Dusk

- 5 -

Marinette's P.O.V.

I tightly grip onto my basket and press my lips together, the wood splints poking into my shaking hands. My gaze flickers from adult to adult, scanning their face and trying to read their expressions. Someone had died?? Someone else??

Did I know this person? Were they my friend?

"Who?" I squeak out. Clearing my throat, I step completely through the doorway and place down my basket on the entrance counter. My father frowns at me and his gaze flickers from me to Alya's mother, the woman who had given me the free sandwich.

"We do not know, Marinette."

My eyes flutter close and I release a breath. Thank you, God. While my heart mourns for the lost life, I am relieved to find out it wasn't anyone I knew. I had briefly thought of my father's friends, but it looked like most were still standing here. My thoughts then wizzed to others I knew in town, but before they wandered too far my father answered my question. If it wasn't anyone we knew, then why was it such a shock? More and more bodies were piling up at the edge of the woods, it wouldn't be long before men with pitchforks and spears ventured into the woods to find the unknown culprit.

Even though they had a face for their target already.

"Then why is everyone gathering? This isn't the first body or anyone we know. Shouldn't we be finding their family?"

My father looks to the floor, and back to Alya's mother. My eyebrows furrow and I groan.

"What are you bunch keeping for me?? I'm almost of age! I can handle it, Papa." I splutter. It feels like learning of my mothers death all over again. Feeling helpless, and being in the dark, only but a child. Utter darkness when everyone around you knows more than you.

"But you're not of age Marinette! That is the point!"

My eyes widen and the frustration melts away. My father never raised his voice at me, he never had to. I'd always been the model child, cleaning and sewing clothes to wear. Never asking for more, or taking what wasn't mine. It's not something I had to train myself to do, it was how my mother was. And I wanted to be just like her.

Why did it suddenly matter that I wasn't 18?? He hadn't cared before, since Sabine had passed he'd treated me like an adult, after all we had gone through some very adult-shaping things.

Why had he chosen now of all times to become upset with me? I wasn't even angry at him, just frustrated that they were all staring at me like I had some red large X painted across my back. I glared at him with more sadness then anger.

"Marinette, what your father meant to say is that all bodies that have been found at the edge of the woods have been people from town, and all of which have been at least 30 years of age." Otis Cesaire, father of Alya Cesaire said peacefully, stepping forward a bit to deescalate the situation.

"And what does that have to do with me?" I say calmly.

"Nothing directly, but the body found today is an unknown body of a small girl who was only 16 when she was killed. It's a completely different victim compared to everyone before. Before we could assume that the deaths may have been caused by failure to pay up debts or family wrongdoing, but what could a 16 year old girl have done to wrong someone in the way of ending up being slaughtered?"

Before I had a chance to properly process all the man had said, another voice broke the small crowd.

"Are we seriously going to ignore the fact that we know who is doing this? Or what is doing this?" The last sentence was spat out with such hate and spite that I nearly flinched. "We all know it's that thing that lives in the woods, the girl was killed the same way! Deep cuts all over her body and mangled clothes, and finally, a deep slit across her throat." He finished by drawing his own finger from one side of his neck to the other, as if demonstrating what happened to these poor people.