The Crimes of Orphans Read online

  Rain pushed himself off the wall and looked in the door. He could see the person sitting there just fine. He was a lean, athletic-looking man with close-cropped brown hair and round hazel eyes. To Rain, he looked like a soldier. As he watched, the man leaned forward and reached out over the coffee table in front of him. There was a round candle sitting there, and the man hovered his hand about an inch above its three wicks. Rain quirked a brow as he saw the air under the man’s palm begin to ripple with heat, and then all three wicks came alight as if on their own.

  Withdrawing his hand, the man blew on it briefly, then looked to them with a smirk. “Hello, Lita.”

  Lita’s eyes narrowed into a glare. “Jonas.”

  FIRST INTERLUDE

  O! Child, the setting sun it nears

  Didst this day spring joy or tears?

  Do not tonight your sadness sow

  Morrow brings new seeds to grow

  Church had always unsettled her.

  It wasn’t the structure of the cathedral itself. Much the opposite, in fact. She loved coming into this place when there was no one else around. It made her feel so small compared to its immense size shooting up all around her. Very much a traditional Catholic church, it had been moved here brick-by-brick from England many years ago, and still looked as beautiful as it must have standing upon its original grounds. Twenty rows of large wooden pews led up to a magnificent altar where the priest now stood, a larger-than-life crucifix looming over them all just behind him. Lining the long walls on either side of her were intricate stained-glass windows depicting various stories from the very Bible that sat in her lap, matching that in the lap of every other person here.

  The crucifix had frightened her some when she was younger, but now at the age of ten the little girl looked up to it with her emerald gaze and felt a sort of awe wash over her. It was an amazing story, this man who had died for all their sins so many years ago. Her eyes shifted briefly to her uncle seated next to her, and she found herself wondering—not directly, but in the abstract way a child’s mind works—if one man’s death was enough to pay for the sins some in this world committed.

  No, nothing about the church itself bothered her, per se. Rather, it was the people who filled it each Sunday evening. Families, they all were. Husbands and wives with their sons and daughters and their happy little joined lives. She had no concept of what that was, no idea of how it felt to have a mother or father. Something as simple as a car accident had robbed her of those joys too long ago to remember, so instead she was placed in the care of the man she called Uncle and found herself becoming more frightened of with each passing day.

  Brushing a wavy lock of straw-colored hair from her face, she looked around the cathedral, taking in the various faces and sighing at all the content families she saw. It wasn’t until she looked over her shoulder at the seat across the aisle and two pews back that her face suddenly lit up.

  He was sitting there. The new boy, here again for the fourth week in a row. He was maybe three years her senior, but he seemed much older to her. She didn’t yet fully understand the tingling feeling she got in her fingers and toes when she looked at him, but she was completely enamored with him. And as she stared at him, his big, round hazel eyes suddenly shifted to meet her gaze, and a soft smile turned up on his face. She felt her cheeks grow hot as she returned the smile sweetly.

  The sharp pain of a pinch on her thigh tore her out of her dreamy fixation, and she whipped her head around to meet the glaring green eyes of her uncle.

  “If you don’t pay attention this instant, you will sorely regret it when we get home,” he said in a low, forceful whisper. She obediently folded her hands across her lap and looked down at them, not wanting to be caught in his gaze a moment longer.

  As she kept her head bowed, she looked over the light blue fabric of the pretty little sundress she was wearing. It was her favorite, and she tried very hard to always save it for Sunday service. She had a strange dream from time to time that if she looked pretty enough coming here, one of the nice, loving families would offer to take her home. Of course, her uncle would be glad to get rid of her, and readily agree. Then the family would take her to a big, fancy house and make her dinner and give her hugs and kisses and tell her how much she was loved.

  She knew it was stupid, but some nights it was the only thing that helped her stop crying long enough to find sleep.

  Looking back up towards the altar, she tried to resist the urge to fidget, knowing that mass was almost over. Communion had come and gone, and the priest was wrapping up the concluding rite.

  Communion was equally her most hated and favorite part of the evening. The wafer they were fed was the worst; it had a dry consistency that always reminded her of swallowing paper. However, the wine brought with it an odd comfort. Some Sundays it would still be quite full when it reached her, and she would take a greedy gulp from it if no one was watching closely, then enjoy the dizzying feeling that it brought to her head for the rest of the service. Unfortunately, it was nearly empty when her turn came today.

  Then, just like that, they were all freed for another seven days. Jumping up from her spot, the young girl went sprinting down the aisle and headlong into the fading sunlight. It was something she did every Sunday, a burst of rambunctiousness that her uncle uncharacteristically allowed. She believed he only let it pass because he was too busy making a good impression on the other members of the church to make a move to stop her. If he didn’t allow the child in his care to run frolicking free with all the other kids, they might stop and wonder if he really was the good Catholic man that he presented himself to be.

  Of course, he wasn’t really fooling anyone. Every single person in the church looked to that little girl the moment she walked in each week, wondering what new injury would have befallen her in the last seven days. A black eye one Sunday, a fat lip another, a limp here, a bruised nose there. They all waited for the week when she just wouldn’t arrive, and he would show up with feigned sadness, saying she had died of some mysterious illness in the night. They all knew, but no one said a word. Minding one’s own business was an art form.

