Sierra Warner leaned back in her chair slowly. Her sensitive ears pinpointed the sound of a solitary robin warbling outside her apartment window and the quiet hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. Above her the sound of footfalls on wooden boards clattered and in the flat to her left a television blared. The city street beyond the building bustled with life and that filled her with sadness. She could hear the blaring of car horns in the distance and feel the rumbling of a passing bus, but she saw nothing. It had been more than a year since she had last seen a sunrise or even her own hands in front of her face. Some might say she deserved the blindness, and at one point she might even have agreed with them. But at that moment she allowed herself to wallow in self-pity.
She had once been a successful beauty queen with hoards of devoted fans and trophies piling up in the cabinet that took pride of place in her lounge. Her career had begun in her infancy when her mother had entered her into a toddler pageant and she had wowed the judges with a dance number that had been credited as both adorable and skillful for a girl of her age. She had been to events almost every weekend from that point onwards, and the pageant circuit had rapidly become her reason for living. By the time she was ten she had made a name for herself and had begun to win events without even really trying, with her parents having befriended half of the regular panel members who judged the shows. For a long time she had taken almost every crown she had competed for, and even found her way onto the international circuit. Things had become more difficult then, and she really had to fight for her wins. She took dance classes on Wednesdays and had vocal coaching twice a week to improve her singing voice. Her gym trips went from three times a week to five. She even expanded her hair and makeup team from one woman to three. She was committed to winning.
By virtue of a specially made bikini and a heartfelt rendition of a song her mother had discovered a judge was a particular fan of, she had even found herself a place in the Miss World competition. Everything had been in place for her to secure a win. She could remember it all with crystal clarity. She had arrived early as she always did and her team had begun the task of perfecting her natural beauty. Her bright blonde hair was backcombed and styled to within an inch of its life and two pairs of false lashes were glued around each sparkling blue eye. Her bronzed skin was rendered flawless with aerosol foundation and her lips painted a glittering red. Her ageing mother had told her she looked like a Goddess, and she had sneered at her wrinkled face. What did she know about beauty?
The contest itself had gone perfectly as they almost always did. She had sung an old love song and performed a group dance routine with the other girls in which she subtly tripped another competitor and threw her out of the running. Her ball gown and swimwear rounds had been well received and she had been feeling confident, but that soon began to fade. Miss Cuba was a knockout. The second she had begun to sing the judges had chosen their winner. She had the voice of an angel and a body to match; the sight of her in a flowing red, satin dress had sealed her place as winner. The other girls had no chance, and could do nothing but watch as she won over the crowd with a smile. Her name was Nereida Duarte, and it was burned into Sierra's mind. It did not matter that she had placed as a runner up, or that she had done well just to find a place at the contest. The only thing she could think of was how she had been cheated. The crown should have been hers, she deserved it! Hers should have been the name on everyone's lips.
Sierra had cried to her boyfriend Warren for weeks, lamenting at the unfairness and determined to have her revenge. Over time she had managed to persuade her doting partner to do something that she knew she could never get away with herself. Something insidious and terrible. They had booked a flight to Cuba and settled in a hotel just streets away from Nereida's home. The day after they touched down, they put their plan into motion. Warren snuck out into the night dressed in a second hand delivery boy outfit with a pizza box in his hands, and boldly walked up to Nereida's door. Sierra watched from the street, hidden by the property walls as he pressed the doorbell and waited. Nereida stepped out onto her doorstep with a confused smile, Sierra watched her lips move but she could not hear her words. Warren lifted the box and held it out to her, and she held up her hands to indicate that she did not want it. He waited for her hands to fall and then he lifted the lid. Out of the box a fine spray jetted up and onto her unprotected skin. She screamed and they ran, but not before the acid began to eat away at her once beautiful face. Sierra briefly saw her full lips and nose begin to melt, her eyes were hidden behind frantic hands, but she knew that his aim had been true. Nereida had been blinded.
