Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part 149
Felecia didn’t like being cruel, or thinking cruel things. She was raised in a cruel house by a cruel woman who used every opportunity to cut away at her and remove all happiness from her life. She knew how awful it was to be around that kind of person, but she was also already tired of being in the company of others. Other people never lasted around Felecia, something dire was always happening to the people around her, especially those she chose or wound up caring for. Best to be honest, even too honest than entertain arguments about who or what Felecia owed to Phillip or anyone.
“Yes, Phillip took me in, made you give me your brother’s clothes and boots. He built my pathetic hovel up on the rise and kept me warm and fed. He taught me how to hunt, to survive, to work off the land. Your father was my father, for a time, too bad he was never a father to you.”
Felecia kept her back turned but clenched the handle of the kettle in her hand, if the youth got any ideas about getting physically violent, he would lose.
There was a long silent pause, as if even the bugs out in the swamp decided not to get involved or butt in. Finally, the youth took a deep breath, “Fine. My Pa likes you more than me. Now can we go?”
Nana wouldn’t stop there, Nana wouldn’t stop until she got what she wanted, all Felecia wanted was to be left alone, once and for all.
“Phillip likes the goats more than you, and the fences, and the fucking inbred villagers. I had to listen to you most nights before he and I nearly got killed in that village. I heard him shout and yell, I heard him hitting you. I heard him…”
The youth interrupted. “Shut your mouth!”
Felecia continued without skipping a beat, “hurt you, time and time again. I had to stand there while he berated you humiliated and demeaned you at every turn.”
The youth repeated his demand but he wasn’t moving forward.
Again, Felecia continued, “He was aware he was doing it. He chose me over you because I was the daughter he never got to raise. He made it obvious how much he didn’t like you, or even love you. He stabbed you, twice, nearly killed you. The question isn’t why don’t I care, the real question is why do you?”
The youth wasn’t shouting anymore, or standing with his chest puffed up and his teeth grinding together. Felecia turned and saw a lump, a boney, disheveled, downcast lump still wrapped in a shall from the waist up. The sobs were barely noticeable, but they were there all the same. If there was more light in the cave Felecia was sure she would have seen the fat crocodile tears rolling down the youth’s cheeks.
Felecia grunted in disgust and poured some sleep tea into a cup. She was bringing it over to the youth when he finally wiped the snot and hot tears from his face with the back of one of his boney, callused hands. “You ain’t even human, maybe you never were.”
“I’m what my Nana made me, what your Pa made me, what the old witch in this cave made me. I’m what the awful squid out in the bay made me, most importantly though, I’m also right. This is your out. Sleep here tonight and in the morning, walk into town, get a job cutting bait or sweeping floors. Start a new life, a real one, unlike most of us, you can pass as normal, in both ways.”
The youth didn’t have anything to add so Felecia took the bitter victory and put the cup on the small table next to the settee, “Drink this, it will help those wounds heal. Think about what I said and sleep.”
“No.”
The youth stood up and tossed the shawl on the settee, reaching for a shirt that was the cleanest it had likely been in seasons. Felecia turned away from the scene, red with shame for what she felt as she saw the youth naked from the waist up. It wasn’t like before, asleep and injured it was just a body, a pleasant one to look at maybe but nothing worthy of stirring any feelings. The last thing Felecia wanted was anything stirring. Fine, so be it, let the youth be stubborn and go back to the old drunk so he could finish the job he started.
You don’t mean that, you can’t.
The voice was intrusive but it wasn’t that sly and awful voice from beyond and out in the waves. Felecia heard her own voice echoing inside her mostly empty head. She shook her head a bit and ignored it and the youth as he continued to dress.
Be honest, tell them you can’t help. There’s nothing here that can help an insane man.
Honesty hadn’t helped with the older woman and her granddaughter, it hadn’t helped in the village, it was a liability in Rotary House, the very thing that got her banished in the first place. No, honesty was rubbish and so was the pathetic angel voice trying to set up shop on her shoulder.
“Shut up.”
It wasn’t a shout like the youths but Felecia looked at nothing and no one in particular as she said it.
The youth struggled and worked at getting his boots back on. “To hell with you. All the books, and smarts, wasted on a coward. He might hate my guts but he’s my Pa. I won’t let him die alone. I won’t leave him shouting at dead people and screaming that word over and over again.”
Felecia didn’t have to think long on those words. Nor did she need to wonder long about Phillip talking to the dead. Another fucking test. Another trial for Felecia to pass or duck out of. The monster out in the waves had waited and played its game once more only now with the one bit of raw nerve Felecia hadn’t managed to sever or cauterize herself.