Um. Rambly, murky and too short in my opinion. Concrit is welcome.
Disclaimer: Oh now, wouldn't that be just peachy?
Hate. It's too much for a body to bear.
So you tie in an extra for the count.
Sharing is caring.
Mam died early this morning and Anna hasn't left their room since then. It's why Nina retreats to the bottom of the manor garden, where the grass grows in walls high over her head when she lies down. She can pluck the dandelions as she likes, one decapitation at a time. After all, she's still a wee bairn in the eyes of whomever watches her, gods or likewise. Believable or not.
Maybe tomorrow will be the day. When she has to take that first step out of child-dom, the kingdom already having withered in degrees. From a dusky rose to the palest grey in the sky, so does adulthood dawn over her eyes and she will soon be blind to the wonders that she once took for granted with a gun in her hand.
Nina's twelve when Da got her the Smith & Wesson. It's his favorite model, thus so is hers. The wooden grip weighs light in her hand, warm in her cold palm. The pheasant drops from the sky with a bullet in its brain. Da doesn't smile but tells her that there'll be more blood next time and she ought to suck in her gut, take it in like a man. Nina learns the word for that later in school: oxymoron. Irony's second cousin once removed.
Even when the sky turns black from grey, she doesn't go back to the house. Anna will have cried her eyes out by then and Nina would have to contend with the remaining hollows staring back at her.
She's sorry Mam's gone. She's sorry about the jars of rouge and nail-varnish that shall gather dust in her empty room now that Da always sleeps in the study. She's sorry she's not sorrier.
She's sorry she's alone now, with a butter-soft sister and Da and his lapses. She's sorry that Mam couldn't have chosen a worse time to waste away while she had to wash animal blood off her hands. She's sorry for lost time, that Anna doesn't appreciate the last few hours she spent with her and not Da.
There are no more dandelions left for anyone else to tear apart and Nina wonders if this is poetic justice at its lowest.
When Anna turns thirteen and she fifteen, Nina notices that strange thing in Da's eye that makes him look more hangdog than human. That thing that gleams whenever Anna drops a plate or scalds herself when doing the washing-up. It goes out when her sister comes up to him and asks him if she can come with them on their 'hunting trip'.
"Of course not." Da says.
"Why?" Anna replies, thrusting the daggered glare into Nina's back and twisting it. "She gets to go all the time."
"She displays a knack for it. The sight of blood makes Anna sick."
Nina then realizes Da's talking to her, avoiding his youngest child, and nods in agreement. "Useless. She'd be in the way."
It's the easiest way to take his mind off her and Mam. Anna in third-person remains as such, another spoke in the wheel, ignored and ineffective. The flare in Da's hangdog eye will return sooner or later when her sister returns home from the town streets in black tights, a short skirt and Mam's favorite shade of lipstick. To take her mind off it, Nina will trap her and twist her arms into the tightest knot she can until Anna's make-up is ruined by tears and she can see the guileless child masquerading as a grown-up mannequin.
Anna is most ugly when she's like this. Broken and mashed into nothing, Nina squeezes any satisfaction she can get from the sight of Anna being Anna and not a reflection of her mother Da has to endure.
When Anna turns fifteen and she seventeen, Nina receives a stunning blow to the head for trying to beat her down.
From this time on, it's war.
Nina.
The dart hits its mark. Strategy-wise, Anna can't come up with anything better when they're at these games in the pub. She should be studying but Da's on another trip with…
There. Another one on target.
It's easier like this. Thinking of her sister as a spot on a board pierced through with a flick of her hands… is delightful, to say the least. Perhaps there is something in this thrill she's only imagined before. The urge tempts her to break a piece apart, anything really. Daisy heads, dandelion necks, a boy's heart, her sister's neck. Submerged alone in these thoughts, she can only descend lower down the whirlpool.
Anna knows there's a stronger word to describe how loud rejection sounds in her head or how it swiftly it knifes through her heart.
But hate doesn't quite cut it.
In the end, it's never really enough to stem the pain that erupts later.
Richard Williams is not man fond of anesthesia in most cases. But right now, he can't resist sneaking in the shot of whiskey into his tea before Nina realizes the sleight of hand she's been played with on the train. She takes her hers with a pinch of sugar and plenty of milk to numb herself because it's simply what he does. She was Daddy's Little Girl before he could proclaim her himself.
