For QLFC, Round 3
Team: Tutshill Tornados
Position: Keeper
Prompt: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill: Write about someone trying to put the past behind them.
Notes: Additional inspiration from the poem 'Kindness' by Sylvia Plath and 'The Ugly Duckling' by Hans Christian Anderson
TW: Death, bullying
Word count: 1,597
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Nobody missed me.
Nobody cared.
Even when I β when I diedβ¦ it took them hours to find my body.
My life was nothing but misery. (And now, people come along ruining my death!)
I was β no, I am β so ugly. Horrendous. A monster.
I disgust myself; I am a monster. An aberration.
I stare up at the old ceiling. The castle of Hogwarts is beginning to crumble around me. Where will I go now?
I remember.
A fourteen-year-old girl, rubbing useless potions on my horrible, spotty face. Trying to comb my frizzy, limp, mousy hair.
Disgusting. What right do I have to exist amongst the beautiful?
Fat Myrtle! Ugly Myrtle! Miserable, moaning, moping Myrtle!
They're right. Who would⦠who would ever want to look at me?
I can see them staring at the red, horrible bumps on my face β the subterranean swelling and bruising hurt less than the sneers.
And I don't mean to be sensitive. But if I can't be beautiful, I will become invisible. I will melt into hair arranged over my face to cover the worst of my forehead, a pile of overdue library books, and silence.
The windows and mirrors surround me, and I plaster on a smile.
Look at Myrtle! I can hear the soulless whispers from across the common room. The shame tastes like sugar, and I am choking on it. Their laughter is like angels singing, and I am unworthy.
Olive Hornby is the loudest. She is beautiful and sharp, like a star.
The tears spill from my eyes like water gushing out of a broken tap. It is disgusting and shameful; I cannot stand another minute. Cupping a hand to my mouth to silence the pathetic hiccups, I dash down the stairs and out into the corridor, then curl up on the floor, my face pressed against the dusty carpet. Tiny. Helpless. Pathetic.
I am the runt of the litter. The others should leave me behind and let me die.
Ten points from Ravenclaw, says the Slytherin prefect quietly. It's an hour after curfew. He looks down at me. (Tall, handsome, perfect. A god amongst mortals, and I but a lowly insect).
Tom Riddle gives me a pitying look, as swans must look at ugly ducklings. Then, he leaves me in the hallway.
Ignored. Alone.
I put make-up on the next day. A tube of Mother's lipstick. She saved it for me, even though the rationing means she can't buy anymore.
She is good. She is kind. Why can't I be like Mother?
She is elegant, with her dark brown hair perfectly coiffed, her soft, smooth skin, the blue and red jewels sparkling brilliantly on her fingers β the gentle fingers she uses to stroke my unworthy, bumpy cheeks. She is like a fairy attending to a monster.
Her lovely hands carry cups of chamomile tea wreathed in steam as she wafts into my room during the glorious holidays, wearing a floaty caftan of Japanese silk, filling my lungs with its flowery sweetness.
It will be all right, Darling, she says, and Daddy will be home soon from fighting and Are there any boys you fancy at school, Myrtle dear?
I apply the lipstick carefully. Now I have crimson lips. They are so pretty. I am pretty.
I remember Mother saying, Are there any boys you fancy at school, Myrtle dear? and I think of Tom Riddle's dark eyes.
Does he like girls with crimson lips, I wonder, or will he like girls like Olive, whose silky golden hair curls softly above her eye in a fashionable style?
You will grow into your looks, says Mother, but I want them now. I will be pretty now. I do love pretty things.
"Tom," I say, as the fifth years leave the Potions classroom and the third years are about to go in. "Your hair looks nice today, Tom."
(Ah, Tom, what a pretty name! The 'T' a caress between the tip of my tongue and the roof of my mouth, the 'O' a gentle sigh, and at the 'M' my lips meet in a kiss.)
It always does, but I have never found the courage to say so before.
He looks down at me, and my heart stops; I feel like one of Daddy's pinned butterflies. Helpless and lovely.
