The Pawn and The Puppet (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 1)

Aurick left me in the hands of the same older woman that had met me at the cottage before—she’s waiting for me in my bedroom now. Her ash hair was perched in a high bun and her evening dress began just under her chin. She drew me a hot bath in a large brass tub in my washroom. The soft carpet welcomed my bare feet, but her eyes did not. She made no effort to soften the blow of preparing me for this sudden change in my life.

She had laid out my white nightgown, fox fur slippers, and several glass jars of oils and body butters. Without so much as a nod of consent on my end, she stripped me of my dress and helped me into the tub filled with hot water, roses, and dried lavender.

Exiting the bath after an hour, she lathered my naked body in strong floral oils. She made me stand in front of the fireplace in my room to air dry—meanwhile combing through the knots in my hair. She yanked and tugged, grunting at the stubborn twists and interlocked twirls my hair has always lived by.

After the oil-infused water droplets evaporated from my skin, the stiff woman started a second layer of body butter that smelled of sweet cream, then a third smelling of jasmine. My hair was stacked with a few warm rollers, and my face, neck, and chest were caked with a chunky violet concoction. I felt as though she had rolled me around in a cooking pan filled with grease.

“What’s your name?” I finally gather the courage to ask, sitting on my vanity chair, stiff as a board, while she wipes the vibrant purple goop from my cheeks.

“Delphine,” she says with the crunchy voice of a smoker.

Delphine then helps me into my nightgown, warning me to stop walking around barefoot and to only wear my new fur slippers around the house. She scorns me for having rough skin on my heels, calluses on my fingers, and unbrushed hair.

“I’ll be back to get you ready in the morning.”

She walks out of the room with light footsteps, leaving me tucked under the blankets, white and fluffed with feathers. I lie perfectly still as each subtle movement intensifies the greasiness that is the final product of Delphine’s work.

Before shutting my eyes and trying to get some sleep before my first day, I absorb my new bedroom. The thick scents of roses, vanilla, jasmine, and burning firewood. The maroon wallpaper with the golden designs of angels and tree branches. The walnut dresser with gold accents and dovetail joints. The plethora of perfumes, lotions, and stands cradling jewelry.

I stare absently at the new luxury, wondering why I’m not beaming with joy, wondering why I feel like I’ve just opened a window to a new world, and while I’m observing the window jams—I’m unable to shut it. Before I know it, I’ll have lost my footing, free-falling from the window until I’m submerged and unable to climb my way back.

~

After Delphine leaves, I’m left alone to sink into despairing thoughts. Aggressive memories that won’t stay buried.

My hell was a basement.

Scarlett’s was a closet.

It seemed our parents shared a common interest for locking their children up and treating them like wild animals.

Our mother decided to lock little five-year-old Scarlett in a closet until she was fifteen. In that closet, she would sit in her own fecal matter. In that closet, she would starve and eat the drywall to stay alive. And when our mother would drag her out of the closet, Scarlett would wish she was back in it.

I’m sixteen again.

There’s a banging on a wall coming from the master bedroom of Scarlett’s childhood home. We never set foot in this room. This room is where the bad things happened. But this room is where the noise grows louder. I stand in front of the closed closet door and think to myself frantically. Should I open it? Should I give her space? The answer then was so simple. I hadn’t realized that until the day she died.

Whatever the right thing to do is, I can’t just leave her here. For my sake, I can’t walk away from this door. I turn the knob and instinctually shut my eyes, press my palms to my lids, and try to erase all of it. Scarlett rocks back and forth. Banging her bony back against the closet wall. Her clothes are scattered around her. Her bones, gangly and pressed firmly against her skin. So frail, so so frail. The bumps defining her spine begin to turn bright red as she rocks into the drywall again. I place my hand on her back to keep her from harming it more. It’s then I hear her wheezing. The sound she makes when she’s been crying so hard and for so long that her throat swells.

“Scarlett?” I say softly. Tenderly. Trying not to set her off.

“LOOK AT ME!” she screams in my face. Her emerald-green eyes are swollen and glistening. Face covered in red splotches. I follow the direction of her hands that move to the blood-stained carpet. It’s fresh blood. The blood spot spreads from under her. Hands are covered in it.

“THEY’RE ALL OVER ME! THEY KEPT TOUCHING ME!”

It takes me a moment to process what I’m seeing, and then it all clicks into place.

“No, they’re all gone now. The blood is just your body telling you that you’ve become a woman. It’s natural. Nothing to be scared of.” I try to wipe her hair off her wet forehead, but she starts shaking it back and forth aggressively.

“NO, NO, NO! THEY DID THIS TO ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO ME! LOOK WHAT MOTHER LET THEM DO TO ME!” The crying fit starts again, and her screams bounce around the closet walls. Her body thrashes about, and she hits herself over and over again in the place where the blood escapes. At first, I stiffen up. Unsure if I should stay or leave. Unsure of what I could possibly say to calm her down. So, I don’t say anything at all. I do what my father would do for me when he would feel a moment of remorse for locking me in the basement. I get behind her, sit down, and wrap my arms around her. I bury my face in her neck.

At first, she fights this. I catch an elbow in the rib and her head bucks back to bloody my nose. My vision turns black and spotty, clouded with tears. But I only hold her tighter.

“I’m here. I love you. I’ll always love you.”

Her screams become sobs. Her sobs become silent whimpers. And then she holds me back. We rock back and forth for hours.

And the memory returns quietly to the river in my thoughts, sinking back into place without another word. I take a mental note, in the morning I’ll need to sketch that puppet again.

This is what time alone does to me.