by Dan Thompson
Damp from the salty sea air had taken refuge on her circular walls, but its mouldy green-brown hue gave a little character to her almost bare room. Her bed was more of a limp cushion than a paillasse; the straw was itchy too. After her gran had passed however, Abbey had claimed her gran’s tamarind bedding for herself. The deep yellow-brown colour gave them an exotic quality, that they were wares from another land; a land, perhaps, that wasn’t so uninspiring and jaded as the one she existed upon.
A sullied and discoloured photograph of her gran when she was just a child remained concealed within one of the pillowcases. It gave Abbey comfort to know it was safe and with her as she snoozed. She knew she must treasure it for “photos aren’t produced anymore,” her father had said when she questioned him on what it was exactly.
Although her gran was no longer here, she could always smile and cry and sing and rejoice in the picture. She would never forget her - her plump cheeks that made her smile appear so warm and infectious. It was a real gift when you didn’t even need to utter a word just to make someone smile.
If only Abbey could see a photograph of her mother, a snapshot of the woman who brought her into this world. She had never met her and her gran didn’t like to talk about her. Having died in childbirth, Abbey had no idea of what her mum even looked like. One of her most painful memories was witnessing her gran cry and if she could prevent that from happening again, she would, and so, she did.
Abbey never asked her gran about her mum any more.
She tilted her head to one side and sighed. “I wish I could hear what they were saying.” She looked around her room with disinterest. A few items of clothing were strewn about, but apart from that, the room was empty and cold. A cylindrical, aged wooden beam rose upwards in the very middle of the room, which supported the roof. When she was a little younger, she had tested herself every day by seeing how far she could shimmy herself up, aiming to reach the roof itself, where the old equipment of the lighting element was once stored. Nowadays though, she had to admit to herself that that was pretty childish and not worth the energy.
Soon, Abbey found herself nodding off, a somnolence brought on by the tedious time wasting. It wasn’t until the booming echoes of someone’s footsteps ascending her staircase that she snapped suddenly awake. Her dad appeared at the top of the staircase with a raw, nervous look on his face.
“What’s up?” Abbey asked.
“Could you come down?” It was more of a command than a question.
“Has that man gone? Who was he?”
“No, he’s still here,” her dad replied, staring through her as if she was a ghost. “Come downstairs, he would like to talk to you.”
Abbey’s heart thumped against her chest. “Me? But, why?”
Her dad had a painful expression in his eyes, one that worried her more than she could express. What is he hiding? Abbey clambered up and followed her dad downstairs.
The wooden stairs were circular and creaked on almost every other step; a sign of how old they were, but they were sturdy enough. It was a strange sensation, but the closer she got to the bottom, the sicker she felt. Feelings of dread rattled her stomach and her head itched. Abbey didn’t know why she felt that way, but she worried that whatever this man was here for, it would surely have severe consequences upon her life from then on.
“Abbey, this man is called Mr Montgomery,” her father introduced them as they reached the kitchenette below.
“You must be Abbey,” Mr Montgomery said, smiling his thin lips in her direction. The suit he was wearing looked too big on his wiry frame, and his greying hair looked like it was made out of dust.
The suit itself had seen better days, with patches worn and loose, the midnight coloured stitching seeming somewhat slack. Abbey followed his jawline with her eyes. His oddly elongated chin looked unnatural and deformed, as if a malignant growth had pulled and stretched his mandible. His eyes were sunken too, and tiny, ever so small. Abbey didn’t trust him.
“Abbey, you’re being rude. Say hello,” her dad said, interrupting her train of thought. She desperately wanted to turn and run back to her room. Shuffle up her beam even and hide among the shadows.
“Oh, it’s alright,” Mr Montgomery hissed. “You’re just a little shy aren’t you. We need an icebreaker. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing today?”