Sierra was elated; the feeling of having helped to destroy something judged more beautiful than her had filled her with glee, but it did not last long. Before they could catch a plane home the police came knocking on their hotel door and they were hauled away. There had been security cameras and they had seen everything. Warren was loyal and had lied, telling them that he had acted out of jealousy on his partner's behalf without being asked. He gave a convincing show, and somehow Sierra avoided a prison sentence, but not before Nereida discovered who had performed the attack. She had tried to convince the police of Sierra's involvement, but her rival had years of experience in fluttering her lashes to get her own way. She was required to be present for Warren's trial, but once it was over she was free to go. She left her unfortunate and stupid boyfriend to rot in prison and returned straight to the UK. She felt no remorse for the fact that she had abandoned him, as far as she was concerned he had chosen to do it of his own accord. He would have said no or tried to dissuade her if he had not wanted to be involved.
On her return, her mother had been concerned and was easily manipulated into believing that her daughter had been caught up in something that was entirely her ex partners fault. Sierra had given herself a month to appear as though she was recovering from the incident, and then she had returned to the circuit in floods of crocodile tears. If she was asked about it all she would sob fitfully and claim that she had thought she was being taken on a holiday to relax. She told people that her boyfriend had forced her to accompany him to Nereida's house and that he had promised she would be next if she did not comply. She had embarrassed him by losing the crown and he had gone mad in his need for revenge, at least that is how she told the story. She was convincing enough that she was easily accepted back into the pageant world, and their pity for her made winning that little bit easier. She threw herself back into it all and while she accepted crowns and trophies, she heard rumors of Nereida's surgery and recovery. She would never compete again.
Everything had all been going perfectly, until suddenly one day on the stage her sight failed. She blinked and though she felt her eyes open, her sight did not return. Panicked, she stopped in her tracks, her ball gown catching under her shoe and sending her tumbling to the ground. She landed hard on her hands and her coiffured hair fell about her face in waves. She lifted her head to look at the judges but saw nothing. A shrill scream tore from her lips and tears tracked through the thick makeup on her cheeks. She shouted for help but nothing could be done. She was escorted off the stage where her distraught mother rushed her into an ambulance. Examination found that her retinas were entirely detached. She was rushed into surgery where the doctors attempted to save her sight, but there was nothing they could do.
*****
Unbeknownst to Sierra, Nereida had not simply resigned herself to her fate in the wake of her attack. She had always been fiery, and she was not about to let the misdeed go unpunished.
Whilst lying in her hospital bed with bandages around her face she was visited by her priest and it was decided that it was best for the spirits to deal with her attacker. As soon as her skin grafts were healed she went back to her home where she began her ritual for revenge.
She had her father lead her down the cold stone staircase to her basement. She left him at the door and commanded him to turn back, groping her way into the room carefully and closing the door behind her. She knew that there was an alter on the far side of the room; she had tended to it every day that she was home for years. She could just make out the dim glow caused by a large, flickering candle that stood amidst the other artifacts there. Her sight was gone, but she could still percept changes in lighting.
Confidently she crossed the blackness of the room, her head held high and her arms by her sides. She knew the place so well that blindness made no difference to her. The cellar was her sanctuary. As she moved the air around her began to crackle as though an electrical storm were forming. A gust of wind with no source buffeted at her face, whipping back her long hair and exposing her fresh scars. Her beauty was long gone. Her nose was reduced to nothing, and attempts at a reconstruction were only minimally successful. Her left ear was gone, and her lips had been entirely destroyed. The surgeons had done what they could to re-form them, and her speech had been saved, but her mouth rested in a permanent, open grin. Her eyes were white and the lids scarred; even her neck was raw and disfigured. By the time she reached the altar a quiet moaning filled the warm, fetid air. As she knelt in front of it the groaning rose into a wail, and the moment she closed her eyes sudden silence fell.
Without fumbling she reached beneath the table and wrapped her fingers around a small cage, in which the small form of a bird fluttered feebly against the bars. This she placed next to her carefully, before reaching up and taking a lump of clay from beside a large metal cauldron. She formed it into the shape of a doll and rested it on her lap. The bird in the cage screamed and pecked at her when she reached inside and snatched it up, but she paid it no mind. Muttering under her breath she held the bird over the pot and grabbed its head with her free hand, slowly she twisted and pulled until it detached and blood spilled into the waiting vessel. She squeezed the body roughly to extract every drop before placing it back into the cage.
The candle on the altar flickered and a hushed whisper cut through the air behind her. She picked up the doll on her lap and thrust it into the blood, using her thumbs to gouge into the spaces where its eyes should have been. She pressed until her thumbs erupted from the back of its head and scraped against the pot.
