The emotions rolled over themselves endlessly. The loathing, contempt, humiliation the deep and dark desire to cause her father an ill-will.
No, that would not do. Something more than an ill-will would befall Doctor Florbelle.
Justine, fingers grasping the book's cover, sat seething in bottled up emotion. Regardless of how short and one-sided the previous conversation had been, it ran rings around the young girl's mind.
Loneliness.
Restriction.
Cold-heartedness.
Apathy.
Disdain.
Disgust.
Embarrassment.
The book snapped to a close, being quickly dumped to the beside table.
The soapstone bounced against the girl's thigh in time to her movements. Her fingertips ran along the pocket's edge, daring to reach inside. Drawing a hand back behind her, Justine, with not a single, slight glance back into her innocence-filled bedroom, brought the oak door over on itself.
With quick light footsteps, the Florbelle child stealthily moved along the corridor's way.
It would not do to be caught. They would bring her back, ruin her plot on its very course of action.
Justine lay a steady hand to the wallpaper, standing up on tiptoe to see up ahead of herself.
There was no one.
This was not the time to be aware of the strict rules of the household behavior. Or the threat of punishment.
Taking slowed steps forwards, destination and scheme prioritized in thought, Justine's hand shot down to the outside of the day dress' pocket, reassuring herself that it was still there; it hadn't disappeared!
Such silly thoughts!
The child peeped a head around the corner, looking up the long distance of the gloomily lit corridor.
She dared not do more than to stand and guide herself along the wall's way. It was a drive in adrenaline for, at any given moment someone could pop out of side room unexpectedly. Justine would take to conceal her body in the most convenient of door frames, should it be needed to do so.
Luck held out for the child and it seemed as if no time at all had passed before Justine was faced with a grand, intricately designed door front.
A rustle; an audible rummaging through, what Justine could only assume, papers, desk files, wardrobe and cabinet drawers and doors.
Multiple units were slammed to a shut. The pounding of a fist on a desk surface followed the commotion.
The ruckus was put to rest as silence permeated the air.
The Florbelle adolescent stood in stillness for the passing moments, bitty fingers closed around the brass know of the study door. Without a creak in the turn of the handle, Justine tapped the door front inch by inch, sliding into the warm room.
Monsieur Florbelle sat, head resting on arms, in his desperate hopelessness.
How, oh how had it become lost, missing from his private collection of curios, foreign artifacts? He had kept the soapstone so safe, hidden away. How was he to ever find it again?
A coldness indurated the child's stare. There was nothing but loathing brimming the girl's soul.
Her fingertips once again danced along her pocket's edge.
Continuously, the delusion would be broken into shards of unobtainable fantasy.
You were only trying to fill the void
Left by mother.
You must not feel ashamed.
A hand dropped into the pocket, drawing out the weighty soapstone.
You were only trying to fill the void.
You must not feel ashamed.
Hand raised at a height above, the star's face meeting Heaven's gaze.
You were only trying.
You must not feel.
Time seemed to have slowed itself with the fall of the hand, aiming.
Crack!
You were only.
You must not.
Crack!
Up again, only to be brought down with force to the weakening skull.
Crack!
You were.
You must.
The shine of scarlet dampened the gaps between the child's fingers.
The soapstone face concealed with his blood.
You.
The body tumbled to the side.
Frustrated pants of breath were drawn behind the child's teeth. The soapstone tumbled from her palm and dropped with a sonorous thud.
You are not you mother.
