A/N — Written for HH themed (revealing a secret) with the prompt drawing. The lyrics and title are from the song Black Sheep by Gin Wigmore.
This is loosely inspired by the Omen, so consider yourself warned :P This didn't go entirely as planned, but I'm a little pressed for time.
[2500]
Make me mad, I'm not here to please
Paint me in a corner but my colour comes back
Once you go black, you never go back
…oOo…
Once upon a time, there was a Mummy and a Daddy and two little girls. They had a kitty, too, but the kitty was mean. It hissed and scratched and wasn't very nice to the littlest little girl.
.oOo.
She's playing with the kitty, running her small fingers through the soft fur on its back. Bits of fur stick to her fingers — Mummy had said it was shedding — and she shakes her hand in an attempt to dislodge some. It doesn't work.
She wipes her hand on the carpet instead.
"What're you doing, Lucy?" Mummy asks. She's helping Molly with a puzzle.
"Nothing, Mummy," Lucy says, grinning widely at Mummy. Molly doesn't look up but Lucy doesn't mind; Molly's boring when she's like this anyway.
She goes back to wiping her hand on the floor — it's mostly working, but a few stubborn pieces still cling to her sweaty palm.
The kitty is watching her, purring softly. She reaches up to stroke it again and even more fur sticks to her hands, pieces even floating in the air around the kitty. Lucy sneezes.
"Bleth you," Molly says cheerfully, her tongue poking through her missing front teeth. Lucy ignores her.
She reaches for the kitty again. It's stopped purring and is now watching her with wide eyes, crouching low and ears back. She frowns, wondering at the change. As she reaches forward again, the kitty hisses. Lucy glares, hissing back as best she can, and when it tries to run she uses both hands to pin it to the floor.
The kitty stills instantly, waiting. Its tail flicks.
Lucy buries her fingers in its fur and pulls. The cat yowls and Mummy runs over, batting Lucy's hands away. It disappears through the window, leaving Lucy with two fistfuls of fur. Molly starts to cry.
"Lucy, you mustn't treat animals like that!" Mummy scolds. Angry tears form in Lucy's eyes.
"The kitty was mean," she snaps. "It's hot, Mummy, and the kitty was mean."
"No, Lucy, we don't do that."
"But you said —"
"That is not how we treat animals," Mummy repeats and Lucy stops arguing; Mummy doesn't understand.
But Daddy does.
Mummy calls him home from work early and he's walking through the front door not twenty minutes later.
He picks a still crying Molly up and kisses Lucy on the top of her head. "What's wrong?" he asks, turning to Mummy.
"She —" Mummy points an accusing finger at Lucy "— was torturing the cat!" Daddy looks at Lucy.
"Hi, Daddy," she says, smiling brightly. "Look!" She holds up the fur she's still clutching. Mostly, she's still holding it because it's stuck to her palms, but the fur feels nicer when it's not attached to the kitty with it's claws and teeth and hissing.
Daddy sighs. "What did you do, Lucy?"
"Mummy said the kitty was hot," Lucy says, deciding that it's now time to brush the fur off her hands. She concentrates on that, missing the annoyed look Mummy shoots her.
"No I didn't!" Mummy says.
"Kittythedding," Molly says cheerfully, tears forgotten. "Cauth ith hot."
Daddy took a deep breath. "You — you told them about shedding?"
"They asked why its fur was coming out."
"And you told them …" Daddy trails off.
Mummy opens and closes her mouth. Lucy giggles, reminded of the fish they have in her classroom. Daddy sighs again.
"Lucy —"
"I was helping," she says, smiling widely. It's that smile Mummy doesn't like — too many teeth and not enough up-turn of her lips — but Daddy always thinks it's funny.
"Lucy," he says again, and she frowns. Daddy isn't laughing. "You can't treat animals like that."
Her chin quivers. "That's what Mummy said."
"Well, Mummy's right."
"But —"
"I know you only wanted to help," he says, putting Molly down and crouching in front of Lucy, "but you hurt the kitty." Lucy sniffs loudly, more angry and embarrassed than upset. "I know it was an accident Lucy, but you need to be more careful." Lucy nods, and reaches up her arms so Daddy will pick her up. He does, and she buries her head in the crook of his neck, thinking.
