The Girl Called Red

Chapter 6.

WARNING. THE BEGINNING OF THIS CHAPTER IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART OR FOR THOSE EASILY TRIGGERED BY SERIOUS TRAUMA!

IT IS OKAY TO SKIP THIS CHAPTER!!

           

"Sister Valerie! Look what I made!" I could feel myself in my little 6-year-old body run up to the closest thing to a mother figure I had ever had. My eyes briefly glowed red with excitement. It was a drawing of the Sister and I in front of the orphanage. Both smiling. My eyes brown, lacking their unnatural glow.

"Well look at this masterpiece!" She exclaimed, ignoring the resounding scoffs that came from the other Nuns behind her. "You know what this deserves?" She asked and I felt little me buzz with excitement. "A special place in my drawer and a little present for you."

The Nuns believed in rewarding us when we were good with things we liked. With some it was sweets or a day out. For me, it was books. Fantastical stories of faraway places in which a girl like myself could thrive. She pulled out a book she had just bought and held it out to me. The thin outer cover had worn with use, large letters covering the front and it rasped against my small fingers.

"A new reading time book!" I squealed, grabbing it and running. Even though I could hardly read it myself. I loved the scraping feeling of the pages and trying to read the front cover myself.

The memory blurred as the other Nuns voices rang out.

"You should not give her gifts Sister Valerie; she is a spawn of the devil! Just look at her eyes!"

"Do not be so cruel. It does not matter how she was born. It only matters who she is. And she is good right down in her heart."

The memory dissipated after a singular moment of a small lonely girl sitting, smiling happily, as everyone and everything except for Sister Valerie avoided her.

Another image flashed, this time when I was 9 and I saved a Raven with a broken wing and a long scar down its face from being hit by a truck.

Sister Valerie and a newer Sister both helped me nurse it back to health. And I remember the lightening feeling in my chest when I set it free.

It soared, over our heads and let out a cry so fierce it tore through the sky.

Eleven now.

I was helping a neighbour of the orphanage move fruits for his store when I saw a black van stream past. The prettiest girl of the orphanage, Katya, was playing a game all by herself.

I watched, an unknown feeling furrowing my brows as it slowed down the closer it got to her.

A warning Sister Valerie had told us once about one that had gone and made little girls disappear echoed between my ears.

Before I knew of what I was doing, I had dropped the small crate of oranges. Mr Backarov let out a gasp as I raced towards the younger girl.

"KATYA LOOK OUT!" I screamed in the only language I knew, Russian. Her head snapped towards me tilting slightly as my vision flamed red.

Her eyes widened as she took a step backwards, right into a man dressed all in leather with a terrifying, swirling black mask over his face.

I was too late.

As they started pulling her towards the hole screeching open in the black abyss of the van, I barrelled into another man. "NO! LET HER GO!" I hit the one in front of me with my fists until he pulled at my mess of waves and curls, and began dragging me.