Hallowed Ground (GxG)

Chapter Eighteen

Later that day Esther found AnnMarie on the porch, her legs dangling loosely over  the steps. Beside her was a bowl of fresh cut sugarcane. She had been uptown earlier in the day, but Esther still wondered where she'd gotten it from.

She hadn't seen fresh cut sugarcane in a very long time. 

"Hey." She said very quietly. 

AnnMarie turned and offered a quiet greeting in response. Esther watched closely as she put a piece of sugarcane in her mouth and began to chew. 

"You know, I think time moves slower here." AnnMarie said. 

"Yeah?" Esther said. 

"Yeah." AnnMarie said, "I always hear everybody talking about how they want to move up north, or to the city, so they can finally do something with their lives. Like life here just isn't real— at least not all the way real. Real life is the city. The lights. The modern lifestyle. The sick air. 

It's like out here is purgatory. At least, its like purgatory for me. I'm stuck." 

It was quiet for a moment, and Esther didn't know what to say. AnnMarie shook her head, a sad sort of smile on her pink lips. 

"Sorry. I'm being weird." She said, "Do you want some sugarcane?"

She scooted the bowl closer to her, but Esther gently pushed it back. 

"I can't eat food, remember?" She said softly. 

"Oh yeah, sorry. I forget sometimes that you're not a regular person. I'm glad you're here anyway."

"You deserve someone better. I'm not good." 

AnnMarie didn't seem phased by her declaration of being bad at this point. 

"I'm not so good myself."

Esther frowned. 

"I— What did you mean by that?" 

AnnMarie leaned back, and looked up out at the sky. 

 "There was this lady up in Hilton— I think she was a Braisend, or maybe a Brisco— who went to jail a few years back. Killed her baby they say. It's not that she strangled it or anything like that. Just didn't feed it. 

    

They say she let it cry, and cry and cry, all day and all night, and she just watched Soap Operas the whole time. Eventually it stopped crying. 

When the police asked why she did it, why she never fed the baby, they said she seemed indifferent, and only said to them 'I never got around to it.'

I think about that baby sometimes."

"Annie—"

"I guess what I'm saying is, sometimes you're not a bad person because you did something you weren't supposed to, but because you didn't do something you should have. I think that is the way I'm a bad person." 

"Annie, you're not a bad person—" 

"Maybe you killed someone, Esther, and maybe from the way you talk it was someone you cared about. But I've let three people die becuase of my selfishness. I killed them with my indifference. I'm not any better than you." 

AnnMarie started going back to work, and Esther started to poke around town. While the girl was away, Esther spent her time at bars in the surrounding towns. She was looking to hear some gossip, and feed on whoever she could get her hands on. 

She felt bad coming home to AnnMarie every night, slightly tipsy from feeding on alcoholics. AnnMarie tried to offer her blood a few more times, but Esther kept declining. She wanted the girl to have a chance to recover.