The door to the cellar burst open and something cold and fleeting brushed against her wounded face. A whisper of icy air slid into her ear.
'Blood will spill.'
Nereida smiled. Her ancestors were going to work.
*****
Sierra had never seen Nereida again, and lived on in ignorance about her revenge as she grew used to life as a blind woman. She had to resign from the pageant circuit. She simply could not compete with no sight. A dance number could mean a broken ankle, and her mother would not allow her to attempt to participate. Eventually she resigned herself to the fact that her career was over and bought herself a small apartment in London in which to try and adjust to her new existence.
As a consequence of her ruthless behavior while competing she soon found herself utterly alone. Girls who once talked warmly with her backstage suddenly utterly ignored her. Even her own mother did not visit her unless she had no choice. Sierra was totally without friends and the isolation began to eat away at her. Her only real contact with the outside world was through her maid, who did all her cleaning, cooking and shopping for her. She learned how to read braille to give herself some kind of escapism from it all, but all it did was make her miss the life she had lost even more. Eventually she stopped leaving the house altogether, and not long after that her mind began to fail her and paranoia set in.
The day that she heard the robin was the day that she decided she needed to change. As she sat listening to its song she thought of all the places she had been and the things she had done before her sight had been taken from her. She had travelled the world and met hundreds of people, she had won crowns and titles and been adored. The sound of that small birds voice spurred her into action. She had once been somebody, and she would be somebody again. If that tiny bird could risk his life out there, so could she!
Awkwardly she threw on a thick coat over her jumper dress and picked up the cane that her hospital visitor had left beside her chair the previous day. Carefully she followed its guiding point and made her way over to the door. Briefly she paused with her hand on the knob, her blank eyes boring into the wood defiantly. She was going out, she was actually going to do it. Behind her the robin trilled enthusiastically and she pushed her way out into the hall. For a moment she waited with baited breath, expecting something dramatic to happen, but nothing did. The sounds outside grew no more threatening and nothing raced down the
stairs to get her. She leaned a little more heavily on her cane and tested the immediate vicinity. It seemed nothing had moved since she had returned from her last hospital visit. There was still a pot plant to the left of her door and she felt the stick rustle through a pile of letters beside her. She always waited for her maid to bring in any mail, but that day she decided to collect it herself. Carefully she stooped and reached out, her hand closing around the paper just as the doors at the building entrance swung inwards. A gust of cold air buffeted her and she stood up sharply, turning her head to face whoever had entered.
'Are you OK?' A kindly voice asked.
'I'm fine.' She replied snappily. Whoever he was he must have seen the stick and assumed she needed help.
'You want me to hold the door?' His accent was thick, perhaps Portuguese or Spanish.
'Yes thank you.' She felt her way past him with the white cane and the strong, musky scent of aftershave filled her nostrils.
He held the door open until she had passed him by and then stepped back out onto the street behind her.
'What do you want?' Sierra stopped, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her stick more tightly.
'I was just going to ask if you wanted company?' He replied. 'I'm new to the building and I could use a guide.'
'I'll be of no use to you I'm afraid,' she snapped. She could hear no hint of mockery in his voice, but some people hid that kind of thing well.
'I'm not taking the piss.' He raised his hands, quickly realising that she could not see the gesture and lowering them again.
'Where do you want to go?' She asked at length.
'Wherever you were headed?'
'I've not been outside in quite a while,' she confessed. 'I was thinking of trying to find my way to a coffee shop.'
'Sounds good to me.' He grinned.
'Would you mind leading the way?' She asked, a smile forming on her lips. 'Which flat do you live in?'
'I'm on the first floor' He replied, reaching out and carefully taking her hand. He took a step forward and she quickly wound her arm around his, teetering a little but righting herself without a fall.
'What number?' She pressed, reasoning that if they lived in the same building then he couldn't get away with murdering her or leaving her. Someone would notice. At least she hoped so.
'16,' he chuckled. 'Not that I'm sure why numbers matter. Unless you think I'm out to get you and you're mining evidence?' He teased. 'If it helps I'm 5"9 with dark blonde hair and I'm wearing a camo jacket. Is that enough information for you?'