Abbey eyed her father who dramatically gestured for her to be polite. Where had his nervous disposition gone? Mr Montgomery’s voice was overly peculiar, as if he wasn’t from around there - not that their little home was surrounded by people anyhow. He must have travelled from one of the cities she had heard about. His accent sounded false; feminine and over pronounced.
No, she didn’t trust him.
“Why are you here?” she asked suspiciously.
“Abbey!”
“What?”
“Apologise. Mr Montgomery, I’m ever so sorry. It seems Abbey has chosen to be difficult.”
“It’s OK, she’s just being defensive. I’m a stranger, an unknown man. I mean, I could be a killer,” Mr Montgomery squealed. “Yet, here I am, in her domain.”
“Dad, you’re treating me like a child. I’m a woman!”
“Well, act like one.”
“You never let me. Sending me to my room as if I’m nothing but your slave.”
“You are my daughter. Ergo, you do as I ask. I provide for you, you’d be lost without my guidance and hard work.”
The heat was rising up Abbey’s neck, prickling her skin. “Gran wouldn’t have sent me to my room,” she said, hushed.
“What did you say?”
The three of them stood there in an awkward silence. She wouldn’t want to admit it, but the urge to burst away and stamp upstairs was annoying. Her father was right, she was acting like a child. She couldn’t help it. Her father was annoying, obnoxious and so self-involved - he was always right, never wrong. He could think of her efforts more: the tidying, the cleaning. She was super-efficient around their home; the lighthouse would surely have fallen down around them if he had been responsible for everything, the ungrateful sod.
“Abbey, look. I’ll be frank with you, I imagine you will appreciate that?” Mr Montgomery asked, raising his fine eyebrows, which made him look even more devious and untrustworthy.
The rain fell harder, smashing against their lighthouse with tremendous force. The sound of the crashing waves threatened Abbey’s senses, sounding closer than they should have been. She bit her lip and then nodded at Mr Montgomery to continue with his story.
“I ran into your father the other day, and well I let it slip that I was having a few issues at home.”
Abbey looked over at her father, who in turn shifted his face away from her stare. Why hadn’t he mentioned this chance meeting to her?
“Where did you meet?” she questioned, a little disbelief in her voice.
“Why, at the market, of course. We all need to go to the market, don’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Abbey wasn’t buying any of it, but she gestured for the man to continue his fabricated tale, only to show that in fact she wasn’t a child, and capable of acting like a grown woman.
“I’m afraid I am going through a trying time at the moment. My wife has recently,” his voice crackled slightly, “… died.”
A wash of remorse and sympathy came over Abbey. The poor man. Here she was, criticising his appearance and strange mannerisms, and the man was undoubtedly grieving.
“Oh, no. I’m ever so sorry,” Abbey hoped her tone and expression was sincere enough.
“It’s fine, I’m slowly recovering from the shock.” Mr Montgomery fingered his thin hair. “You know how lonely existence can become. But that is why I am here. Why, your dad invited me!”
He rushed over and gently touched her shoulders, visibly swallowing and taking great long breaths. Abbey wanted to step back into her own personal space again, uninvaded, but this man was clearly on the edge of reason, the precipice before the pool of gr
ief would consume him.
“How can I help?” she braved, trying to act as mature and understanding.
“Well,” Mr Montgomery said, resting against one of the walls, “your father has kindly suggested that you may come and live with me for a while.”
“Erm,” Abbey hesitated. She looked over at her father once again, but like before, he wouldn’t meet her eyes. This poor man had lost his wife, and for that, Abbey was most sorry, but live with him? She wasn’t sure of why that would help, or even why her father would suggest it.
“I apologise, forgive me,” Mr Montgomery said, approaching her. “It wouldn’t be anything untoward. Simply helping me with the cooking and cleaning is all I’ll need. I have a large house, you see, in the city, west of here.” He pointed off in a random direction, although Abbey wouldn’t have known if he was correct or not. “I’m getting old and, rather ashamedly, left a lot of things up to my poor wife. I took her for granted, I see that now. If only I could relive it all again. Do things differently. Love her more.”