The boys behind him titter, and I shrink back β expecting the swans to peck and stab at me with their sharp beaks. (But I would be honoured; what a graceful way to die).
"Thank you," he says carefully. He seems confused; a quick flicker of a bashful half-smile plays at his mouth.
And with a slight shrug of his shoulders and a swish of his robes, he is gone, and the others with him.
I smile. I must be beautiful, now. My lips are red as Snow White's.
I glide into Slughorn's class, like Cinderella newly crowned.
The potions bubble and pop around me, and I even manage to answer a question correctly.
"Ten points to Ravenclaw."
But it can't last. Nothing good ever does.
The other girls descend on me like harpies. They saw.
"Tom Riddle? Don't make me laugh, Olive!"
"No one will ever want to marry you, Myrtle! You're ugly and dumpy and β oh, that lipstick looks horrendous! It's all over your nasty, yellow teeth!"
"Who would want to put up with a miserable wretch like you? Ugly, dimply, spectacled freak!"
I run because I am pathetic and weak and ugly, to the toilet and slam the stall door shut.
I wish I were dead.
Then comes a soft, sibilant hiss. It's pretty. Nothing in here should be pretty β this is my toilet, my refuge where everything is as plain as me. Whoever it is should not be here.
I hear the hissing sound and realise it is a boy.
Come to mock me, probably.
I reach for the latch and open the door. The words Go away are on the tip of my tongue. I am ready to say them.
Great yellow eyes stare into mine.
I am trapped. Buzz, buzz. The bee's stinger thumps against the bell jar.
My heart goes as giddy as β ah, Tom Riddle's dark eyes β but so different β how strange, and then I am floating.
My body is crumpled. Dead. I got my wish.
It is the first time I have had a wish come true.
It is so ugly... Am I beautiful now?
I walk towards the mirror (no, I float like a princess in the storybooks that Mother used to read to me).
My face is even uglier, I think, now that it is transparent. I wail, and I cry, but no one hears me. No one cares.
What have I done? If Mother was right, and I ever had a chance at growing beautiful, I will never know. It isn't my life I cry about; I don't care about that. It's that I never got to be pretty.
I make a scene at Olive Hornby's wedding. But I am too much of a coward to attend my own funeral, to comfort my mother as she watches my body descend into the ground. Too much of a coward to comfort her when the telegram comes. As her shaking fingers tore the envelope open, I stayed hidden and quiet.
I regret to inform you that your husband John B Warren was killed in action on eleventh December in Pacific area Letter follows.
Even when the slip of paper floated out of her fingers, and she collapsed against the counter, sobbing, I did nothing.
I am ashamed of myself. Ugliness is far from the worst thing about me. I am craven. I am petty. I am unkind.
In the meantime, I sulk in the toilet that was my refuge in life and scream at all the pretty girls. But it does nothing to make me feel better.
Years later, I see Tom Riddle's dead body laid out on the ground after the battle.
He doesn't look so god-like anymore. He is shrivelled. Wretched. Like me.
But Tom made himself ugly. I understand now that it was far from the worst thing about me. I could have been kind β been kind to myself. I could have lived for something, but instead, I died for nothing.
Everything fades⦠everything goes. Harry Potter's children came into my bathroom today. And one day, they too will leave this school. They will bloom, wither, and die, and I will remain, eternally cursed to live this half-life of my own dreadful construction.
Hogwarts will crumble one day, and alone, I will remain. I have not made friends with the other ghosts.
They look at me with contempt.
I am more hated than even Peeves. At least the Fat Friar wants to give him a chance.
So I try. I really do β to put the past behind me. But I can't move on. I am a ghost, after all. I have unfinished business on this earth.
What I want is to be pretty, and I cannot just get over it, Myrtle. Even though it is unfathomably foolish of me. All that I have to show for all my hopes and dreams are tears and the cold wind of a ghost's icy breath.
Maybe I should have tried to be patient... to be kind to myself, but it's too late now for second chances.
Every time someone new comes into my toilet, I look up. Waiting for what, I don't know.
It's always the same.
They look disgusted.