The Fallen Queen (Winner of the Write Way Award 2013) #Wattys2015 #MyWattysChoice #Featured

Chapter 9: What Happens During a Fishing Trip

The ogress drank and smoked so much I wondered if her body would turn into ashes, like a vampire exposed to sunlight.

My father was not home. He went somewhere up North, on a fishing trip with a friend.

My mother was afraid of becoming bored, of feeling lonely. So my aunt came to visit us with her new husband. She drank a bit with my mom, but not as much as my mother.

I swore to myself that I would never act like them; I would never drink what they were drinking. They lost all logic when they were drunk. They became miserable.

My mother and my aunt began to talk about men. My aunt made the mistake of talking about one of her new husband's friends. My mother insisted on calling him, which they finally did. My mother sweetened her voice while talking on the phone. She became even sensual. She invited the man to come over. My aunt told my Mother she looked like a cat in heat.

What my aunt did not understand was that it did not matter who the guy was. She would have picked up any guy. If they were not at our house, she probably would have went to a bar and found another man.

I went to look for her in a bar one day when she did not come home. I saw she was letting other men kiss and touch her. She became angry when I pulled her by the hand and asked her to come home.

She did not hit me there. But once we were home, we entered through the garage and she grabbed my dad’s metal nail puller and started hitting me with it. I tried to protect myself and fell to the ground. She then started kicking me in the stomach.

She had always only slapped me in the face or beated me with a belt on the rest of the body—never kicked me or hit me with hard objects where it would be visible. It was as if she was calculating everything, calculating where it was most likely for people to see where I was hit. Sometimes, the bruises on my legs were so dark that they were visible through my white stockings. I was then prohibited from going to school with white stockings—it had to be dark blue or black stockings, even if it did not match the rest of my outfit.

I knew she hated me interfering with her doings. By doing so, she considered me worse than the plague. But I always tried to stop her, hoping for her to understand that what she was doing was wrong and, most of all, I did not want her to hurt my dad. I did not want her to do bad things to my dad. I wanted to protect him.

The friend of my aunt’s new husband finally arrived and my mother started acting in a way that made my aunt embarrassed. She decided to leave, taking her husband with her and leaving my mother free to do whatever she wanted without feeling guilty about my dad. They decided not to participate or witness the crime that was about to happen.

It was already late; I had put Audrey and Jeremy to bed already. But I refused to go to sleep. I hoped my presence would stop her from doing things. Maybe she would fear me telling things to my dad. I hoped.

The ogress stood up from her chair and went to sit down beside him. She wept a little. They were crocodile tears. I hated her. He rubbed her back like she was the cat in heat my aunt talked about earlier. She was not a cat, she was a bitch!

She spoke against my father, telling him how he was not good to her, how he did not understand her needs. I doubt he was listening. I think he had something else on his mind.

He suddenly glanced in my direction, like he was wondering if he should start doing adult stuff in front of me. To answer him, I stared at his eyes. Look at my eyes, I said to myself. Do you see them? Do you see how I could kill you? Bastard! How could you do that to my dad! I will kill both of you! I hate you! I hate you!

The ogress had also forgotten I was there. She noticed the man looking at me and she remembered my presence.

“Oh! You are there? Go to bed, Marie.”