  The sunlight exploded all around her as she went bolting through the large doors. Every week she’d come running out here and across the grass, past the rows of gravestones, and all the way to the white picket fence that separated the church property from the large field just past it and the dense forest land beyond that. Each time she would try to find the courage to keep going, to just run away into those woods and hide forever, but she always stopped short right at that fence. She supposed she always would, at least until she was old enough to fend for herself or her uncle died, whichever miracle occurred first.

  But today was different. The girl hadn’t made it more than ten feet out the door when she heard a sharp whistle behind her. Spinning around, her eyes lit up once again at the sight of the boy standing by the corner of the chapel. Cocking his head, he motioned to a dense growth of laurel bushes off to the side of the church, and then disappeared into them. After a quick glance inside to make sure her uncle was still occupied, she tucked her Bible under her arm and followed after him, her stomach suddenly alive with butterflies of curiosity.

  “Hi!” she said cheerily as she found him waiting for her in a hidden little area surrounded by the bushes.

  “Shhh. Stay quiet, okay?” the boy whispered.

  She nodded and glanced cautiously over her shoulder. “What is it?”

  The boy sighed and was silent for a moment, just staring at her. It wasn’t a long moment, but long enough that she felt her face grow hot again under his gaze. Finally, he gestured to her upper arm where she bore a dark bruise in the shape of a large handprint. “He shouldn’t do that to you, you know.”

  She rubbed her arm and dropped her eyes, only nodding in response as she stared at her small toes in the summertime grass. She noticed he was wearing heavy black boots, the kind a man would wear. Her toes tingled and her face burned on.

 
“I told my boss about you,” the boy said then.

  She looked back up at him, confused. “I didn’t know you had a job. What do you d—”

  He held up a hand. “There’s no time for that now. All I can tell you is that my boss agreed to let me help you. He said if you can get away from your uncle, you can come live with us.”

  She furrowed her brow. “What do you mean? I can’t run away. He’ll find me.”

  The boy pulled his Bible from under his arm and offered it to her. “Trade me.”

  She blinked. “But…they’re the same.”

  “Mine’s better,” he said with a smirk.

  She shrugged and handed her Bible off to him, but when she took his she nearly dropped it. “Huh? Why is it so heav…?” She trailed off as she opened the cover. The pages had been cut out in the perfect shape to hold the black subcompact nine-millimeter handgun hidden inside. The girl felt her stomach drop and she tried to hand it back. “N-No…I can’t take this…I don’t even know how it works.”

  The boy closed the cover and pushed it back to her. “It’s the easiest thing in the world. Just point, pull the trigger, and people go away.”

  She felt her legs start to shake and her vision began to swim with tears. She couldn’t tell if they were born out of fear or gratitude. “I…I don’t think I can…” she whispered.

  “I know you can,” he said. “Just do what has to be done, and I’ll take care of the rest. I promise.”

  She opened her mouth to protest further, but when he reached out and touched her cheek, the words stopped in her throat. Then he leaned forward and planted a gentle kiss on her lips. Her eyes widened, but then closed, and her head was suddenly filled with a warm dizziness stronger than any communion wine had to offer. She felt like she might faint or die at any moment, and either would have been just fine with her.

  Then the bushes rustled, and the sweet moment was yanked away from her as she looked over and let out a small cry at the sight of her uncle glaring at them.

  Her eyes immediately dropped to the ground, but as her uncle looked to the boy, he stared straight back, unwavering.

  “Get in the truck, young lady. Now!” her uncle barked. She flinched and scurried away. As she disappeared back out front of the church, her uncle kept his eyes locked firmly on the boy. “You stay away from her, you little bastard.”

  The boy stepped forward until he was inches from the girl’s uncle and stared up at him, but not by much. His oddly mature height nearly matched his elder’s. “Fuck you, old man,” he said, and actually chuckled. “I’m not afraid of you.” With that, the boy moved past him, but not before socking his shoulder hard against the man’s upper arm.

  Spinning around, the man balled up a fist, but then only raised it halfway before he stopped himself and just watched the boy make his way through the crowd outside the church. He walked with his head high and shoulders square, and he never looked back once. The man could feel his blood boiling over the little shit’s arrogance.

  When the boy reached the picket fence at the far side of the church, he hopped over and moved around to the passenger side of a large grey sedan that sat there idling.

  “It’s done,” the boy said solemnly as he climbed into the car.

  “Good,” the driver said in a low, gravelly voice before adjusting his wide-brimmed hat and pulling away from the church.

  “Just what the hell do you think you were doing in those bushes, you little whore?” her uncle yelled the moment they walked into their small house. He punctuated his words with a kick to her backside that sent her sprawling to the living room floor. She managed to keep from dropping her Bible, though the matter was in doubt for a moment.

  She pulled herself to her knees and winced at her freshly scraped elbow. She looked over her shoulder at him and was about to say something, but was immediately met with the stinging blow of a backhand to her cheek, dropping her once more to her stomach on the floor. The taste of blood filled her mouth, robbing her of the sense memory of the boy’s lips upon hers.

