps less—away. Steeling herself, her entire body shaking in a mixture of fear and repressed sobs, she clumsily pushed herself upwards, forcing her dissenting arms to support herself, before slowly, carefully, apprehensively turning to look up at him.

What she saw—or rather, who she saw, standing there, bold and assured and utterly unashamed, made her mouth drop open in shock.

Oh my God: H-How is that possible?

And all little Pearl could do was stare, and stare, and stare, whilst the man, the surprisingly, unbelievably familiar man, stared back.

"F…" she began, and stopped with a slight frown. "F… F… Fa… Fa… Father… Father…"

The man cocked his head to the side to indicate his rapt attention, and it was this action that finally steeled her to say aloud his full name.

"Father Dickinson?"

The man nodded vigorously in confirmation of his identity—as if she needed it!

"Y-You… You're… You're Satan's henchman?"

Father Dickinson merely raised and lowered his shoulders in a shrug of nonchalance.

"It's always the ones you least suspect."

TBC

AN: As a last minute note, you may or may not have noticed, but in the past week/fortnight something happened to the email alerts system; the site says that they're working now, but I though that, in case you didn't get an author's alert or whatever, it's only fair to tell you that chapter 2 of How My Perfect Life Was Inverted II is now up, and has been for quite some time now, so if you've not yet read it, and are interested, go check it out. I've also uploaded this yesterday, but for some reason the site hates me—or my computer—and deleted it, so I'm putting it up again, where hopefully it'll STAY.