Sierra blushed. 'I'm sorry; it's just that I feel a little more vulnerable than the average woman. As you can probably imagine.'
'I'm only messing.' He squeezed his arm around hers. 'I just need to make at least one friend in the neighbourhood or all this travel was for nothing. Can't start afresh without being at least a little social can you?'
'I suppose not' She agreed, allowing herself to be led slowly down the busy pathway. She wished she had picked up some sunglasses to hide the lack of focus in her eyes, she could imagine passers by staring at her and the further they travelled the more uncomfortable she felt. 'Are w-we nearly there?' She asked him, her voice cracking.
'We're here, just turn to your left.' He replied, studying her face with concern. 'Are you OK?'
'Are they staring?' She asked quietly, her blonde hair falling over her face as she tilted her head forward to try and hide her trembling lip.
'Who?' He looked around, bewildered.
'People.'
'No, nobody is staring. Don't worry about them anyway, even if they were it would be out of jealousy.'
Sierra opened her mouth to reply but his attention was on the baristas and he cut her short.
'Mind the step, I'll take you to a seat by the windows and get you a drink as payment for keeping me company, what would you like?' He led her to a comfy armchair and pulled it back for her, lowering her gently into it and pushing her up to the sticky café table.
'I'll take a mocha please, light, no caffeine, and sugar free.'
'That's very specific,' he laughed.
'I might not be able to see myself but I still don't want to get fat.' She blushed, feeling the colour warm her cheeks.
'Don't be daft!' He brushed away her concerns. 'You're probably the skinniest woman I've ever seen.'
'You're too kind.' She smiled in his direction, hardly able to believe that he seemed to be flirting with her. He gave a small laugh in reply and she heard his footsteps head away, leaving her to sit alone at the table where he had left her. The thought that trusting a stranger might be foolish crossed her mind but she brushed it away. He seemed genuinely lovely, and she was hardly able to pick and choose her friends since she had lost her sight.
Coyly she turned her head around as she listened to the sounds of the coffee shop, focusing on his voice and listening to his movements. She thought she heard him turn around to check on her, but she had no real way of knowing. She hoped that he had not seen her listening, and turned back to face the windows. People wandered in and out of the door beside her and she shuddered at the biting wind that they bought in with them. Footsteps were heading in her direction; he was on his way back.
'It's chilly over here isn't it.' He observed, carefully putting her coffee down on the table and taking a seat opposite her. 'I trust no one bothered you in my absence?'
She shook her head, fumbling for the handle of her cup and taking a grateful sip when she finally had it in her grasp. There was a long moment of silence while they both enjoyed their drinks.
'So what's your name?' He asked as he clattered his mug down onto the oversized saucer they had given him. 'I should have asked before now really, sorry about that, I forget my manners when my caffeine levels are low.'
'Samantha,' she lied easily, not wanting to give him too much information before she was sure of him. 'It's nice to meet you Mr. ...?'
'Jackson.' He reached across the table to take her hand and shake it, laughing despite himself when he startled her and she flinched away. 'I swear to God, I'm not a serial killer, you can relax.'
'It's not that,' she mumbled, wringing her hands and then wrapping them both tightly around her enormous coffee mug. There had been bumps all over his fingers. Did he have some kind of condition? 'You have very rough hands.' She told him with an uncertain half-smile.
'Working mans hands,' he agreed. 'I'm a labourer by trade. Sorry if they feel like sandpaper.'
'Oh no, you're quite alright.' She reached out, offering her hand to shake and feeling a little foolish. When he took it she again felt bumps all over his palm and fingers. A rush of cool air billowed through the door and she was almost certain she heard a hushed laugh within it. She went back to her drink and they talked for over an hour before she decided that she would like to head home. He led her back to the flats and saw her to her door, where he took her hand and kissed it lightly. They arranged to meet the next day, and Sierra went to bed that night feeling the happiest she had in a very long time.
