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" BLOOD CALLS FOR BLOOD "
JUST A GIRL, that's what she thinks about as she meticulously spoons out the plums in her pudding. Her father had done the same after she walked downstairs when she wasn't supposed to. Except instead of plum, it was a man's eyes. Alessandra, under no real supervision — all the maids keep their heads ducked down to avoid the gaze of a child who could quickly grow into their next tormentor — takes the spoon and presses the cool metal against her left eye. If her mother were here she'd scold her for playing with the cutlery. She'd ask for the whereabouts of her manners like they were some friend down the block. Maybe the man who lost his eyes lacked manners, too. Just a girl. He was just a man. Why did her mother state the obvious?
Alessandra is a comfortable seven, a straight line and a sharp diagonal downward, clean and simple, just the way she likes it. So, by observation, she is a girl. Perhaps not a normal girl. Height wise, she measures below average — three foot nine inches and three quarters — a whole two and a fourth inches shorter than what is expected of her peers. The doctors had done a check-up on her bones to find no abnormalities. She drinks two glasses of milk a day just in case, one with breakfast and one before bed. Weighing in at a healthy forty-nine pounds, she is light enough for her father to throw her into her mother's favorite china cabinet with little effort. It only happened once though, for her father is a frugal man. Walls, however, cost less. She particularly enjoys the hug of the one on the second floor, painted red and warm as the heater was situated against it. An old burn at her hip aches at the memory. Is it because of the pain? Or does her skin crave warmth?
Still, she is perplexed. Movements heavy, she massages her brow bone as she presses the spoon against the crown of her eyeball, moving it back and forth with the lull of her thoughts' tide. When she had seen that man's eyeballs rolling on the floor like marbles her stomach had lurched as her heart slammed on the brakes. There had always been whispers of her father being a bad man as she hid behind curtains, waiting for her numerous nannies to capture her for nap time. Now, the evidence laid before her, looking up at her through still and ballooned blue irises. For a moment, she reached out to pick one up but was yanked back by the lace of her white collar. A cool, viscous liquid stained the back of her neck as those fingers dragged her back hard enough that her buttoned shirt rammed against her larynx. Briefly, her vision became blotted by black and her lungs burned so searingly brilliant she almost thought a fire had ignited within her body.
On a regular basis, Alessandra and her father would never surpass an exchange of more than four words a day. She would greet, "Good morning, father." And he would nod with a "daughter," as acknowledgment before exiting their hallowed hollow halls. Nothing more than a shadow of him existed in her life, just a brush of wind that you think might be the touch of ghost or the coat on the chair that in your peripheral, your sleep-riddled mind conjures as man lurking in the dark. A swell of excitement had echoed through the concert halls of her loneliness. Even if it was violent, her father paid her even a sliver of mind.