  “Shut up, you little shit. I don’t want to hear one word from that slutty little mouth that I saw kissing that fucking bastard kid back there. Not one fucking word!”

  She hitched in a breath, trying not to cry. He always seemed to whale on her worse when she cried. She also made no move to get up this time, knowing he would only strike her down again. She just lay there, waiting for him to do whatever horrible thing he planned to do next.

  Sure enough, he took up a fistful of her hair and yanked her back up to her knees. She cried out and reached up with one hand to clutch at his fist while her other still held her Bible firmly against her chest. Suddenly, she felt the hot wash of his breath over her ear. “Looks like I have to teach you the difference between a little boy and a man, don’t I?” With that, he headed towards her bedroom, her hair still firmly in his grasp. Her heels slid across the floor as he dragged her along with him.

  As they entered her room, she finally gave up the weight of the Bible, and when she saw it hit the floor she briefly thanked whatever god she’d spent the last two hours praying to that it hadn’t opened up on impact. Her gratitude was short-lived, however, as she was greeted with the new pain of her shins slamming against her bedframe when her uncle forcefully bent her over the mattress.

  “Stay still,” he said as he finally released his hold on her hair. She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. Even as she heard fabric tearing and felt cool air on her exposed backside. Or as she heard his belt jingling and then the sound of him spitting, followed by a slick stroking noise as he applied that spit to himself. No matter how much she wanted to scream, to thrash, to fight…she didn’t dare. Even as she felt his large, heavy gut on her lower back and then the pressure as he pushed against her. That pressure growing, growing, and finally the tearing, burning agony as he forced his way in and began to have his way with her. For some amount of time that followed—a period that was usually very brief by the clock but seemed infinitely long to her—she buried her face into her mattress and tried her damnedest to be anywhere else in the world.

  After he had gone, she curled up on her bed for some time. There was no telling how long, but by the time she willed herself to move, darkness had enveloped the house. She sat on the edge of the bed first, then slowly, shakily rose to her feet. She stumbled, nearly fell, but caught herself on the little four-drawer dresser that stood against the wall.

  She was dimly aware that her trembling thighs were sticky. No doubt a mixture of blood and the disgusting substance her uncle always left behind. She couldn’t stand the thought of it touching her and always scrubbed it away first, even before tending to her wounds. But when she looked down to take stock of the mess, she froze. Her favorite blue sundress. He had torn it open from its hem to the small of her back, and the sky-colored fabric was now marred with a dark storm cloud of red. Suddenly, a strange sensation that she had never experienced before started to form inside her.

  It began as a flicker in her mind. Just a glint in a place still ruled by childish thoughts and fantasies. Yet that single spark ignited something, and the ensuing flame rushed forth with such speed and intensity that she was momentarily frightened it would swallow her whole. But there was no fighting it. It indeed devoured her, as well as everything else in its path. In the brief passage of an instant, the young girl’s tiny form was filled to the brim with brilliant, searing, blinding rage.

  Yanking off her ruined dress, she threw it aside, leaving her nude in the near-darkness illuminated only by pale moonlight slipping in through her bedroom window. Opening her dresser drawers, she began to rifle through them, and felt her anger steadily increasing as she found only variations of what she had just discarded. Yellow sundress, red skirt, green nightgown. “A good little girl dresses pretty for the man that takes care of her,” her uncle was fond of saying, and those words echoed through her head as she began grabbing handfuls of clothes and throwing them behind her, blindly searching for something new,
something different. Emptying the drawers one at a time, she finally came upon what she sought, hidden away in the back of the bottom drawer. She had all but forgotten it was there.

  A few months earlier, the church had put on a clothing drive for the less fortunate children in town, and she had found an old pair of black pants and a simple long-sleeved shirt in one of the crates. The pants were well-worn, shredded clean open at the knees. The shirt was cute in a childlike way, plain white save for a tiny yellow embroidered flower in the middle of the chest. She hadn’t been sure why she’d done it at the time, but she had stolen the outfit and hidden it here, where it had remained until this very moment.

  Clothed once again, she spun around and darted her eyes over the floor, seeking her next item of interest. Finally, she spied its corner peeking out from beneath a tangerine jumper. Kicking that away, she knelt down and flipped open the cover of the Bible. She pried the small handgun from its desecrated home, briefly marveled at its surprising weight, and then slowly closed her little hand around its grip.

  Raising her eyes from the weapon, she turned them toward the half-open bedroom door. She crept to it and peered out into the hall. Seeing nothing, she continued on, pressing her back against the wall as she snuck down the hallway. At the corner, she peered around to find exactly what she expected to see in the living room. Her uncle was sitting in his favorite chair with his head back, mouth splayed open and meaty hands folded across his gut. A half-empty rum bottle sat on the table next to him.

  Her bare feet whispered across the floor as she approached him with the sort of stealth that only small children and trained killers possess. Coming around in front of him, she raised the gun, glaring over it resolutely. Her hands didn’t tremble at all as she aimed straight for his snoring face. She took a breath, held it deep, and pulled the trigger.