Everything Will be Dark

Part Two: Revelation

The soup bubbled and the rich burnished orange liquid sent tendrils of steam rising into the air as Emily stirred it rhythmically round and round the pan.

The child was looking at her. She was sat at the kitchen table, wearing one of Emily's shirts and a pair of her fluffy socks, wrapped up tight in a blanket. As she stood at the stove, Emily could feel the girl's eyes lingering on her like the touch of spiders crawling over her skin.

The child hadn't stopped looking at her since Emily had brought her into the cottage and shut the storm outside. When she'd taken the girl's coat, hanging it on the hook beside hers, when she'd removed the girl's shoes and placed them beside her own boots on the mat and when she'd given her warm clothes to wear and towel-dried her hair, the girl's eyes had never left her for a second. It was almost as if she were in awe of the person who had brought her in from the biting monstrous cold.

Emily wasn't surprised of course. The girl must have been terribly afraid out there in the dark with nothing but the relentless snowfall and howling wind to keep her company. Emily could only imagine how she would feel to be out there on her own, the wide expanse of night sky pressing down upon her as she wandered lost and alone. And yet, despite whatever ordeal the child had experienced, she seemed calm and content, sitting at a stranger's table, in a stranger's house, wearing a stranger's clothes.  

The child was thin. Too thin. Her collarbone protruded slightly through the material of Emily's shirt and her cheekbones accentuated the translucency of her skin. Dark circles lined her eyes like faded bruises and her knuckles seemed overly-large on her long bony fingers. The coat she had worn had been far too thin for this kind of weather, the dress underneath not much better and the shoes ineffective against the deep snow. Emily had examined them all with a growing sense of dread filling her bones like clammy hands creeping up her body. The girl looked like a walking advert for child-neglect, like one of those child actors they used on the television anti-abuse campaigns. Only this wasn't clever make-up and studio lighting. It was real and horrible and left a sour taste in Emily's mouth and burned like acid in her gut.

Pouring the hot tomato soup into a bowl, Emily placed it in front of the girl and handed her a spoon and a napkin. The girl accepted everything with a smile, but said nothing.

For a moment, neither of them spoke or moved, seemingly as frozen as the ravaged winter landscape that surrounded the cottage. And then with a slow-motion blink of her large hazel eyes, the girl picked up the spoon and plunged it into the bowl, cooling each spoonful with an exaggerated blow.

After a few seconds, Emily realised she was still staring at the girl, watching as she raised the spoon to her mouth each time. With a deep frown, she turned away and began to wash up the saucepan, plunging her hands into water that was a little too hot but needing the sting of the heat to keep her mind focused. She'd felt slightly out of sorts ever since she'd brought the girl inside and a part of her wondered whether this was all a dream and she was, in fact, lying on the bed upstairs, curled into a ball and dreaming of strange neglected girls and winter snowstorms.

When she was done at the basin, Emily turned and mustered up her most reassuring smile. 'So,' she said. 'I guess we'd better call your parents. They must be worried sick.'

Or maybe they won't thank me for the call. Maybe they were hoping you'd wander off into the snow and never return. One less mouth to feed. One less burden to carry.

The girl scraped the spoon around the bowl, the sound of metal on porcelain making Emily wince.

'Do you live here alone?'

The question was simple enough but Emily struggled to answer. The words lodged in her throat and she found her reassuring smile turning into something that felt more like a pained rictus grimace.