Lucilla
by David A. Riley
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Table of Contents, parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 |
Clouds hung over the rooftops like soiled linen stretched endlessly across the sky.
In sheer desperation, she flew fast beneath them, her body ragged from all its wounds but feeling triumphant. The crows that had attacked her had long since tumbled to the ground, dead, some of them dismembered by her claws. She knew she wouldn’t be able to last much longer, either. Her falcon body and its inadequately tiny avian brain couldn’t cope with her presence. She would need something larger or she would die completely this time.
Downwards in a long, parabolic swoop, she soared towards the rooftops. Somewhere down there she needed to find a refuge. Something with a brain large enough to accommodate her but not so mature that its host would resist her invasion.
Then she saw her. That girl would do.
part 3
Feeling detached somehow from all of this, Miranda searched for Lucilla. She tried to see past the women crowded about the hallway, despite Mary’s efforts to usher them into the dining room where there was more space, but she could not see her.
“Where’s Lucilla?” Miranda turned to the nearest woman.
“Lucilla?” Several teeth missing from years of drug-abuse, Joyce Grainger’s face looked even more dumbfounded than usual. “Lucilla who, dear?”
Impatiently, Miranda brushed past her. “Lucilla!” she shouted, though she was unsure why she felt an overwhelming concern that something was wrong.
She ran up the stairs, though she had not seen Lucilla head this way. Instinct? A premonition? Whatever it was that prompted her, Miranda went straight into the room that Lucilla shared with Olivia and Glenda.
Despite her uncertainty, she was not surprised to find Lucilla standing by the bedroom window, staring down at the street. The police were still there. While one of them was talking on his radio, the others were leaning inside their car as if they were suddenly concerned about their prisoner.
“Are you all right?” Miranda asked.
Startled, Lucilla turned to face her, a look of guilt on her small face. Did Miranda think the man had been harmed?
“Good grief, what’s the matter?” Miranda asked. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault. Nicola should have been more careful when she came in. She should have seen him waiting on the street and realised that something was wrong. It was inexcusable.” I’ll make that clear to Mary when I see her, Miranda thought.
Lucilla shook her head. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”
“Hurt him? You?” For an instant Miranda was tempted to laugh, but she knew that would have been the wrong response. Lucilla needed better confirmation of her innocence than that. “He’ll be all right. He was probably shocked the police arrived so quickly, that’s all.”
Miranda said that even though she knew Karl Brown had begun to look ill before the police burst in. There might have been only seconds of it but, unless the man had second sight, he could not have known he would be bundled away within the next few minutes. She remembered the drops of blood on his mouth. Had he suffered a seizure brought on by rage, alcohol and clogged arteries and a lifestyle that would probably see him dead in the next few years?
She glanced through the window. The policemen had dragged Karl out of the car and laid flat him on the pavement. One was knelt over him, pumping his chest with both hands. Despite her concerns over Lucilla, Miranda moved nearer the window, the girl beside her.
In the distance another siren was heading their way, hidden beyond the grey rooftops.
After minutes of strenuous effort, the policeman finally stopped pumping the man’s chest and slumped forwards. Miranda drew Lucilla away from the window and back into the room.
“Is he dead?” Lucilla asked.
Miranda shook her head. “I don’t know,” she lied.
Downstairs she heard the doorbell ring and knew one of the policemen must have returned to the Shelter. Even up here, she could hear Alice’s hysteria, and wondered how a woman who had been beaten and betrayed by a man like Karl Brown should care so much when he died.
When her own father had passed away years ago, Miranda felt nothing inside her, only a sense of relief that he would no longer be there to scorn or belittle her or furtively hurt and humiliate her mother. Yet to hear Alice’s sobs she would have thought the woman had lost the love of her life.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Miranda told Lucilla as they headed for the stairs.
* * *
With the sudden death of her husband, the whole reason for Alice having to stay at the Shelter had gone. During the next few hours, Mary busied herself cancelling arrangements for her transfer to Blackburn, while trying her best to help console the woman. It was quickly agreed that Alice could stay on at the Shelter overnight before they helped her back to her home.
It was a bad business. Mary was quietly concerned about security at the Shelter and was determined to make sure its locality was kept as much out of the news as possible. It was the first time anything like this had happened, and it created a strained atmosphere amongst everyone, not helped by some censorious glances cast towards Lucilla.
Kept busy for the rest of the day, Miranda was not able to see as much of Lucilla as she would have liked. She was unhappy at how the girl had been affected by what had happened and the certainty Lucilla seemed to have that she was responsible in some way for the man’s death, absurd though Miranda knew this was. Others, though, were not so sceptical, and Miranda was aware of whisperings amongst some of the women.
