Blood

“Lorna!” calls somebody.

And then there’s banging at my door.

“Lorna! Up!”

I start to swear and blink my eyes open.

The sun is dim today, meaning it’s cloudy, but it’s hot in my room anyway, meaning Gram’s up.

“Lorna!” I hear my doorknob twisting, but it doesn’t give in, since I locked it, since I hate Sundays. “Lorna Owens, don’t make me find a key for this door.”

“I’m awake!” I call as I pull the blanket over my head.

“Then come open this door!”

“Stupid old hag,” I mumble as I pull myself up and push back my quilts.

Standing sucks, but I do it anyway, because I know that Gram would rather chop down my door herself than let me miss church while I’m perfectly healthy.

The floor creaks beneath my weight, even though I don’t think I weigh that much, as I walk to the door.

My Gram stands on the other side of the door, I know that, but I wish she didn’t. It just makes it that much harder.

“Don’t you think I won’t—” she stops as the door opens. She shakes her head at my sleep-deprived state, but I don’t think I could care much less about what Gram thinks of me.

She frowns. “Get dressed and do something with your hair. And I promise you—if you come down those stairs in jeans, I’ll beat you, no matter what your father thinks is proper.”

“Okay,” I say as I close the door.

To tell the truth, I hadn’t even considered wearing jeans, but now it seems rather tempting. Albeit, Gram would just make me change.

I seriously consider going back to sleep, but I know that wouldn’t end well, so I walk over to my dresser and fetch a brown skirt and then find the shirt I’d been wearing yesterday on the floor.

It takes longer than it should have to get dressed, mainly because I put my sweater on backwards, twice.

I am so fucking tired it is nowhere near funny. It took me forever to fall asleep, and then I couldn`t have been asleep for more than a couple hours. I just couldn’t stop thinking, which is always annoying. I had told somebody that they could call me. I have never done that. Ever. And Mallory of all people? Well, not really of all people, because I hate most people, and I don’t think I hate Mallory. Think.

I look on my dresser for a hairbrush, and then the bookshelf, wasting at least ten minutes, until I actually find it under the bed.

I hate brushing my hair, it always hurts and the brush gets stuck and I don’t think it actually does anything.

‘Unruly’, is the word for my hair, I think. And whenever I used to complain, my Gram would tell me it learnt from me, and if I was a good kid I’d have good hair. Which I’m pretty sure is not how it works.

“Lorna?” says a little voice at the door, and I almost yell until I remember Sean is the only person with a little voice in this house.

“What is it, Seanie?” I ask while I tug at my hair.

“Grammy says she’s gonna skin you soon.” The door muffles his voice, but I can still tell he fully believes that Gram will skin me if I take any longer.

“Could you tell her I’m coming?”

I abandon the hairbrush and glance around the floor for my boots. One’s leaning against the bed, so I figure the other’s underneath the bed.

I sit on the floor to tug on my boots, and then leave them untied as I get up and open the door. Sean’s disappeared, so I figure Gram’ll be up here in a couple minutes if I’m not ready to go.

I wonder vaguely what time it is. I think church is at nine, but of course, it would be terribly rude to just arrive for church and leave, so we’ll have to be there by quarter to at the very latest, and then I won’t get to leave until eleven likely. But no, shit. We’re going to George and Sarah’s for lunch. Lovely.

I race down the steps, because it’s easier than actually walking, and almost trip over the laces of my boots. I catch my weight on the rail and then stop to tie my boots.

“Lorna Owens!”

I roll my eyes and curse under my breath. “I’m right here, Gram!” I call back.

Gram is by far the most devout in the family, me being the least, although I try not to show it too much, for Sean’s sake. My baby brother still says his prayers every night before he goes to bed, and before he eats, like a good, holy child should. Yet he has straggly, red curls as well.

I stand up and descend the rest of the steps.

“There, I’m here. No jeans.”

Yet Gram still shakes her head. “I thought I told you to do something with your hair.”

“I tried,” I say, though I didn’t really try very hard.

