Sublime Messages

Eleven, A

The first time Ruby took a life, it was because of Damien. She knew her father wouldn't have damned the act itself (after finding those bodies in the pool house, she'd understood the extent of his ambition), but she knew he'd disapprove of the circumstances surrounding it, and so she'd fabricated an excuse and hoped he'd fall for it.

Daddy had done more than fall for it—he'd embraced it.

The event happened well over a year after she'd gone to live with her father. Time moved strangely in the big empty house. Ruby lost track of days. The sameness coupled with her father's rotating moods confused her. There were no calendars, no devices by which to tell time. There were no televisions or radios or even daily papers, so the dates disappeared, and the weeks blurred, and though the weather gave subtle hints as to change, the southern climate was unhelpful in determining more than general seasonal shifts. To make existence bearable, Ruby had begun to read both the books she had. She read them over and over, hour after hour, and while she'd never been an adept learner, she did begin to memorize some quotes and general ideas. Certain passages, particularly in the Bible, stuck out to her more than others—the violent ones. She liked those. There were so many she didn't understand, and there were even more that bored her, but the lines and paragraphs that contained talk of the wicked and cutting off hands and plucking out eyes and smiting with swords and tearing babies in half she highlighted and dog-eared and returned to again and again.

The other book, the one that'd been Damien's, she kept secret. The way it'd been wrapped up in the sleeping bag gave her to believe Daddy might not have even seen it, that he'd just collected everything and stuffed it in the shopping bag without really knowing about Damien's book. Surely he wouldn't want Ruby reading anything other than the Bible. So she'd taken the well-loved paperback down to her secret place and, when Daddy was out of the house, would spend time down there next to Damien's likeness, reading the thing he'd so loved.

She didn't understand most of it, honestly. The writing was old, and the names were complicated. But she took her time, and certain bits began to make sense. More precious to her than the story itself, though, were the markings scattered infrequently across the pages. They were Damien's, his writing, his nonsensical scribbles. They were his. Ruby would run her fingers across them, feel the subtle indentations, close her eyes and tremble at the thought of touching something he'd touched. She'd press the grease spots and unidentifiable stains, think of what he might've been eating or drinking while poring over the old words. Even the tears, all small of course but a quarter-inch rip here or there from when he may have gotten too hasty, too excited about what he read—Ruby touched her cheek to those as well. Anything to feel closer to him, to know him. Because she did miss him. Every moment she breathed, she missed him, whether awake or asleep, listening to her father or listening to her own heart, upstairs in the house with the sunshine and rain or downstairs in the basement with the shadows. And sometimes, when she was absolutely certain she was alone in the house, she'd remove her clothes and open Damien's book, and very gently so as not to harm any pages, she'd brush them against her bare skin, anywhere she could. She'd flutter those thin papers along her belly, tingling inside as she imagined his lips instead, or she'd draw the cover along her arms and shoulders and think of his hands, push the spine between her legs and rub until she shuddered and turned away to cry.

She always cried, after.

Things went on like this for some time. Ruby fell into a haze of sorts. She forgot herself, her audacity. She mistook acceptance for contentment and left everything to her father, though Daddy was beginning to behave more erratically. Not having known the man most of her life, Ruby couldn't say whether he were reverting to old patterns or creating new ones, but he was gone for nights and days at a time without telling her; she'd begun to eat less and less, not due to lack of hunger but because she was never sure when Daddy would be back with more food. And when he was home, he was either working in the basement in that room, bringing in materials for a task he never discussed with her, or he was talking to her about Bible readings. That was the worst; Ruby didn't like conversing with her father. He barked at her when she didn't know something, and he rattled on and on about having a clear message, about needing to be of the same mind (though he chose not to elaborate on what that mind should be). He confused her, and he yelled at her. When they were together, Ruby spent most of her time trying to avoid aggravating him. He hadn't slapped her since before they'd moved to the house, but the atmosphere he'd cultivated hadn't eased the sense that he might do it again if he had a whim.