(Later, when the kitty disappears, Daddy will help Molly and Lucy make MISSING posters and stick them up on lampposts and trees using Granddad's stapler. No one will answer.)
.oOo.
So the littlest little girl made it so the kitty couldn't bite and scratch and hiss. But that made the bigger little girl sad, so the littlest little girl decided to do something nice.
.oOo.
Mummy yells at Lucy whenever she sits too close to the big fan, so Daddy gave her a hand-held one before he left for work. It doesn't do the voices, but it's bright orange and the spinning part is green. Lucy doesn't like green, but she likes it with the orange.
She holds it closer to her face, letting the spinning part brush against her lips. The blades are made of a soft plastic that bends and slows the spinning when it touches her. It tickles.
"Molly," she calls, standing. Today, Mummy and Molly are reading a book about a dragon and a princess. Lucy was supposed to be listening, but her fan is more fun.
"Sit down, Lucy," Mummy says. "Listen to the story." Lucy sits down again, but the story is still boring so she runs the blades of her fan across the carpet. It leaves a line of disturbed fabric.
"Molly," Mummy says, "keep reading to Lucy while I make lunch." Lucy doesn't know how long it's been, but she has a drawing of a house on the carpet now. She is playing out front with Daddy — they're square, though, because she hadn't been able to draw a circle properly — and Molly is in her room. Mummy is hovering above the house with the kitty.
Molly reads slowly and stumbles over the words. Lucy quickly grows frustrated. It's boring and Molly sounds to serious to be having fun, so she must think so too.
"Look, Molly," she says, holding out her fan.
"There's a big one over there," Molly says, pointing.
"This one's better," Lucy says, crawling over to Molly — a little unsteadily because one hand is still clutching her fan — and pulls herself up onto the sofa beside her sister. "See, look." Lucy holds the fan out for her sister, and as Molly leans closer her hair gets caught up in the spinning blades. Molly shrieks and Lucy shuffles closer, keeping a firm grip on her fan.
It's only when Mummy comes running through that Lucy sits back, taking her fan with her.
The noise Molly makes sounds almost exactly like the one the kitty made the other week, but Lucy would be much more interested in that if Molly hadn't broken her fan.
There's hair blocking the blades so they can't spin anymore; the brown is getting in the way of the pretty orange and she doesn't like the way the hair feels against her fingers. The fan isn't fun anymore, and she regrets trying to share it with Molly. But …
There's an almost perfect circle on Molly's head where her hair used to be, and a few spots of blood bead at the surface of her scalp. Mummy seems really upset, and when Lucy reaches out to touch it Mummy quickly slaps her hand away.
Mummy hugs Molly as she cries, and Lucy is left with only her ruined fan and the book she doesn't know how to read.
She can hear Mummy on the phone to Daddy — "That girl's evil! She attacked her sister!" — in the kitchen, so Lucy decides to try fixing her fan herself. She can't remember if it's on or off, so she's very careful when she pulls out the strands of hair.
Mummy storms back into the room, Molly still crying in the kitchen, and grabs Lucy's fan.
"You —" she says, waving an accusing finger "— are not getting this back." Lucy stays quiet, breathing deeply, glaring at the closed door to the kitchen.
(Lucy will only cry tears of anger and frustration when Mummy tells Daddy she's thrown Lucy's fan out. But those will quickly fade into a quiet rage.)
.oOo.
But that didn't go so well. The littlest little girl was told she was mean for sharing and that she should stay away from her sister. The littlest little girl didn't like that because she loved her sister very much.
.oOo.
Lucy sits by the radiator, dropping her crayons behind it one at a time. The radiator's not on, so they don't melt like she wants them to, but the weather's hot so she hopes they might do so on their own eventually. If not, she can always pull them back out from underneath later.
"Lucy," Daddy says, "stop that." Lucy looks up at him. "You're making a mess."
"Sorry, Daddy." Lucy smiles sweetly — Mummy calls it sickeningly sweet, but Daddy likes it. Lucy scoops her crayons out from under the radiator — it helps to have small hands sometimes — and drops them carelessly into the plastic box. "All done," she announces loudly. A lot of the crayons had missed the box, but Daddy doesn't seem to mind.
He picks Lucy up and carries her upstairs.
"What're you doing?" Mummy asks.
"Hello," Lucy says, swinging her legs on either side of Daddy.
