Matilda Wren

by When Ravens Fall

  If she hesitated or protested, he said he wouldn’t love her anymore and that then their mother would hand her over to social services. He also bound her in silence, by telling her that if their parents found out about their love and their special game, then she would be locked away forever. As a less advanced and tremendously confused ten year old, these threats were exceptionally intimidating.

  “Maisy?” He beckoned her.

  She turned her head to face him and moved her fringe out of her eyes, in a sweeping gesture with her hand.

  Slowly, she stood up and straightened her nightdress.

  She gradually began to move toward him. Her movement was not exactly hesitant but it was forced all the same.

  When she reached him, she took his hand and smiled up at him for reassurance that what she was doing was right.

  She led him over to the sofa and sat down next to him. He stroked her long blonde hair. It felt so soft and silky, almost like velvet. She didn’t look ten. She looked much younger Sean decided.

  When Alice was ten she had budding breasts and the mind of an old whore. She had known every swear word going and embarrassed her mother frequently by listing them out loud. She was four years older than Maisy and at fourteen she had the head of a wise old lady. There is no way in the world that Sean could manipulate Alice, in the way he did her.

  She just wouldn’t have stood for it; she was far too headstrong to be used and abused. It fascinated him just what he could make Maisy do. She was so desperate to be loved that she accepted him treating her however he wanted.

  He could push her away and degrade her, yet with sweet whispered words, he could have her begging him to love her again. It amazed him and thrilled him at the same time.

  Each time he was left to look after her and they were alone, he would push the boundaries just that little bit more; enthralled to see what else he was able to do. Intrigued by his capabilities, he enticed himself to explore hidden fantasies which he had suppressed.

  When they first arose he was only a small boy and he had no idea what the feelings were that spurred him on to torture his sister’s kitten. He had a slightly better understanding now, at fifteen, of what they were but he still wasn’t fully aware of the power it would yield over him, in the years to come.

  For now, Maisy was his learning curve, a subject that was going to teach him about the dominance and supremacy that he possessed.

  It didn’t matter to him that she was his sister or that she was just a child; that was of irrelevance to Sean. His brain didn’t work in the same way as most other people. He didn’t appreciate that other people had feelings, or emotions, or hopes or fears. He saw them as tools that were there for his use, they were a means to an end. They held no significance for him.

  He didn’t understand humanity. He lived by basic needs and wants. He had no empathy, so the pain and sorrow that he caused others, were a phenomenon to him. It excited him and drove him to repeat the experience. Forcing somebody to do something against their will was captivating to him.

  Maisy was just the beginning. Sean had no idea of the man he was to become. For now, he was enjoying the emotional exploitation he could inflict; the physical cruelty would come a bit later on in his life. The very essence of Sean’s soul was deceitful and manipulative; the social deviant only capable of shallow emotions.

  Impulsive; poor behavioural controls; the need for excitement; the lack of responsibility; what was missing, in other words, were the very qualities that allow a human being to live in social harmony.

  Chapter 7

  January 1997

  Sean watched her walk. The grace and poise with which she held herself was unlike anything he had ever seen before. As far as he was concerned, she was exquisite. It was the second time he had seen her around the town; the first took his breath away, quite literately.

  She was always on her own, always with a look in her eye that showed she was a million miles away. He watched her stop at shop windows for a few moments and then move on along the busy road.

  He had noticed girls before, but not like he had noticed her. Sean was a jack the lad. He had been popular at school because of his exceptionally brooding good looks and over the last year he had taken full advantage of that. The fact he had discovered the monetary gain in drug dealing gave him extra kudos and the seventeen year old girls could not resist the bad boy, to rebel against the system with.

  Not one of them had grabbed his attention like the girl he had spent that afternoon following. Most just threw themselves at him but she had walked right past not even aware he was there.

  Brentwood High Street is about a half a mile long with shops, restaurants, boutiques and salons along both sides. It runs from a double mini roundabout and is intersected by about half a dozen crossings. As he leant against the wall of the White Hart, he watched her use one of those crossings to traverse the street.

  It was the blonde mass of animated curls which caught his attention the first time he saw her but this time it was the round sapphire-blue eyes. He could swear she was looking right at him, though of course he knew she wasn’t; she hadn’t noticed him for the last few hours but as she walked towards him, her eyes locked in with his and he was captivated.

  He was supposed to be delivering some weed. He was on his way to do it, when he drove down the high street and saw her again. He had quickly parked in the car park that was just behind the shops and almost ran back down the road, in case she had disappeared.

  She was bigger than the usual type of girl he went for.

  Past experiences had been with skinny, still developing teens, clumsy fumbles and awkward sex. She was buxom and curvy and even dressed in the baggy, combat style, pair of jeans she had on, the tight vest top she had put with it exposed her hourglass figure. There was not a scrap of make-up on her face; her natural beauty was overwhelming.

  He was so completely entranced by her, it had taken him a few seconds to register that she had stopped walking and was standing right in front of him. It was another few more seconds before he realised she was talking to him, although it was more like shouting.