“You tried? If that’s you trying I’d hate—”

“Let her be now, Linda,” I look back up the stairs at my father.

Gram scowls at my father, “You’re wrecking this girl, Michael. I swear.” She shakes a fat finger at me. “Don’t think you won’t wind up pregnant by that mongrel you had here yesterday.”

Two responses war within me. The first involves birth control, which I’ve been taking since I was eleven. The second more pointed towards ‘that mongrel’. If anybody else had said something like that about me and Mallory, like Reid does, I would argue it, but it’s fun provoking Gram. Let her think I’m going to birth what I’m sure she’d consider Satan’s baby.

I don’t say anything as I finish lacing my boots, but I do scowl at the laugh Reid’s trying to hide behind his hand, and then make a different face when my father’s boot hits my side.

“Oh! Sorry there, sweetling.”

Gram stares at me for a moment when I stand. I don’t like it, mostly because it could mean she’s got something planned that involves me, or not. “Come on, then.”

I run down the stairs, and then am forced in between my two brothers in the back of the grey car, which runs the best of everything we have.

There’s a grey car and then a blue car that run, along with Mary and a blue truck. Scattered out back—and a couple in the front—are pieces of three white cars, a black one, a gold one and a white truck, which used to run, but Reid decided to tear it apart to fix his old green beast a couple months back.

I don’t know why I have to sit in the middle. Sean is obviously the smallest. Mind you, it could be because Gram thinks I’ll try to jump out, which I wouldn’t. If I didn’t go to church it would upset Sean, and I don’t want to upset Sean.

I wish I could look out the window, though. It’s snowing, so I can’t see much out the windshield, except snow of course.

“Uh, not to be…but why was Mr. Fionn in your room yesterday?”

Reid has his face turned towards me, and his voice is low, as though he doesn’t want Gram or Dad to hear.

“Oh, you know. Gotta keep up with expectations and birth the heir of Satan.”

Reid frowns at me, so I scowl. “We was just talking, Reid. And what gives you the right to ask, anyhow?”

“I think it’s a birth-right thing.”

I go to speak but the car hits a dip which, knowing my father, could have been entirely intentional. “Then how come you don’t answer anything I ask you.”

Reid’s frown deepens, as though he’s genuinely confused, which he isn’t. “Well, that’s because I’m a bloke, and you ain’t.”

My mouth opens and then closes again. “Set my dowry why don’t you, you idiotic back-bred ba—” Reid tilts his head towards Sean, which just makes me angrier. “brother,” I finish sourly.

I do make an honest attempt not to curse in front of Sean, he doesn’t need to wind up with a mouth like mine.

Sean pulls on the sleeve of my jacket, “Uhm, Lorna?” he says in his little voice.

I turn to him, trying not to scowl. “What is it, Seanie?”

“What are Reid and you talking about?”

His big brown eyes stare up at me, as innocent as a lamb. God, it’s horrible how easy it is to lie to Sean—anything to keep his eyes the way they are, not like how Reid’s have become. Before Mam died, Reid looked just like Sean does now, and then he grew up. He went from being my little brother to my big one in the span of a week. It’s not wrong to want to keep Sean little, is it?

“Nothing, Sean. Just talking.”

“Why?”

St. Agatha’s rests in the middle of Ristahill, the smallest of Faer’s towns. It’s one of those ironic shit shacks that makes you wonder how much the builders actually cared, but most of the island pours in every Sunday morning or evening, anyway.

If I remember right, St. Agatha was one of those virgin Saints that got sent to a whore-house—but God protected her virginity, and blinded all the men that wanted her…I think. It’s kind of stupid, if you ask me. I mean, what did she do other than not have sex? And that got her a miracle and sainthood? But I guess it ain’t really my place to judge God’s will.

Gram is absolutely captivated by it all, especially the virgin saints. If she wasn’t so island grown, I’m sure she would have gone off to a nunnery…which I guess wouldn’t have turned out very well for my brothers and me.