At times, he finds it hard not to worry about her, especially after a job like this. Their target was a man young enough to be his son, a journalist too close to a deadly secret their client didn't think needed to be uncovered so soon. It's usually the young 'uns in the movies that mask the catalyst of change in bitter old men like him. When it comes to real life, it's discomforting to realize that the smallest among them harbor the most dangerous threats. The seeds that supposedly hold the best potential reveal themselves as the cleverest of leeches, disguising their teeth in symbiotic shadowy smiles.
At least Nina rarely smiled. She wore no masks that he could see.
"You're improving greatly."
She nods, drinking in the praise with the pale tea. It substitutes better for the sugar. Oh, better than 'better'!
"I will see to it that the order I placed comes through soon enough. The new models come with an excellent recoil system and the viewfinders will suit your abilities."
"Thank you, Da."
When other fathers get their daughters cars and credit cards for their eighteenths, Richard commissions his a new rifle. He knows Nina too well to fault her tastes. They rhyme precisely with his from the steel in their eyes to the ice in their blood. If she had been a boy, tall, lean and fair, the continuation of his lineage would have been assured. Still, bygones were bygones. Nina's a woman in her prime. Always has been, ever since Rachel's death before she learnt how to become a proper one.
Richard never looks for traces of his wife in Nina. There aren't any and the blue eyes that always meet his are further proof of his bloodline. She is his, from the time he'd first picked her up as a baby to the words she hangs onto as they drip from his lips.
Anna's more of a mystery. His eyes, the color of his hair unbecoming on her in those awkward adolescent years. Clumsy, foolish, air-headed, her soft laughter filling in the space left by Rachel's until Nina silences her in one way or another. Innocent, hopelessly naïve like her mother had once been before he'd quieted her with his long absences and empty silences.
He'd met Rachel at the stile near the vicarage at Ballymore. She'd been on her way to a confession until she'd spotted the tall dark stranger standing silently at the wooden fence with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. From then on, she'd relapsed into her old sins, aided and abetted by him along the way. She'd trained herself in Aikido, moved to the isolated part of the Irish meadows, bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from crying out from the arrival of their first child, all just to prove that she could be strong enough for his affections.
And whether she's swallowing down the sobs caused by Nina's harsh words, pushing herself well into the morning to arrive at her sister's level or testing his limits by rebelling under his rules, Anna is inextricably bound to the same fate.
For reasons he can't define, Richard recollects that he has never bought either of his girls a toy for their birthdays. It shouldn't be deemed unforgivable since they have both become dolls in their own respects. Nina with her porcelain-perfect skin and unshakeable blue eyes that pin him to his guilt, Anna halfway through the transformation already.
He stifles a wince as the alcohol hits the spot. In a moment of vulnerability, he spares a thought for his youngest with the only time he can afford to with.
In a way, he has failed Rachel again. The first time had been in her hour of need when she was barely alive or dead. The second is now, again and again which he will repeat in many a tomorrow, whenever he lets Anna slide from his thoughts, from the corner of his heart which should have been reserved for her and watches her try to creep back in with teary eyes and a timid question she hasn't dared ask.
Like the whiskey, it's better that he keeps this a secret from Nina. Weakness is not amongst the qualities he has instilled in her. Whether or not she speaks of it, her father is hers alone and she is his. There can be no place for a stranded weed that attempts to grow within him, even if it is her sister. As he drifts into a light sleep, wheels chug beneath their cabin and in Nina's head.
She was born under a vengeful star.
Whilst the thunder roars and the whole world reels beneath its reign, Nina does not stop in her work to ponder this. Da had retired to his room earlier, leaving her to her own devices.
She moves quickly, in flashes, just like the lightening lighting the results of her efforts. When she's done, she sets the knife down by her side and waits for Anna to come home.
The door opens with a tired sigh and Anna all but falls into the darkened room. For a minute there, Nina's sure she can see her mother in her, in the gentle lips that curve into a secret smile when she thinks no one knows, in the peaceful spark that's glowing in her eyes. But that's the reason Da still looks at Anna in that way and she won't have any of that ever again.
A flash of light. Anna awakes from whatever dream that's fogging her mind. The thunder drowns out most of her scream.
