Chapter One: The Deal with Demons
It had been seven years. Seven long, difficult years, but you weren't seven everyday.
Olivia Lowan clip-clopped across the the grassy fields of the farm her parents owned. Her upper body and face were lewd and petite, still in the childhood stages. Sharp, yellowed eyes looked eagerly at the strange van that had pulled into the gravelled driveway. Everything below her waist and on top of her head, could never be considered average for young girls.
The bottom half was that of a black goat, rough, dark hair and smooth hooves that hopped and trotted whenever she walked. From underneath her small dress a tiny tail wagged in excitement. Horns that poked out of dark, choppy hair showed signs of curling. If you had never known her as long as her parents did, you'd think she was a some changeling child. Her hands and fingernails were stained green from pulling up grass and playing in the vast field of her home, surround by forest and cut off from the city. Her dress was dusty from rolling around and her forehead sweaty and plastered with hair. Olivia didn't mind. She was just messy like that.
She looked curiously around the van, completely white and unadorned with any insignias. Usually her parents hid her upstairs when these came, saying that everyone else outside of home were potential to be dangerous. So she merely peeked through her curtains until the people left. But today was different. No calls to come inside, no shutting her up in her room, no warnings at all. She looked into the window of the driver's seat. A man's face was hidden behind a newspaper, ignoring his surroundings. Bored with this uninteresting person, she trotted to the back door. She was hungry from playing in the sun and fields all day.
She loudly banged the door open, and mischeviously grinned as she heard a yelp from the man in the van. Giggling madly at his shock, she looked around for her weary mother. She thought mothers must be odder than fathers, or at least hers was. Even when she was relaxed and doing nothing, she always looked tired. She barely smiled and often looked off dreamily at the sky. Truly, Olivia appreciated her mother. She cooked her favorite foods (fried shrimp and baked apples), read her stories and took care of her when she was sick. But there was always a tiny pang in Olivia's chest that she just couldn't name. It was like her mother's exhaustion. She could not name it.
Her father was a different story. He was awkward and distant, but he was very diligent on tradition. As a ritual, he plopped Olivia down on his lap for a lesson, whether it was reading, arthimetic, or history, which was more likely the topic. He'd try to talk other things with her, but would trail off in embarassment. This insighted her to use him as a source of impish entertainment. She would ask embarassing questions she already knew about, like where babies came from or what they meant by birds and bees. And seeing him flustered made her cackle with glee. She never pranked her mother, worried she would exhaust her energy even more than it already was depleted.
"Nyah! Momma! I'm hungry!" she chanted twirling around on her hooves. She picked up her stuffed dog Bouncer and began to dance with him childishly. Acting silly usually got her mom's attention, as she hurried to calm down her hyper child and poke grapes into her greedy mouth. Olivia proudly admitted she was mischevious and chatty, and dared anyone to try and outdo her at her games. She loved to tease her father, call upon her mother with a loud, squeaky voice, and get dirty playing outside, rain, snow or sun. So she was very irritated when no mother came, only a faint hush of conversation from the living room. Holding up Bouncer in the air, she ran to the source.
"MA! No time for hide-and-seek! I'm hungry!" she whined loudly, betraying her disappointment only with the wild grin on her face. But once she stepped into the living room, her smile washed away from her face forever.
Her mother looked happy. Happier than Olivia could ever remember her being. She was radiant, glowing with sentiment and holding her husband's hand in joyful abandon. For the first time, she looked upon her strange daughter with happiness. Her father seemed calm, but she could see the twitch in the corner of his lip that tried to contain overwhelming joy. She looked upon her parents in confusion, and then upon two strangers on the couch. One was elderly, maybe sixty or fifty. The other was fairly middle aged with a receding hairline and a stuffy disposition. They both wore professional suits and seemed to have been in the middle of something very important. And for the first time Olivia felt the creeping sense of fear tingle upon her spine. All her life she dreamt of meeting new people, but now all she wanted was to run back out to the fields and hide. She clung tightly onto the soft paw of Bouncer like a lifeline. Her mother gestured joviantly to her.
"Olivia! Come here my love. We were just talking about you." she said cheerfully, gesturing Olivia to come sit on her lap. But she couldn't move, she was paralyzed with fear. Mrs. Lowan looked puzzled for a moment before realizing.
"Oh! Of course! Olivia dearie this is Mr. Broom and Mr. Manning. They've come from a long way to come visit us."
Olivia noticed a significant difference between the two. Mr. Broom looked at her curiously, as if trying to asess her character. He nodded and smiled politely at her, as an uncle would to a niece. Mr. Manning however, wrinkled his nose at her faults; the ruffled hair, the grass stained clothes, and especially the goat features and the childish cling to Bouncer. Olivia began to tremble slightly. She felt as if they were about to rush her into a bag and carry her away.
"Olivia? Come on now."
She shook her head violently, planting her feet firmly on the threshold. Broom chuckled slightly, while Manning sneered at the display of terror.
"Shy little thing eh?" he said gruffly.
"Oh not at all," assured her father, walking over to Olivia, trying to coax her into a chair, "She's a bit sheltered but I assure you she's a good girl." Olivia winced at the way he spoke, like a man bragging about a good horse for selling. He tugged her shoulders but she refused to move. Her mother approached her too, kneeling and clasping her unoccupied, tiny hand with her two, soft ones.
"Olivia, these two men come from the Bureau of Paranormal Reasearch and Defense. They do a whole lot of good all over the world for paranormal cases," 'Paranormal cases?' though Olivia in horror, "And they've agreed to take you on as an future agent! Isn't that wonderful?"
And then all of the sudden, that familiar pang in her chest burst open the floodgates, bringing the entire truth open in a overwhelming wave. Why her mother always looked so tired. Why her father was always so ashamed. Why everytime someone was expected over she was shut away in her room. Olivia felt a horrible, disgust come up. They were selling her. The parents Olivia had come to trust and care about were selling her for being a freak.
"I said isn't it wonderful sweetie?"
Olivia was overcome with a horrible feeling of anger, tears welling up in her eyes. She yanked herself away violently and threw Bouncer angrily to the ground. Ignoring her mother and father's faces of shock and their cries for her to come back, she dashed away from the living room, out the back door, and away into the fields. And every step her hooves took, she felt a violent ripple quake through her tiny body, reminding her that no matter how far she ran or how long she stayed away, a deal was a deal. She would be forced back home, and eventually to the BPRD. She let the tears fall freely down her face as she ran, heaving sobs choking through her gasping throat. She finally collasped in the tall, tickling grass, pulling her horns in agony, as if to tear them off. She stayed there until the van had pulled away and all the lights in the house had turned down.
When she finally dragged her hairy legs up the stairs and collasped in her bed, short whimpers echoed through the room. She continued to cry for a month, despite desperate pleas from her parents. There was that one month of sorrow. And afterwards, ten years of bitterness.
She refused to eat anything they made, stubbornly making her own food, however burnt or distasteful. She no longer strived for their attention, although they begged for hers. She wouldn't talk to them unless in rebuke or with an acidic tone. She never smiled. She pulled horrid pranks on them, and yelled, ignoring her mother's tears and her father's feeble attempts to assert himself. For ten years it would have to go on until her seventeenth birthday, where she would be ready to join the ranks of the BPRD.
And for ten years...bitterness.