Mr Montgomery took out a dirty piece of cloth and dabbed his forehead and eyes. Abbey’s heart shattered. Here she was, being selfish. All this man needed was a little help and support, to help guide him back onto the path of the living. Abbey could tell he was a proud man. It must have taken a lot of courage to even ask. And besides, Abbey had recently experienced the anguish and sorrow with losing her gran.
“I’m not sure how I could even help, but,” Abbey paused.
“That is splendid news, a weight off my shoulders!”
Abbey’s fingers twitched with trepidation and so pulled her jumper’s sleeves over them to hide her nervousness. Out of the window, Abbey could see how heavy the rain fell. A mist had been forced in land by the tides, and it blanketed the blue haze like it was some kind of ghostly apparition, a portent to be noticed. The harshness of the wind gripped her in its vice-like grip and before long, the mist swirled and cartwheeled forward, until it had surrounded her, suffocating her. Abbey coughed and choked, obligatorily sucking the poison in, until she could feel it’s heaviness in her lungs.
Her head became clogged, her thoughts wishy-washy, and unable to concentrate on anything, everything flashed a luminous grey.
~ * ~
The low whirr had returned, attacking and irritating Abbey until she couldn’t take anymore and began to stir. If there was a switch that operated the blue haze, she’d gladly flick it to its off position. She sat up and wondered what the world would look like without the blue haze to illume everything. Dark, probably.
Her eyes still felt heavy and it took some time before they adjusted to the harsh landscape. It felt as if she hadn’t had any sleep at all, and she rubbed at her eyes, she could feel the dried tears like crusty trails of footsteps as they had glided over the contours of her cheeks on their perilous voyage. Her head didn’t feel any different however. What was she thinking, chucking herself off the building? She wasn’t an insignificant pebble that would bounce off any of the juts with ease. It would have hurt, and what if she didn’t die straight away, lying paralysed at the bottom, the pain overwhelming?
What an idiot.
The cold had made her body stiff and the thought of being wrapped up on Tristan’s mattress with one of Ryan’s brews, was saddening. Still, she would rather be here, cold and depressed than inside the abandoned school as one of Tristan’s prisoners.
She had been a hostage, but one no longer. Stefan had paid the price of crossing her. Tristan would have met the same fate if needed be.
Abbey pulled herself up and, wrapping her arms around herself, paced over to the edge. She was no longer interested in looking over to the ground. She was keener on the city itself. She hadn’t even known there was a city nearby; one of many things her father had kept from her. He had told her that the cities were much further away.
Life was a funny old thing. She could have plodded on, back at the lighthouse, safe and blissfully unaware of the city, of Stefan, Tristan even. But through her terrible ordeal, Abbey had encountered horrors, yes, but also knowledge, experience and that the blue haze was, in fact, manmade too. This journey had truly made her into a woman, coming into her own and making decisions for herself. There was so much more to life than sweeping the kitchenette floor.
But did she really have to experience the fruits of what life had to offer at the expense of her virtue?
It wasn’t until Abbey looked from one derelict building to another, from dilapidated houses and broken metal frames, that it suddenly hit her. Her father. He had lied to her. Lied about life, about the world beyond the lighthouse and waves. Lied about Stefan. She wasn’t helping a heartbroken and distressed man, she was sold to a monster for what, tokens? How many tokens was she worth?
Abbey shuddered at the thought of her father buying produce from the market, using the tokens he had received for her. Abbey had never seen a token in her life, but she wanted nothing more than to chuck them into the sea, allow the waves to swallow them up and digest them to rest upon the hidden sea floor.
But the sea was days away, according to Tristan. Maybe he was lying? As Abbey stretched herself up further, the sounds of the sea waves crashing over each other couldn’t be heard. Tristan was probably right; her home, the lighthouse was nowhere to be seen. If she set off in search of it, how would she know which way to go? For all she knew, she could even start off in the wrong direction.
