She was a strange, quiet, inward-turning girl, but her eyes were the colour of curious sights. It was anyone's guess why she had shadows under her eyes that said, 'I live', when her demeanour said, 'I sit in my room by myself and dream about living'.
It was when the shadows caught the angles of her face in such a way that she suddenly looked... womanly... that monsters and humans alike wondered about her. Because she had a world of magical, mundane strangeness inside of herself, the preserve of every creature past a certain age, accountable to nobody.
Here is an interesting fact about A-level history coursework. Every year, someone wants to do their coursework under the title, Who Was Jack the Ripper! And the overwhelming majority of these are girls in all-girls schools.
Here is an interesting line from Sylvia Plath's poem, Daddy, "Every woman adores a fascist// the boot in the face, the brute / brute heart of a brute like you."
We don't want to spell it out. But we may have to.
She thought, in her secret way, when she was a mound under the bedclothes made of hot limbs and hot breath and a thoughtful, overheating mind, on nights when Sully didn't open the door and pull her through the only portal to ever leave the factory floor and take up permanent residence in Sully's bachelor flat, on nights when she realised with twisting shock she couldn't be the little girl who talked to monsters who lived in her closet all her life, she thought... 'Whatever became of the one they called Randall?'
She doesn't remember very clearly- what fourteen year old can or will tell you lucidly about a few consecutive days when they were two? All she can remember is the rush of fear and adrenalin his name makes her feel, the vague recollection of strong fingers holding her, the awe and horror which followed in his sinuous wake. Oh yes, and she remember how he moved- like a sliver of nightmare through grey darkness.
She is too young to understand what obsession is, except in purely dictionary terms.
She is too young to comprehend love, too, particularly because she takes it for granted, without even realising.