  He was amused and impressed and turned on, all at the same time. She however, was less impressed with him and called him all sorts of names; a creep and a pervert being the top of her list.

  Her eyes glistened when she was angry and a small, thin, silvery-blue vein appeared across her forehead, which Sean could only describe as cute. He had never thought of anything as cute before.

  When she demanded what he had to say for himself, he could do nothing else but smile, tell her she was beautiful when she was mad and ask to see her again. It had worked, after a little convincing.

  He couldn’t believe it, when she had said yes. Shag ‘em and leave ‘em. That was his method. He had never had a girlfriend and had never taken a girl out; never really seeing the purpose. Girls flocked to him, so he had never chased them before.

  If they didn’t ‘put out’ he moved on. When they did ‘put out’ he moved on. This one though, wasn’t about that, she hypnotized him; first with her looks and then with her brain.

  Even now, three months later, she hadn’t lost her appeal.

  He found her just as fascinating and just as beautiful. He couldn’t imagine the idea of not being around her and she seemed to be the answer to his purpose in life. He saw a kind of normality that didn’t exist without her. She made him laugh; an entirely new concept to him. She occupied his mind so completely; he hadn’t even bothered with Maisy for quite a while.

  He had no need to exploit and manipulate his sister. He didn’t have the time either; he spent every waking moment with Rachel and every sleeping moment dreaming about her. Even the fact that they had not even come close to having sex had not deterred him. As long as she was by his side, that was all he was concerned with. Nothing and nobody had ever made him feel like she did.

  He wasn’t the only one who was pulled in by her physical presence. He had noticed it ever since he first took he
r out.

  Men stared at her, as she walked past them. Boys watched in envy, when they saw her sat in his car, while he bombed around the county. What made her even more enticing was, she was completely unaware of the reaction she caused.

  It wasn’t so bad when she was on one of his errands with him. His customers knew the score. She was Sean’s girl; it meant you definitely didn’t look. But when they were out raving, or scouring second hand bookshops, or browsing charity shops for quaint little nic-naks, which he frequently found himself doing without the slightest protest, because he knew it was what she loved to do, he noticed it much more.

  The first few weeks he found it amusing and revelled in having something nobody else did. But the amusement began to turn to a possessive infatuation. His obsession with her made him anxious. She made him feel things he had never felt before. It was a throbbing ache that griped itself around his chest like a vice, torturing him constantly.

  When he took her to the raves, she looked amazing. She would wind the wayward curls into tight, neat little bundles all over her head, each one tied with a different florescent coloured band. It displayed a perfect bone structure that was normally hidden under a mass of tresses. The tightness of the bundles pinned against her scalp and the minimum of make-up that she wore made her eyes dance.

  Even with the amount of pills she threw down her throat, she never looked a mess and when she smiled he knew that the receiver of that smile would become hypnotised. Sean was well aware he wouldn’t have long with her; that she didn’t really belong to him or with him. After always taking what he wanted and never really thinking about whether he had the right, the way he saw him and her was a complete opposite.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to own her the way he wanted to. There was something in his head that always stopped him. She was his idea of what an angel was; pure and delicate, yet so unbelievably strong. You couldn’t keep an angel. They would die in captivity. Angels visit when you need them most and then they leave. They are loaned to you by God. That’s the way it works.

  Sean wasn’t religious, despite his mother’s best efforts to drag him to Sunday school and Mass every week, for as long as he could remember, but he liked the stories; parts of them anyway. It was the sermons delivered by the tall, robed Reverend Parson’s at St George’s, with his thunderous deafening voice, which made him come to the conclusion that if there was one divinity, that had the power the bible said it did, he was doomed right from the start.

  But he saw a vision of God when he first saw her and if it was all true, he wasn’t about to start fucking around with the main man himself. When he wanted his angel back, Sean would let him take her.

  “Always staring!” She said, looking up from the book she was reading.

  That was another thing he liked, she read. Like all the time. She read anything, newspapers, magazines, books.

  There was always a book in her bag and more often than not in her hand. She was clever as well. Not in a ‘make you feel stupid’ sort of way, but she always explained and introduced him to new information.

  If he was honest, he wasn’t really that interested in what she was saying but he could listen to her talk for hours and quite often did; her random facts that she would suddenly blurt out could have him in stitches.

  “I could watch you all day.” Sean answered her “Even if you aren’t really here, but off somewhere in that thing.” He gestured to the book.

  Rachel’s embarrassed smile sent shivers all the way down his spine.

  She closed the hardback. “Sorry. Alice in Wonderland.

  It’s my favourite!”

  “It’s a kid’s story!”

  He was mocking her but had a glint in his eyes showing he was secretly endeared by it.

  “Don’t you ever have a favourite story, from when you were younger? Something your mum used to read to you?”

  “No!” Sean laughed, finding the idea ludicrous.

