Daughter of the Demon (I)

Daughter of the Demon-2-Dear Aunt Clara

Chapter 2: Dear Aunt Clara

~Jemma~

I didn’t mean to punch that girl in the face. It was simply a reflex. But she needed to mind her own fucking business because I wasn’t going to take the shit she kept dishing out at me.

Nobody understood. Aunt Clara told me people would, but she was wrong. In the end they were all self-centered and given the chance to save themselves would throw you in front of a bus in a heartbeat. It was sad, but it was just the way it was.

I ditched school. I know, my first day and already I had a record. But I couldn’t go through the whole day with people staring at me and skirting away from me. I hated that. It made me ache for the days back when I was normal, back when my life made sense. I couldn’t handle the stares or the whispers, so I left homeroom and began walking home.

Aunt Clara lived in this little town of Heart, North Carolina, something about it being the heart of something or other. I hadn’t paid attention to what she told me on the car ride to her house. I hadn’t really cared. But she lived in some isolated place on a hill where you had to walk a mile to get to civilization and if you wanted a chance to be with nature that was it. I was forced to jump over fallen trees and duck under hanging branches, occasionally shuddering at the sound of a wolf howl or an unknown animal roar. How could she want to live here? What human wants to live right next door to a bear cave?

After about twenty minutes I was standing outside Aunt Clara’s two-story house (which, really, was more of a cabin) and I was contemplating whether to open the front door and me outright and honest about ditching, or climb in through the window and hide in my room. I’d just met Aunt Clara for the first time last week and we hadn’t exactly interacted much, so, it would be rather awkward. I didn’t want the first real conversation we had with each other to be us screaming in the other’s face.

So, I decided on a totally different option that would keep me from going in the house entirely.

I stood at the base of a tall tree, hands on my hips, judging how high I could go before the distance I fell would be fatal. When my calculations were correct (well, sort of correct) I kicked off my boots, hid them in a bush, and used a purple hair-tie around my wrist to sweep my thick black hair into a pony-tail. Once I’d done that I grabbed my first branch and began climbing. I’d first found out about my joy for climbing when I was six and I was trying to escape my mother. Back when I had a mother. Back when . . .

I shook my head. Such memories did not prove good for me to think about. I was trying to move forward, and I couldn’t move forward if a part of me was stuck in the past.

I made it to the limb I had been eyeing for the past five minutes and pulled myself onto it, heaving a sigh of relief once I was settled. I could see down the hill and through the town, all the way to Heart high school, the heart of hell. I snickered to myself, hanging my leg off the side of the branch and swinging it absently.  A breeze rustled the top of the trees, causing leaves to fall on me, but I didn’t mind. The tree swayed and I half-closed my eyes, wishing I could sit here in this tree for eternity and never have anybody bother me.

How wrong I was to think like that.

I thought lazily about my day at school. This one kid came to mind. He was tall and not-bad looking with dark brown hair and blue eyes, but, he was that type people praised but secretly didn't like. The cheerleader-dating, jock, I’m-all-that type. It was disgusting. And then there was Angelina, that bitch who dressed like she didn’t have enough money for the majority of her outfit. She looked like one of those women in those degrading magazines.

High school, as you could see, was one big ongoing joke.

Everybody always said high school was the best experience, blah blah blah, and that you would remember it for the rest of your life, blah blah blah.

Yeah. Bullshit.

I sat back against the tree and closed my eyes, folding my hands behind my head, waiting for the school day to end.

*****

I checked my cell phone. The screen read four o'clock so school was over, and I could return home without Aunt Clara worrying.  I jumped down from the tree and landed in a crouched position, rising easily and retrieving my boots from the bushes. I laced them up, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and walked up the drive to Aunt Clara’s two-story cabin.

I turned the knob and stepped inside. “Aunt Clara?” I called, my voice resounding around the wooden walls. I heard small footsteps and then her head with her mass of brown curls appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Jemma? Is that you? How was your first day of school?”

I plopped my backpack on the floor by the front door as it slammed behind me. “Do you want me to lie or do you want the truth?”

A saddened look crossed Aunt Clara’s face. “Was it that bad?”

“Yes.” I slumped into the kitchen and crumpled into a chair. Aunt Clara hurriedly followed me in and sat across from me.

“What happened?”

I stared blankly at the wall behind her head. “This girl called me a child of the devil. And then she called my mother a whore.”

“Oh, honey . . .” She reached across the table and clasped my hand in hers. “It’ll get better. It will. I promise.”

I pulled my hand away and leaned back in the chair. “No it won’t. You say that but it won’t.”

“You don’t know that---”

“No, but neither do you! I don’t know that it’ll get better and I don’t know that it’ll get worse! But that’s the part that really sucks because you just don’t know!” I shot up from the table and stormed out of the kitchen, thinking of about a hundred ways that conversation could have gone a whole lot better. But I already left Aunt Clara sitting there, no doubt holding her head and muttering about me. And I was already up the steps and in my room, having slammed the door as hard as I could, of course. I was sprawled out on my bed, facing the ceiling, trying not to scream or shout or claw my eyes out. It was quite difficult.

*****

Aunt Clara moved a hand over her face and stared at a picture on the wall next to her phone. She would have to take it down. If Jemma saw it it would only upset her more. With a groan Aunt Clara rose from her chair and strode over to the phone. She pressed her fingers against the rumpled edges of the picture, caressing the woman’s still face. She sighed and gently peeled away the tape, careful not to rip the picture itself. She folded the tape over on the back of the picture and slipped it into her pocket.  “I’m sorry, Linda,” she whispered. “Please, help me with your daughter. I don’t know how to get through to her.”

She knew it was hopeless, asking for help from the dead. It was hard thinking to yourself that your sister was dead, and that you were stuck with your niece who you were now supposed to raise to be a well accomplished young adult. It was overwhelming, but Aunt Clara couldn’t afford to let herself get overwhelmed. She had a troubled teenager to raise, and somehow, she would raise her right.

It’s just going to take a while, Aunt Clara thought to herself. But no soul can be black forever.

At least she hoped.

*****

I didn’t remember falling asleep. When I woke up I had apparently been asleep for a long time because it was black outside and my door was closed and my lights out. A blanket was draped over me, warm and soft against my skin. I grabbed the edges in my hands and pulled it around me tighter. I thought about how much of an ass I had been to Aunt Clara, and she had repaid me by letting me sleep in peace and giving me the warmest blanket ever. I slid deeper into the blanket, ashamed. She was only trying to help. Why did I always have to screw everything up?

Because it’s how you are, Jemma. Get over it. Your life is screwy, so therefore you shall be screwy.

Why didn’t your conscience ever have anything useful to say?