A breeze gently caressed Abbey’s face, tucking her hair behind her shoulders. The freshness was a welcome relief and it somehow cleared her mind. As she inhaled the cool air, she felt her nostrils flair. The clarity spurred an energetic response within her, the blood gushing around her veins refuelling her resolve and purpose in life.
“My father,” Abbey spoke out to the cityscape in front of her.
The flashback, the dream of Stefan arriving at her home in the guise of Mr Montgomery wasn’t the start of the nightmare. It had begun at the blasted market where her father had agreed to her selling like she was some piece of meat; the poorer cut too. Stefan may have committed the sins upon her, as well as the other unfortunate girls who couldn’t fight back, but it was her own father who had sold her.
The man she should have held above any other, trusted him to guide her on her way, had put her on that despicable path. The betrayal stung like a knife had been thrust into her back. She looked down at her hands. A throbbing sort of energy pumped through her, right down to the tips of her fingers. She realised that it wasn’t her own blood inside of her, it was her fathers. He had played his part in giving her life, sending his seed to create this shell of a body. Abbey felt sick, she wanted to scream.
Abbey erupted on the edge of the roof terrace. The screams of rage burned her throat, but she didn’t care, she needed to release all of the apoplexy inside of her. It echoed over the city like a beacon of fury, daring anyone to come and challenge her. Yet the more she screeched and yelled and shouted, the more the wall inside of her crumbled. A new Abbey was forming in front of her, a transformation from old to new. She was fed up of being the victim, the one constantly running away.
“No more,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, clenching her fists tight.
A tiny light appeared in the murky sky. Abbey looked up at it with confusion. It didn’t grow any bigger, it seemed to stay there, still, frozen. Its shape was odd, and the colour of fire too, unlike the feeble blueness that surrounded Abbey. She racked her brain for an answer, and she eventually smiled, knowing exactly what it was.
A star.
A sign.
Her gran had spoken of twinkling diamonds in the sky. Otherworldly symbols of time and future that made everyone underneath them witness the awe and reverence of a higher power, something much larger than the world they subsisted in. Abbey, still staring up at the star, knew this was a sign of change. Her path had been opened up, the walls now completely scorched and burnt, like fine grains of ash. The tinder had enlightened her soul and she was going to let her anger reign
; rain down on her father like an apocalypse. He wouldn’t know what was coming.
Why should she go through life with her eyes wide shut? Abbey would have her revenge, and her vengeance would be irrevocable. She wasn’t her father’s vessel, she was Abbey, her own person. She would no longer drift astray, she would return home.
Nothing would stand in her way. Her father’s life must end, and Abbey wouldn’t stop until everything burned, left in tatters by her father’s screams. The fire would continue to rage, fuelled by his lies as if they were kindling.
Abbey stepped down from the edge and walked casually to the ladder, leaving the star to shine behind her. Direction was now irrelevant. She was going home, the end now falling into her reach. And Abbey knew that in every end, a new beginning would dawn.
Chapter Eleven. The Chase
Ryan paced across the yard, seemingly trying to organise his muddled thoughts. Tristan knew he was there, in the background somewhere, but his brain didn’t register, busy instead trying to coordinate his own deliberations. The fire dwindled, both its light and heat diminishing somewhat with each passing minute. A void was left in the school with Abbey’s departure, a void which Tristan felt deep in the pit of his stomach. The dread and guilt made him feel sick.
Although he couldn’t understand entirely, Tristan blamed himself. They were drunk, happy and carefree, and he allowed the chemistry in the air around them to intoxicate his body further. How could I have read things so wrongly? He had thought she was flirting back, reciprocating the same carnal desires to cement their relationship to a new level.
Tristan scoffed and shook his head, the warmth of the fire gently tickling the side that hadn’t faced it. What relationship, he thought. Was he imagining something that wasn’t there? Was it something to do with Abbey herself, or the fact that his body craved for the type of companionship she could offer? The testosterone army within finally sent out on their first real mission.