"I'm giving Molly a bath, Percy," Mummy snaps, ignoring Lucy. Lucy stifles a giggle; it's always funny when Mummy and Daddy get their names wrong.
"Well," he sets Lucy down on the bathroom floor, "they can share." Mummy gives Daddy the look that she normally gets when Lucy decides she only wants the insides of her sandwiches, but Daddy ignores it. Lucy usually does too, because she doesn't really like bread.
"Get in the bath, Lucy," Daddy says, but he's looking at Mummy. Lucy puts a hand on the edge of the tub. "Take your clothes off first, please." Lucy does as she's told — now is not the time for being silly, especially when Molly has the plastic tea-set in the bath with her. Lucy's favourite is the bright red teapot; it's Molly's favourite, too, but Molly will play with the yellow milk jug if Lucy asks enough.
"Percy," Mummy whispers as Lucy is slipping into the bath, having left her clothes in a messy pile on the floor, "why can't she wait?"
"I'd be careful, Audrey," Daddy says; he sounds annoyed, but Daddy rarely gets annoyed. "It's starting to sound like you don't like your own daughter."
Mummy glances at Lucy, who smiles with all her teeth and offers her a green teacup filled with soapy water. Mummy doesn't take it. "I love my children," she says, but there's something about the way she says it that sounds a little forced.
"Not this again," Daddy snaps.
"Not what again, Percy?" Mummy says. "It's as if you don't believe me. I know —"
"Not in front of the girls," Daddy says and Mummy falls silent.
Lucy hands the teacup to Molly instead, who — "Molly no!" — takes a large gulp of the warm water.
Mummy lifts Molly out of the bath, wrapping her in a big fluffy towel, and leaves Lucy alone with Daddy.
(Mummy will decide that night that Lucy is old enough to have her own room, and Daddy will buy Lucy new furniture and let her decorate how she wants. It will stop being fun when Lucy realises that she will be having her own room without Molly.)
.oOo.
Because the mummy didn't like her, she wasn't allowed to see her sister a lot. But that was okay, because the littlest little girl was very very clever. So she came up with a plan.
.oOo.
"Goodnight, Lucy," Daddy says, kissing her forehead and making sure her favourite toy — a stuffed puppy — is safely in her arms.
"Goodnight Daddy," she says. Daddy turns on the lamp next to her bed. "Where's Mummy," she asks.
"Mummy's … Mummy's tired," Daddy says. "She's taking a nap on the sofa."
"Oh, okay. Goodnight, Daddy," Lucy repeats.
"Goodnight." Daddy turns the overhead light off, so the room is only lit by the soft glow of her lamp. It used to turn and play music, but Lucy had tried to take it apart one time and Daddy hadn't been able to fix the sound. She thinks he might have been lying, but she hadn't liked the song anyway.
Lucy waits until Daddy pulls the door to and his footsteps have receded down the corridor before turning off her lamp. She can't sleep in the dark.
She draws her knees up to her chest, clutching Puppy to her face, and waits.
It's hard to tell time when the room is so dark — though, even if she'd been able to see the brightly coloured clock on the wall with the bunny ears it wouldn't have helped because Lucy doesn't know how to tell time yet — but she thinks she's been waiting for a very long time.
And then, she hears it. A creak on the stairs.
Mummy's going to bed.
Lucy turns on the lamp so she can see where she's going and carefully slips out of bed. She holds Puppy by her ear, so she dangles towards the floor, and pushes the door open slowly.
It's dark — the only light coming from her lamp because Mummy has already turned off the lights downstairs — and her bare feet make no noise when she steps out onto the landing.
Mummy walks up the stairs slowly, her feet falling heavily with each step, and she has her hand out on the wall to steady herself.
Lucy tiptoes to the top of the stairs, never taking her eyes off Mummy's shadowed form. Mummy must have her head down because it's not dark enough for her to be unable to see Lucy.
"Hello, Mummy," Lucy says. Mummy makes a gasping sound that ends in a slight hiccough and stops walking. Lucy giggles.
She walks forwards, down the stairs slowly, and reaches out.
(Daddy will read her story — the one that she drew for Molly — later. He will tear the pages and will never speak of it, but he will watch Lucy a little more carefully from that moment on.)
.oOo.
And the two little girls lived happily ever after.
…oOo…
I'm a black sheep
I'm a black sheep