“I’m not sure if it would be a good idea for Lucilla to stay much longer,” Mary told her when things had settled enough for them to relax for a few minutes over a pot of tea. Sitting in the office, they had as much privacy here as anywhere in the Shelter.
Both had noticed how the other women — even some of the children — had begun to shy away from the girl, though no one would say why.
“It’s absurd in this day and age that people could suspect someone as small and frail as Lucilla to be responsible for that man’s death.” Miranda felt her cheeks burn with indignation, though she normally tried to preserve an air of professional detachment when talking to Mary.
“Of course it is,” Mary said. “But we are not dealing with educated, rational people, Miranda. Much as I regret having to say it, most of them are barely literate. And some have had what common-sense they ever had battered out of them. This is what we have to face, like it or not.”
“Which means what?” Miranda asked. “Send Lucilla elsewhere?”
“That would be the logical solution. We can’t afford more trouble. Not until what happened today has been forgotten.”
“But what did happen?” Miranda said. “A man burst in, drunk to the gills, and died. It was probably a stroke or a heart attack or something like that. If it hadn’t happened here, it would have happened somewhere else. He was a walking time bomb.”
“You may suspect that’s what happened. If it matters, so do I,” Mary said, so reasonably that Miranda felt irritation well inside her. “It’s what the rest of them think. I’ve seen them looking at Lucilla-no-last-name. They’re frightened.”
“What did they see that we didn’t?” Miranda asked. “Sparks burst from Lucilla’s fingers?”
Mary started to laugh at the absurdity when there was a knock at the door.
It was Joyce. Her hand hovered across her mouth where her teeth were missing. “I thought you might want to know. There’s trouble in the kitchen.”
Miranda followed as Mary rushed from the office towards the communal kitchen at the back of the house. It was a large, rectangular, comfortable room where many of the women liked to relax over endless brews of tea. When Miranda walked in, she sensed a change. There was tension in the air, and she knew straight away the cause. Lucilla was standing in one corner. Most of the women, including the two she shared a room with, were facing the girl, their hostility obvious.
“Is something the matter?” Mary asked, reasserting her authority. “You know we don’t stand for trouble of any sort in the Shelter. That’s not why you came here.” She cast the bulk of the women a scathing glance. “At least I hope not,” she added.
Miranda saw they had probably arrived just in time before something serious happened. Just words, she thought, though it was obvious no one wanted to step forward to explain what had been going on. She looked at Lucilla. “Would you like to come with me for a while?”
Lucilla nodded, moving quickly to her. As they left the room, Miranda could sense a collective fission of relief behind them, though no one spoke other than Mary as she lectured them on the importance of getting on with each other.
Miranda took Lucilla straight to the office. “Sit down,” she said. “Would you like some tea?”
Lucilla declined a drink, though she sat down quietly, looking even more childlike than usual. Miranda noticed the cut on her arm looked healthier now and was healing well.
“What happened back there?”
Lucilla looked up, and Miranda noticed how intensely pale the girl’s eyes were, with only the slightest hint of green. She seemed unable or unwilling, though, to explain anything.
Miranda might have pressed for an answer, but Mary returned a few moments later, still fuming over what had happened.
“Those damned silly women. You’d think they’d learn from their own experiences, wouldn’t you?”
“Does anyone?” Miranda felt tempted to ask but stayed silent.
Mary looked down at Lucilla.
“What shall we do with you?” She turned to Miranda. “They won’t have her with them. Olivia and Glenda. They won’t tell me why, of course, but they’re adamant they don’t want her in their room.”
“Must we send her to another shelter?” Miranda asked.
At which Mary turned to Lucilla once more and said, “I’m sorry, my dear, but that’s what it looks like we’ll have to do. I don’t know what you’ve done to upset them all...”
Miranda looked at her watch. “It’s too late now. We can’t ship her miles away at this time.”
“Though I’m loath to leave her here overnight,” Mary said.
Miranda’s suggestion came almost as much as a surprise to her as it did to Mary. “She can stay with me,” she replied almost before she had thought about it. “We can sort out where she goes tomorrow.” She shook her head at Mary as her boss was about to say something. “I know it’s unorthodox. And perhaps we shouldn’t do things this way. But I feel we’re responsible for what happened this morning. If Nicola hadn’t been so careless when she came back, Karl Brown would never have had the chance to burst in, and perhaps none of this would have happened.”
“You still don’t need to do this,” Mary said, though not as insistently as Miranda had expected.
Miranda glanced at Lucilla. “I think I do. Besides, I’ve plenty of room. I’ve a bed settee I’m sure is immense enough to accommodate someone as big as Lucilla. And I could do with the company.”
“For one night only,” Mary added. “No more. Tomorrow we make arrangements for another Shelter to take her in.”
