I asked her directly if it had been my father, but instead of answering, she squirmed and told me to let go. A laughable thought came to my mind: was she protecting my father from me?
Had she fallen like my mother had, was this how to win a woman's heart?
With pain?
Holding her face, I felt my grip tightening.
I forgot where we were; I forgot the other students around me, imaging my father burning together with that house.
And all the while, between these violent thoughts, I looked into the ocean, hoping it would douse me, holding me back and drowning me. But the blue of her eyes were shadowed by that light bruise, and the longer I stared in the depths of the sea, the angrier I was.
Wasn't it like this? A high amount of water could douse a fire, but a small amount would only fuel the flames.
While I felt as if drifting from my spot, this time not pulled to reality, forward, but backwards, further away, the binoculars having lost their use, not enough for me to see anything anymore, as I lost sight of what happened before my eyes.
"Lesly."
Tell me; don't protect him; don't lie to me; don't like him; don't fall for him.
Please.
Finally, she told me, and this time it was the same; I had the feeling of a backlash, again on my original spot, once more where I can see if I used the help of the binoculars.
Bernard's mother.... so Lesly took the slap for me.
In the midst of asking her why she would let herself get slapped for my actions, two students acted out, again talking shit. I watched Lesly's expression when she heard them—how they talked about me like I would fuck everything that wasn't on the tree by three.
And I saw it again, confusion but mostly disgust. The same expression she had when I asked her to sit on my bed, the same expression she had when looking at her students sometimes, especially when they acted out.
The little crow, surrounded by treasures, naturally shouldn't hear their vulgarities, that was for sure. Turning around, I thought of a few conclusions I came up with about Lesly.
First, she likes my voice. I saw her reacting to me speaking when I covered up the 'mark' on her in my room. It was kind of a shudder if she heard my voice when I was near her. The theory was confirmed when she crashed her head in the window because I spoke in her ear.
Now, I was going to the student, who had just talked his mouth off, punching him in the face, not enough to require his parents to be called—I controlled my strength.
Second, she should have some kind of mental illness.
I punched the guy a few times more, but it was just for show, not really that hard.
Third, she is surprisingly softhearted when it comes to me. I don't know if it is because of my voice, because of my face, because of my age—which would make no sense because she was disgusted with other teenagers, with me as well at times. I doubt she takes the Stepmother role seriously, but there is something that makes her want to protect me.
When Lesly grabbed my arm, I suppressed a shiver, and let her hold me back obediently.
So, it didn't matter if I told her in her face, 'I want you to protect me', she would probably do it, and to test that possibility, I went with the flow, and a student timely had offered himself to help.
Lesly would try to flee again, and this time she was sure to go all out, which would end in two ways. Either my father would catch her, and she would get 'punished', or, she would succeed, and the ocean would leave me, the water running through my fingers and dissolving the sand beneath my feet. Neither of the two options were what I had in mind.
So, I wanted to test my theory, having nothing much to lose because, if she left, my father would go berserk—which would give me a change to act, and then everything would end anyway one way or another.
If she was caught back and punished, everything would end as well, because then I would kill him in self-defense—better said, in her defense.
And, I was right all the way; she would even go so far as to plead with the director for my sake, although this wasn't a picture I wanted to see. And what I surely didn't want was to strip in front of the old man, and that under her eyes.
The abuse was for such a long time a secret, now simply telling an outsider, some responsible adult, branded all these years of quiet endure a joke.
Little Crow, you owe me for showing my wounds to others, for me to break a silence I had been keeping since my childhood.
I did as I was told. The pain I hadn't felt all along was back when I felt her eyes on my injuries, as if the blue would pull me back to my body as long as I was wetted by it, not even having to face it myself.
******************
Thomas POV
I was long uncertain on how to move forward.
While for so many years, besides thinking of the little child, I still had only to find you as my sole aim, to be alone with you, to have everyone else gone from my life.
But now, a new concept emerged.
To have your daughter or niece in my gasp, have her in the same house as you, just above you, in my bed, as my wife, wouldn't that be hilarious?
The girl you had killed your sister for, the one you chose to protect, falling into the hands of the one you watched getting broken while disguising yourself as savior, laughing silently behind your hand?
If I could see with my own eyes that she takes just after you and your sister, then I could end what I had started, back then in the forest.
Then you could watch me kill her, and I will follow you along in being a murderer.
But if she really is an exception, someone who withstood all the pain, freely flying above the evil, then wouldn't she be the perfect person to watch over the black-eyed kid after my death? Wouldn't she be able to stay by his side, as a mother figure, purifying him from his mother and my depravity, which we had passed onto him without a second thought?
Wasn't the child from the forest exactly what I had waited for?
The tip of the scale?
What do you say, should we make a bet?