Part Two: Chapter Eleven

Part Two: The Tiger

Chuck woke up that morning, spying five AM on the clock in the room. She wiped her face, cool and sticky with sweat. “No one can know about today.” She decided. “Eve could-would ruin my birthday. Still, though… sixteen.” Chuck grinned to herself. Even the burning unconquerable pain had faded significantly as she pulled her hands behind her head and drifted back to sleep.

“Charlotte, come downstairs.” Amy Watson waited. “Please, Chuck?” She called up the stairs enticingly. “Chuck, I have something for you. Please.”

“I don’t want your damn charity! I want to go home!” She sobbed into her pillow. Her leg was stiff as a thick cast ran from her thigh down to nearly her toes.

“Charlotte, please, I know it’s hard. Please, come down.” Amy Watson climbed the narrow stairway and barged into the girl’s room. “Chuck, I know how hard it is. I have something that will make it a little better though.” Eventually, she pulled the girl from her bed, helping her down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Charlotte sat at the table. Her eyes were red from crying. There was a scarlet wound across her neck, healing. She swallowed with strain. “Ms. Watson…” She started.

After shushing her, Ms. Watson set a lumpy lopsided cake in front of her with sixteen candles on it. “One for good luck,” She explained with a smile.

Chuck’s mouth went dry. “You made me a birthday cake?” Tears welled in her eyes. “Why did you make me a birthday cake? I’m awful to you.”

She delicately held the girl’s chin, seeing so much of herself in the clear green eyes. “I know what it’s like to lose your family and I know something familiar can make it better. Happy birthday, Chuck.” Ms. Watson placed a wrapped box in the girl’s lap.

Charlotte blew out the candles on the birthday cake and curiously stared at the gift in her lap. Patiently, she unfolded the paper. After opening the box, she gaped, “My jeans? How-how did you know that these were my favorite pair? How did you-”

“Shh, it ruins the magic. Do you want cake or not?” Regardless of Charlotte’s answer, Ms. Watson still handed her a piece of cake. “I was nine when my parents died. I lived with my grandmother until she died a few years later. Then it was foster care until I was eighteen. I still miss my parents. I’m sorry that you can’t stay here until you’re eighteen. I’m sure you’d like some stability right now.” She brushed some stray hair from the girl’s face. “But I’m always here for you, Charlotte even if you don’t live here.”

The girl smiled in front of her for the first time. “Thanks, Ms. Watson.”

Eve entered the room. Her eyes were intent on the girl smiling in her sleep, but she turned. “Lauren! Wake up!”

Lauren opened her eyes quietly. “Eve, it’s early. What do you want?”

“You weren’t f*****g sleeping anyway. Why does she look so damn happy?”

Lauren shrugged. “She was talking about being sixteen. It might be her birthday. Eve, whatever you did to her a few days ago…she’s still hurt…bad. I don’t think-”

“You’re right. You don’t think, fat-a*s. Whose good side would you rather be on; Mine or that whorish disgusting witch’s?” She grabbed the collar of Lauren’s shirt. “You wouldn’t want her beating to become yours, would you?”

Lauren mulled it over, peering at Charlotte’s sleeping figure. “Yours,” she mumbled to Eve. “What do you want from me?”

“Well, from what I’ve read about Those of the Blueberry Bush-”

Lauren corrected her, eyebrows lowered, “Those of the Laurel Tree.”

“Whatever, you can control some part of nature, can’t you?”

“Well, yes, I control the wind since I got my blessing from-”

Impatiently, Eve interrupted, “I don’t care. That’s useless. Give Charlotte sixteen birthday punches in the stomach to wake her up.” She grinned.

Lauren scrunched her face with a sigh. Once she crawled out of bed and found her angle, she threw her fist at Chuck’s gut.

Releasing a wheeze, Charlotte’s eyes flew open. The blow hadn’t sunk into pain yet. Chuck gasped, winded as another swift blow hit her stomach.

Lauren waited for each to fester before she laid down a new one.

Before she was even half done, Charlotte begged her to stop, questioning why. When Lauren finished, Chuck coughed, “Why? Why did you do that?”

“Happy birthday, w***e.” Lauren replied dryly, shifting her gaze to the floor.

With all of the strength she could muster, Chuck pulled herself up to snarl at Eve in the doorway. “What is wrong with you? You can’t even let me be happy on my birthday? Not even happy, at least… unscathed. You’re a sociopath! Leave me the hell alone!” Charlotte screamed, swallowing her fear back long enough to push Eve.

Eve sprang up, pinning Chuck to the wall immediately. “I’m going to sell you. You’re not worth the trouble anymore. How dare you f*****g hit me! One of us is the dominant one here, Charlotte and it sure as hell ain’t you.”

“I think you’re forgetting which one of us has the actual power here, Ms. Lane. Not some false sense of fear caused by chaining someone to wall or lighting them on fire. You’re powerless and you can’t stand it, so you sold Mommy and Daddy, cut out your uncle’s tongue, and touched your own sister. One of us is disgusting here, and it sure as hell isn’t me,” Charlotte said calmly.

Eve clutched the girl’s neck. She crushed the neck beneath her fingers, reveling in the gasps erupting from Chuck’s mouth.

Chuck kicked her in the shin. When Eve groaned and rubbed it, Charlotte inhaled deeply. After massaging her neck, she balled her fist and swung blindly at Eve.

Eve tumbled back into the bathroom and tripped onto the floor.

Blazing with every wrong done to her in the past two months, Chuck loomed over Eve. A wild look settled into her eyes, brightening them. Every attack spell that the Johnstons’ taught her rested on her tongue, every push-up she’d done for track tensed her arm muscles, and yet, she swallowed. After turning, she said patiently, “You’re not worth my energy.”

Behind her, Eve hooked an arm around Chuck’s neck. She hurled Chuck down the stairs. She chased down after her. After stepping on Charlotte’s already tender stomach, she grabbed a frying pan in the kitchen. “Goodnight, Charlotte.” She swung the pan at her head.

 

Chuck awoke in the kitchen. Her head throbbed with each breath she took. She tasted blood on her lips. As she thrashed around, she found herself restrained to the chair. Her arms lay across the table in front of her, trapped. “Ms. Lane, what is going on?” She called into the blurred world.

Eve stood in front of her, grinning maliciously. “Happy birthday, Charlotte.” She cupped the girl’s chin, enjoying her small struggle. “You’re going to be lovely when I’m done.” She slapped her with a girlish giggle.

Chuck watched her pensively as Eve pulled a saw from off the table. “What’s going on? What are you doing?” She tried to pry her arms from the table. “Ms. Lane!”

Eve rested the rusted jagged edge on Charlotte’s wrists. “Someone else should be able to make those little potions that you do.” And she began to run the blade along the girl’s wrists.

Blood dripped from Chuck’s wounds, staining the table. Pain shot up Charlotte’s arms. She screamed as Eve sawed through her skin. A scraping agony against her wrists wearied her. Blackness danced before her eyes. This can’t be it, Chuck thought through the pain. “It’s a long shot…” She swallowed and whispered, “I’ve not a rhythm or a rhyme. Erase what was and set back time.”

Author's Note

Setting back time is messy.