Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part Fifty
“Mornin’ Fee.”
When Felecia didn’t shift underneath her coat or respond the fishy looking man nodded back toward the estate just barely a day’s march to the south. “Given the hand you got dealt in life, I don’t have to wonder why you always search for villains. You’re looking over at the bow and considering the knife at your waist but here’s the thing, when have I ever been the villain to you?”
Felecia continued to find herself shy on words and the willingness to move so Phillip shrugged and dropped a heavy pack laden with supplies and tools to help live rough. “If you had taken it all anyway, I wouldn’t have called it theft, and no, you don’t owe me shit, no matter what you think.”
When Felecia still found herself unable to respond Phillip shrugged and sighed and started to walk back to the estate.
Felecia once again felt the word fall out of her mouth without her permission, “Wait.”
Phillip stopped and turned around. “And don’t I always?”
“I killed him, Phillip. I know he was going to do the same to me, or worse, but I killed him all the same. I murdered a man. The nightmares I’ve had since then, about the big house, about Nana, and everyone else there. I have to leave, I have to stay away from them, from everyone, for all your sake.”
Phillip’s thick, furrowed brows pinched together and threatened to create a unified front of hairy, worry and confusion before they eased as he spoke. “They told us years ago, the preachers and the colonels, that killing was different in war time. I knew they were all full of shit even then. I killed Spaniard’s, the local natives who served them, even a few black field hands who couldn’t clear out in time before the shots got fired. I killed scores who likely had family and friends and none of it meant anything to the men above me. I had to make peace with all that insanity. I had to find a way to survive and it wasn’t easy. I had to come home and put a mask on, I had to smile and nod no matter what. I had to continue being your father’s man. I was expected to make a family and be a family man and I spend my nights in my cups or sleeping wet assed out here in the woods otherwise because of the horrors I caused and endured, and because of the life I was expected to live.”
Felecia stayed silent and continued to stare at the pack of worldly goods that she would need but didn’t want to take.
Phillip looked down at the pack and continued, “I never had to stab a man in the throat to stay alive in the war. I never had a man climb atop me and begin to deliberately beat the life out of me one punch at a time. I never had a man howl out his hatred for me based solely on my sex or station in life while the mindless mob cheered him on. I certainly wasn’t a child either when I killed my first man. Our understanding as people can be universal and serine, but our horrors are individual, personal and alienating. That’s the point of them after all. I can’t pretend to be you or know what you feel. If you need to be alone, for a time, or over all, so be it, but I won’t see you off without a start.”
Felecia reached over and put her hand on the pack and that was all either of them needed. Phillip nodded without another word and began working his way back to the estate grounds.