I’m not quite so captivated, especially by the virgin saints, although the windows are the only coloured ones on the island.

But the windows are covered now as I lean against the back wall, away from everyone else for at least a couple minutes. I really, really don’t want to go to George’s, not today, but I have to. If Reid can do it then I can.

Little snowflakes cling together as they fall from the grey sky. It’s amazing how grey this island is: the sky, the sea...the sweater Mallory had been wearing yesterday.

I laugh at myself, wishing for a cigarette. I want to stop thinking about Mallory, because it’s annoying, and he’s annoying, and he makes Reid even more annoying. I want Mallory to call me.

I glance to my left, because I hear someone coming. I kind of hope it’s Mattie, although I figure it isn’t. Unlike us, Aunt Jo and Robert—Mattie’s mum and dad—normally leave right after the service.

“Need a smoke?”

Much to my dismay, it isn’t Mattie, or Reid or Fletch or Sean or Dad, or Gram. No. That would be lucky, wouldn’t it?

Instead, Jamie Hannagan watches me with those blood-shot eyes of his, holding out a white cigarette.

About a year ago, a couple morons decided to start a little pool...which folk do all the time…except this particular bet was to see which of them could bed me first. I know that there’s just shy of a dozen guys entered in that, Justin Fionn included, which is part of why I dislike him so much. But he’s nothing compared to the butcher’s boy. I don’t honestly believe that Justin, or really most of the blokes in on the pool, would try to hurt me…but Jamie…

That being said, I do want the cigarette, pretty badly.

I take the little stick and place it between my lips. It’s a stupid thing to do, but I’m pretty good at doing stupid things.

Jaime offers the lighter in a way that implies that I’m supposed to lean into it, so instead I grab it from his scarred hand and flick the little wheel until a flame licks, then light the end of the dart.

I hand Jamie back the lighter, pulling the cigarette away from my face with the other. “Thanks.”

There’s a bit of an edge, meaning Jamie must have rolled it himself, or got somebody to do it for him. I kind of hope he didn’t put anything shitty in it.

I turn to walk away, but Jamie’s hand catches my arm, making me shiver and turn

Jamie laughs, sending his blond hair across his forehead. “God, Lorna, you can jump higher than a jack rabbit.”

I scowl before walking off past Jamie. I can hear him following, but I don’t turn back around.

“Come on, Lorna, I was only teasing.”

But I don’t want Jamie Hannagan teasing me.

I head around the corner, back towards my family.

“Lorna!” calls my grandmother from beside the church’s heavy doors, where she’s standing beside Sarah and Justin Fionn.

Justin glances at me and then at Jamie, who’s followed me. There’s something sour and curious about his glance, which is kind of interesting.

“Lorna Margaret Owens! That better not be no smoker’s curse you got there!”

I glance at the half burnt smoke between my fingers before dropping it and then crushing it in the snow beneath my heel.

I head up the path to where the trio is. Sarah beams at me, as though that’ll make me forget she’s a cheating whore, while Justin barely nods, which—although slightly welcome—is a little odd, seeing as he’s Justin Fionn.

“We best be off now, Linda, if that’s alright with you,” says Sarah with her dazzling smile.

Gram nods. “Yes, that’s perfectly alright.”

George has always been Gram’s favourite, other than maybe Seanie. I’ve always been last, which is fine.

“Well, say hello to your father, and that brother we never seem to see,” says Gram to Justin.

I almost laugh, because Gram saw Mallory yesterday, and called him a mongrel, but that’s what pleasantries are.

Justin smiles just like Sarah had—all white teeth and empty courtesy. “I’ll be sure to do that, Mrs. Fletcher. I’ll see you later then, Sarah.”

Sarah gives Justin a truer smile and nods.

“Lorna,” he says with frigid curtesy.

I squint at Justin, curious as to how I’ve pissed him off. I mean, it’s not surprising, but I’d like to know.

But I can’t ask, since Gram drags me off towards hell…well not really, just George’s house. Close enough.