chapter word count: 365
noir heart: thirty-nine
Time seems to slow to a crawl, such is the grip that the torrent of his memories has over him. His sight looks inward rather than outward, to the past instead of the future, and it's as though every single thing provokes a recollection of the case that took the cocky, confident, smartass Jack and tore him apart until there was nothing left.
"Evey Andersen, six years old. She's the eighth, Jack."
Children always were the crack in his armor.
"Thomas Brook, seven. Was playing on his bike in his front yard when he disappeared."
The pink lilies dotting the walls are the identical colour to the one that little Evey wore behind her right ear. The apple green walls match the t-shirt Thomas wore when he vanished.
"Eleven children, Aster. Eleven families that got a toy white fairy in the mail."
He knows Elsa could never be his nemesis, because he already had one. The White Fairy took everything away from him - sure, he was the one to defeat the evil, but his victory was nothing but Pyrrhic.
"I'll take a break when he's in cuffs, or dead, North. He won't stop, so neither will I."
His eyes trace over the pine cots, and he silently prays to whichever indifferent deity resides upstairs that Anna's children lead good, happy, terror-free lives. That Anna never knows the heartache, the pain and the hopelessness of being the parent of a missing child.
"It's another letter - he's taunting me again."
Because even a year on, the bodies of the missing children have never been found-as though someone wiped them from existence, never to be seen again.
"What's it say, mate?"
A gentle breeze slips through the open nursery window, barely enough to disturb the apple green curtains but sufficient to jostle the mobile suspended over the closest cot, and as the shapes languidly revolve to the soft, slow and strangely sinister tune of Rock-A-Bye Baby dancing from the mobile itself, he catches a glimpse of a small figure drifting around the mobile's very edge.
A white fairy.
YOU FAILED, JACK THE RIPPER
this update goes out to zulka, whose help and advice has been nothing short of incredible for both NH and OGaV. Thank you.
special thanks to: oninoko, jpbake, whimsical acumen, lunasnoir and stefalove for reviewing!
Also, laptop might be repaired soon...