  “No, me either. My mum would be too pissed to read me a bedtime story. I was eleven when my social worker gave me this. I had never had a present before so whenever I feel anxious or threatened in some way, I read this. It reminds me that someone cared… Once.” The last word was almost whispered.

  “You worried about next week; the meeting with your mum?”

  Rachel looked out of the car window. They were parked in the garage block at the back of Sean’s estate. They had been smoking a joint, while he was fitting his stereo; acquired as a payment for a debt he was owed.

  “A bit.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

  “It’s a pretty big deal. You haven’t seen her for years.”

  Sean said.

  “I’m used to that. It’s always been that way.” She replied.

  It wasn’t so much the fact that her mother had requested to see her again, it was more to do with why. “I’m more curious than worried. It’s not like they can make me go and live with her again is it. Now I have my own place.”

  As much as she did love her mother, Rachel preferred her life when she was out of it. The alcohol just caused too much drama.

  Sean had a colossal urge to tell her that he cared, that she wasn’t alone anymore, but he couldn’t. He had never made such declarations to anyone before. He didn’t know how to. They had never kissed and she bantered with him like two mates would. He wasn’t even sure if she liked him, like he liked her.

  It made him nervous around her. He couldn’t be the loud brash vulgar form of his self that he was so used to, because she just laughed at him. It made him feel like he was three foot tall.

  She found his drug dealing appealing, but that was as far as the wannabe mol went. Rachel was not impressed by the status of being Sean Fergus’ girlfriend and often teased him for his female admirers. She saw through the bad boy image and caught sight of something else. Sean didn’t know what it was but it had made her stay; made her spend every minute she could with him.

  “Rach?”

  “What?” She kept staring out the window He wanted to tell her how he felt. He wanted to shout it out but he just couldn’t find the words. It was like something was physically preventing his mouth from forming the sounds. His silence caused her to turn and look at him.

  “What?” she repeated more gently. Her eyes searched his, as she tried to read his face.

  “Coming for a drive? Gotta drop something off.”

  She nodded and watched him look away from her to start the engine. He had done that a few times recently.

  Gone to say something and then changed his mind. It was annoying and frustrating. She just wished he would tell her why he was so insistent on being in her company.

  She had worked out quite quickly, that he was well known. He supplied half of Essex with weed and ecstasy.

  He could have his pick of girls, but he pursued her; yet he never really tried to take it any further. They talked for hours about anything and everything, apart from them. He never tried to touch her, or kiss her, yet he looked at her like he had never wanted anything more.

  She had fallen for him almost instantly. Despite giving him a verbal dressing down in the middle of Brentwood High Street, she had actually been completely flattered that he had been following her, let alone that he had listed several positives to letting him take her out. Nobody had ever taken an interest in her before, especially such as keen one.

  They didn’t speak any more. Both were wrapped up in their own insecure thoughts. Sean tried to make a conscious effort to concentrate on the road ahead and Rachel pretended to read her book. It only took about five minutes to drive over to Shenfield High Street.

  Sean swung into the taxi bay that was at the small entrance of the railway station. They weren’t that far from Rachel’s flat.

  It was a busy Saturday afternoon and the taxis were in and out in a constant stream; dropping off and picking up the hundreds of commuters and shoppers. Sean got out of the car without a word and headed towards the small wooden shack that served as the cab of
fice. Rachel watched him disappear inside. A knock on the windscreen made her jump.

  Expecting to see one of the drivers wanting her to move the car, she was surprised to see a friend standing there, grinning into the glass. Smiling, she opened the car door to get out.

  “Nathan!” Rachel exclaimed, obviously pleased to see him.“Watcha kid. Thought that was you. How you doing? It’s been a while.”

  Rachel let the older boy take her into his arms and give her a tight squeeze. She smelt the familiar scent of him. It was a smel that took her back to being young and to a time where her childhood was actual y quite settled and happy.

  Nathan was the son of one of her mother’s many boyfriends. This one however, had stuck around for a few years, both families attempting to take a shot at normality and stability.

  For a while it worked, but Nathan’s dad was a bigger alcoholic than Rachel’s mum was and after two years, her mum said enough was enough and kicked them both out. At the time, Rachel was devastated and she had often thought about Nathan and his dad.

  He had been the closest thing she had ever had to an older brother and he had looked out for her like one too; even though he was actual y only a few months older than her he had always acted like she was the baby. She couldn’t believe that he was standing right in front of her now.

  When he final y let her go, he couldn’t stop grinning at her. “How’s ya mum, she doing okay?”

  “Oh you know mum. Same old. How is your dad?”

  The grin disappeared from Nathans face and sadness emerged in his eyes. “Dad died a few years back. His liver final y gave up, I guess.”

  “Oh Nate, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  He smiled at her again, but she could see it was stil a painful memory for him. They had been close, Nathan and his dad and Rachel knew it must have knocked him for six when he died.

  Now she looked closer at the boy, she could see his clothes were crumpled from lack of ironing and he sported a few days growth on his face. His skin had a grey tinge to it and he was constantly fidgeting with his fingers.