At six Miranda waited while Lucilla put together what few possessions she had, then led her out to her car. It was the first time the girl had left the building since she arrived, and she was obviously nervous when she stepped outside. Her small hand tightened about Miranda’s, reinforcing the impression she was only a child. A child with the figure of a full-grown woman, Miranda thought.
During the drive across town, Lucilla remained silent, sitting next to Miranda so still it was almost as if she had frozen solid. Whenever Miranda glanced at her, the girl’s eyes were focussed straight ahead as if she feared looking to either side or was perhaps so frightened she dared not move.
By the time they arrived at the estate, a mist had started to spread across its flat, open plan lawns, softening the outlines of the red brick flats, built in units of four, two up, two down. Miranda’s was on the first floor, accessed by a flight of stairs behind an outside door.
After parking in her reserved space nearby, Miranda wasted no time in taking Lucilla indoors. There was a nip in the air, and the girl wore only a light linen coat hardly thick enough for weather like this. Miranda led her into the living room and switched on the TV. “I’ll make something to drink,” Miranda said. “I’m sure you’re ready for a cup of tea to warm you up.”
She left the girl watching a repeat of Friends while she went into the kitchen, wondering how long the evening was going to seem if the girl remained as silent as she so far had.
“You’ve never spoken about the man who attacked you,” Miranda said some time later after they had finished a microwaved lasagne from the freezer. Though she had not intended to take the opportunity to probe into the girl’s background, something about Lucilla’s reticence prodded her into it.
Besides, tomorrow morning the girl would be gone. The more information she could pass on to the next Shelter that the girl went to, the better able they might be to cope with her. Or so she told herself. Though in truth she knew curiosity about the girl’s background had more to do with it. She was puzzled why the rest of the women at the Shelter had sided against her. Did they suspect her of stealing from some of them? That was the usual cause, though she had heard no whispers about it. And in a place as tight knit as the Shelter, Miranda knew she would have been aware somehow.
“I don’t like to talk about him,” Lucilla said finally.
“Sometimes it’s good to talk about things,” Miranda said. “Helps put them into some sort of perspective. It can help other people help you, too.”
Lucilla looked at her, doubt in her face. There was something about her body language that made it clear she was not going to say any more about it.
You are a strange little girl, Miranda thought, discarding her curiosity as much as she could, though frustrated by it.
By ten o’clock Lucilla had begun to doze. At which point Miranda decided she might as well have an early night. She went for some sheets and a duvet and set about converting the sofa into a bed. By the time she had finished, Lucilla tumbled into it more asleep than awake.
With a shake of her head, Miranda wandered into the kitchen, decided to leave the unwashed plates till tomorrow, and reached for a bottle of wine. This and the book she was reading would help get her a good night’s sleep.
By twelve o’clock, half a bottle and several chapters later, Miranda tiredly switched off the light and rolled over. Before she hardly knew it, she was drifting into a deep, dreamless, satisfying sleep. It was the kind of sleep she would normally have only woken from when her alarm went off at seven in the morning.
Long before then, a scream jolted her up in bed, her pulse racing.
Remembering the girl, she knew straight away who it was.
A nightmare, that’s all. That’s what must have made her scream, she thought.
Miranda switched on the light and reached automatically for her mobile phone as she rolled out of bed, before running across the room to the door.
The sparsely furnished living room was gloomy when she stepped inside. Apart from the light in the bedroom behind her, the only illumination came from the afterglow of the streetlamps outside, refracted across the curtains. A silhouette of Lucilla — or a Lucilla-like figure — was stood at the window.
Miranda reached for the light switch and saw Lucilla curled up on the bed-settee, her hands clinging to the duvet she had pulled around herself as she stared wild-eyed at the curtains.
Miranda quickly followed her gaze. Her heart still pounding, she strode to the curtains and pulled them open, but there was nothing there.
Though disturbed at what she thought she had seen, Miranda was relieved to find they were alone. Crossing to the girl she cradled her head. It felt light within her arms.
“Bad dreams?” she asked, though she did not expect a clear answer. She wondered if Lucilla was prone to nightmares, if that explained why the women who shared a room with her at the Shelter had turned against her. Who would want their sleep broken at three in the morning by screams like this night after night, especially when they were recovering from domestic violence themselves?
“Do you often wake up like this?” Miranda asked.
Lucilla nodded her head.
“Every night?”
Again, Lucilla nodded; she looked up at her.
Miranda was unsure even when it happened what motivated her as she leaned forward, stared into Lucilla’s pale green, almost translucent eyes, and kissed her, gently at first, but with increasing, devastating urgency, on the lips. It was as if something compelled her, something stronger than anything she had known before. In her mind’s eye she could see Lucilla’s face, but it was different, radiant, part angel, part devil, greater than anything she had ever known, against which she felt her will melting like snow before an opened furnace, its flames roaring with a terrible rage that lingered on.
* * *
Copyright © 2022 by David A. Riley
