T H Y M E
- Dim Aldebaran -
:i:
He had offered her ten million dollars to kill. She would have done it for five.
No, she took that back. She'd kill Arty for free.
She had been calling him Arty since that first time, peeking behind the stair banisters at Angeline, crooning over her little boy: "Arty, Arty," she'd coo, "Arty, tell me you love me."
Prodigy or no, he only gurgled happily and fell to the floor.
She had learned to walk before he did. Her first word was 'Dom,' sixteen months—his, 'Ma,' twenty-six. She didn't give a damn about how he 'understood,' how he 'listened.' Those were Angeline's words to the doctor as Juliet eavesdropped, the words a mother and a mother alone would say. Oh yeah? she had wanted to scream at Angeline. The doctor's words were 'retarded,' 'impaired.' Not 'brilliant,' not 'perfect,' you simpering bitch.
How she hated that intrusion! She could not be angry at Dom; she had never been angry at Dom. What they had was the closest thing to the perfect relationship she had ever seen or known. She could not be blame Dom and his great bear hugs, Dom and his delightful games of hide-and-go-seek in the Fowl Manor.
It was him.
The intrusion.
Her grated carrots were thicker than usual, but she'd use it as the garnish anyways. If Angeline remarked, she would say, 'Your hair looks pretty this way. Should I do it like that more often?' If Timmy remarked, she would flutter her lashes (Timmy had a weakness for Good Girls, it seemed.) If Dom remarked, she would tell him to peal his own carrots and laugh. And if Arty remarked… Well, Arty wouldn't remark. He'd be dead. And she'd be gone.
Her heart thumped faster at the thought, as fast as the food processor blades grinding away at the strawberries for the spread. Arty, dead, dead… She could imagine it now: his hands, those long, beautiful pianist hands, clutching at his throat, that white, fragile throat… how pale it would look next to the blue shirt he was wearing today, how it would glow, and his eyes, his eyes, his eyes!
She remembered that shirt. She remembered Chicago, the Water Tower Plaza, the post-Spiro elation, Marshall Fields, the blue silk glimmering in the sale rack, bringing it to him, and watching him slip off his green for the blue. "It matches your eyes!" she had squealed.
His response was cold, somehow: "Which is why you bought it."
"Why aren't you happy?" she had burst out, and it was all a dream after that—how she had cried, cried, in front of Artemis Fowl, how she had screamed. You should be happy, damnit! Of all people, you should be happy!
What had he said? What had he done as she screamed out her heart like the little girl she never was?
He sat there. Calm. Poised. Stoic. He had the blue shirt on—God, his eyes looked amazing with that shirt on. And when she could say no more, he sat, and said nothing.
She pretended like it had never happened, averting her eyes around Arty, carrying out her duties until the mindwipe. And then?—she lost all recollection of the fight.
Her envy returned to the embers, not the inferno of that eve. She was a maid once more, untempered, unquestioning. Artemis was just the Jerk Upstairs, just another Fowl, just another fool with gold, and all she received was the fool's gold. Hardly priceless.
Dom kept her going in that era. She could sense his confusion at his sudden slowness, his frustration, his despair—and, finally his self-hatred. She could only guess at where his thoughts brought him—suicide, perhaps, so Artemis would take another bodyguard? Each day he aged, it seemed: he held the banister as he ascended the stairs, he ate less as his metabolism slowed, he didn't even to shave his entire head; hell, he even began to use moisturizers so the lines around his eyes would not be so obvious! Dom was dying.
It was his fault.
She hated him.
She'd kill him for what he was.
Dom would be free then, she would be free then!
Angeline had seen her as a daughter before he came. Angeline had been the one to first call her beautiful—"Mon petit ange, mon mignon ange," she'd whisper in her ear, teasing her haloed hair out with a turtleshell comb. "Je t'aime, mon bel ange." And Juliet would look up into those lovely brown eyes and smile, sweet like the angel she used to be.
And then him—him.
Him.
Him.
Standing at the doorway.
Black shoes, black pants, blue shirt, damnable blue eyes. She nearly cut off her finger as she sliced the potatoes.
He leaned. It looked awkward on him, almost… forced. "Hey."
She blinked, and dropped the potatoes into the spring soup. He stared at it, almost as if he knew it was her weapon of choice. "Hey."
He was about to say something; she could see it in how he tensed those cupid-bow lips, moistening them—but she turned to the soup completely. She would never see his hesitation—only the annoyance:
"We were seated five minutes ago," Artemis said, and left.
She had fun dicing the tomatoes. She wondered if his blood would as watery as the tomato juice, squirting out over the counter, and half-wished she could just shoot him instead, or better yet, stab, just to see him bleed.
The tomatoes needed five minutes to simmer, the potatoes ten. She busied herself chopping greens for the salad. Cold as iceberg lettuce, that's what he was. Cold. Selfish. Unsympathetic.
God, she hated him.
Once, just once, she had brought one of the local louts to the Manor. It was her home, after all—she left for only three months a year for Ko's. Her dad had died doing his duty; her mother was old when she had Juliet. She hadn't the strength to live. She had always been the Fowl's.
The boy wasn't anything special. Caucasian, fast tongue, faster hands. They brought her car—yellow Beatle, her sweet sixteenth present—into the garage. He stepped out. She stepped out. He found her lips; he found her back; he found her rear. God it was fun.
The door was closing when they stopped. She never learned who had watched. He watched her make dinner, touching her even as she sautéed the asparagus. Angeline was red-eyed at dinner; Timmy pried. Yet Arty… Arty was not rude. He was too clever to be rude. His insinuations, his implications, his every little word, was for Juliet and her beau. His dark eyes roved over the rim of his Martenellis, his bloodless lips wove a web.
Dom volunteered to drop him off in the 'Fowlmobile,' as she called it. She didn't feel ashamed for making out in the backseat until she got back home. Dom said nothing.
Arty made her ashamed.
Without even saying a word to her.
The soup was done. She spooned it into porcelain bowls, all five of them. First course.
She pulled out the thyme.
It had been a simple exchange. No fuss. These sort of things were always the same. The man had the poison for her. She didn't know the name, only the description. The heart would stop. Artemis wasn't in terribly good shape, and though he was not a gourmand, the foods were fatty enough that the cause of death would be passed as a heart attack in the autopsy. Perfect murder, if the man was right.
God, she hated him.
Blue-eyed bastard.
The leaves were slender, whole, not crushed. She twirled one between her thumb and forefinger. They were a pine-gray. Each vein was thicker, darker, but somehow managed to look delicate as they led the eye up along the needle-like taper to the final point. The coating, like Tinkerbell's pixie dust, was fine and glimmered in the halogen lights. Each leaf was scarce as long as a needle.
Thyme leaves.
They were beautiful.
She slipped them into Artemis' soup, Arty's soup. She stirred them in with a plastic spoon, and threw it away.
The poison would be dispelling itself into the soup now, seeping into the broth.
Blue-eyed son-of-a-bitch.
She put on her best smile, and went out to serve Spring Vegetable Soup. Arty smiled at her as she passed him his bowl. She smiled back.
:i:
I wanted to make jealous!Juliet part of 'Descent' (my novel length story... check it out!) but I couldn't since I had enough going on with her as it was, so I just made that subplot into a weirded out short story.
Well, there's my theory anyways. Please critique this! I'd like to get better.
Thanks for reading.