Broken glass, the remains of jasmine and cherry-blossom perfume still scenting the air, is all that's left of Mam's favorite perfume. The sheets on her bed and the curtains, both in Mam's favorite shade of scarlet, are in shreds on the floor, torn under Nina's expert hands. In pride of place though, is the cherry on top. Mam's silk cerise dress in disintegrated patchwork on Anna's bed. It detracts from the splashes of red on the walls. Nina had thought the touch of rouge on the wallpaper a worthy finish.
Anna's torn in more ways than one. Tears of anger and pain mingle on her cheeks, smudging that misplaced make-up.
"You're not Mam, Anna. Never will be."
She's choking now, to Nina's delight. The fire is fuelled.
"You'll never be worth ten of the woman – "
Nina catches the hands that lunge at her throat before she can complete her taunt but Anna's not giving this round up so easily. She twists, getting one hand to break free and aims for the center of Nina's chest.
Hate. It's never too strong a word.
Her fist is stopped at the wrist inches away from its mark.
War. It's more than a game.
When Nina closes her own fingers around the fragile bone, snapping it, Anna wills the tears in and wills herself out from her body. The pain runs so white-hot that she feels nothing but merciless heat.
The tombstone reads that he was a beloved father and husband, nothing more. To 'be loved' was all that she'd ever wanted in the end. Anyone whose told you about families, siblings and bonds that destroy you know about those sad tales from the old folk songs sung to babes in their cradles over the years. They'll tell you about the cruel sister and the other she drowned in these parts.
Anna knows she's fortunate. Her heart knocks against her breast-bone, safe as can be.
Mam had once called her to her room for 'the talk'. The lads next door and the like. Never wear red or pink to preserve your dignity. Never tell a man your name lest you sound desperate when he asks you. Never lower your glance further down than the knee's length. Mam must have been a country girl in private. Da must have loved that girl. So why hadn't he loved her?
It's a bad day for a visit to a grave with the sun shining and all that. But what would Da care?
Anna brings no flowers, sheds no tears. Nina is nowhere in sight yet she feels her in the breeze's bite. Cold, sharp, unrelenting through layers of protection. It doesn't matter much to Anna, only that it confirms what she'd come to suspect long ago. Death is a circle which rhymes with a noose round a murderer's head and always ends at the beginning. Revenge killings follow the same rhythm that tragedy does in the end with the wrathful seeking the same for their kin's executioner and the mournful left to bury what's left.
She looks at it this way. Da is dead and so is the part of her that ever felt anything for him. Da is dead and so is her hate for him. Da breathes no more and neither will her love.
Like her sister says, she's just a weed with nothing left to live on.
But she can live past this. She can redirect the rest of whatever broken fragments she possesses. Sharp enough to draw more than blood, there is power in hate too strong to contain. Life's an instinct that wages war in itself for what is meant to be. Hate's a wound that festers when untouched and she does her best to pacify the beast clawing in her, craving its justice. Da survives in Nina, the part that despises her for the sickness she isn't.
To be sure, she shall crush her and their shared poison together in one last fell swoop. Hate's a waning battle they still keep going to ward off the ache that plagues the last few pieces of broken hearts.
And Anna realizes she is her father's daughter after all.
Caring is creepy, caring is loving.
Caring is tempting.
But Nina denies herself.
Anna doesn't cry at the funeral. She hadn't expected that to come clear on the close-up shot from the telescopic lens above the trigger. It could have been a mercy for them both to have willful spirited Anna, who loved too much in the wrong doses, fall lower than the soil on Da's grave. Nina can never allow herself to feel more than a pinch more of misery than the envy she feels for her sister's apathy.
When Da had taken the shot for her, she'd returned to her refuge in the grass to find that it was lost to her, just like her mirror's reflection in the wake of Mam's death. Where adulthood had once blissfully blinded her with illusions of bullet-holed courage gone wrong, she now sees the cowardice she'd displayed in hiding from the reaper's blows.
Caring is tempting.
But Nina blinds herself once more to the weakness in her blood, lost in her world where the only type of strength is sketched in massacres and body counts. It's a world she understands fully, one she knows she must venture through alone without even her most beloved one. In her world, what forged a coward's death could be fought over on her own terms.
Still – as she lowers her gun and lets her sister escape – Nina allows a moment of truth to penetrate.
When it comes to her Da's pride, she's conquered all she can take.
But Anna owns his heart.
So you tie in an extra for the count.
Yet it's never enough.