Over the course of the next few months they met as often as they could. At first it was once a week or so, then every few days, and finally every evening after Jackson had finished work. They would talk about anything and everything, and soon they became a couple. She lied to him about her past and continued to use the name Samantha, but he never seemed to suspect a thing. He had mentioned a distant cousin who had taken part in beauty contests and that had been enough to make her want to keep her secret. If he had found out who she was then she was certain he would have left her. Her name had been dragged through the mud by newer contestants in her wake. The new wave of competitors had been less forgiving than the girls she had grown up with, and mutterings of her involvement in the acid attack were everywhere. She could not risk him finding out, and so her lies snowballed out of control. She told him that she had worked as a makeup artist, which was an easy enough lie to uphold thanks to her years of experience with being covered in the stuff. He was quiet about his own past, which Sierra was grateful for. Under normal circumstances she might have been suspicious, but as it was she only felt gratitude as it left her more freedom to be secretive about herself.
Their first real date had been an outing back to the same coffee shop they had visited on the day that they met. They sat and enjoyed a drink in the warmth of the sun outside the building. She wore a red dress and a flowing cardigan, and he wore jeans and a plain t-shirt. Their first kiss had been fleeting, she had touched his forearm and once again her sensitive fingers felt bumps along every inch of his skin. She tried to ignore them, but a realisation hit her and she could not. They were words. It was braille. He will kill you, she read with trembling fingers. He thought that she was nervous, and hugged her tightly to him. She let him hold her close and shuddered, frightened by how clear the words had been. She told him that he felt cold and asked him to put a jumper on, but later that same night she felt those same bumps on his neck when they embraced.
For a while she had avoided touching him, playing it off as feeling embarrassed that they had rushed into physicality. He respected her decision as a possible consequence of her feelings of vulnerability, but after a month or so of nothing more than chaste kisses on the cheek their desires got the better of them. They fell into bed and in the midst of their passion Sierra felt those same bumps again, but she needed him then and could not tear herself away. She tried to think of what she loved about him to take away the fear behind the words rising from his naked back.
He had gotten her out of the house for the first time in months. He hates you, the braille countered. He shares my interests; he loves me for me, not for my looks, she thought frantically, kissing him deeply as her hands roamed his back. He loves no one, he will kill you while you sleep, the bumps insisted. He is kind and generous. To lull you into a false sense of security. He does not care that I am blind and a shut in. He knows you are weak; he will wait until the time is right. She could take no more and pushed him away from her. The words were answering her, how was that even possible?
Jackson had been upset by her rejection, but again put it down to nerves and forgave her. Again they went for weeks with minimal contact, and in that time she came to realise that she loved him. Despite the messages on his skin, despite the awkward moments when they touched, he was a perfect match for her personality. He was everything she had ever dreamed of having, and so she pushed on with their relationship, hoping against hope that the messages would stop. But they did not. Every day they became more and more violent, appearing on his skin anywhere that she touched him.
He will lock you up and starve you, one read. He will rip out your heart, insisted another.
Over time she found she could no longer ignore them. Their persistence drove her slowly mad. Why was she feeling these messages on him? How were they happening? Was it him or was it something wrong with her?
One night he cuddled up to her on the couch and she cosied up to his bare chest, hoping against hope that she would feel nothing. As he kissed the top of her head bumps erupted beneath her fingertips. He knows what you did. The words flowed and changed under her still hand. He knows what you did and he will do it to you. Her fingers clawed, but she did not move her hand, and Jackson pressed it back to his chest with a peaceful sigh. He knows your real name Sierra. A quiet gasp escaped her, but Jackson's hand still rested on top of her own. Did he know that she was receiving messages? Did he want her to hear them? To frighten her? Acid melting your face, burning up your flawless skin. Eating up your lips and nose and tongue. Dissolving your useless eyes. She snatched her hand away from his and weakly told him that she needed to go to bed. He left her and returned to his flat, confused and upset by another rejection.
Sierra lay awake all night with a head full of terrible thoughts. She did not understand what was happening, but she was certain that she was in danger. She loved him, but she could not trust him, not after so many warnings. She had never been religious but she could think of nothing other than that she must have been blessed with a guardian angel. Something had to be watching over her, though she could not comprehend why or how. All she knew was that she was in danger and she would have to do something to change that, and so a plan began to form.
The next morning she sat on her bed and listened intently to the passing cars outside, her head in her hands. She knew what she had to do. When the clock chimed 10am she pushed herself up and squirmed into a long dress she had left out hanging on the back of her bedroom door. She waited patiently for him to arrive at midday to bring her post into the flat, sitting bolt upright in a chair facing the door. He arrived on time and she greeted him with a beaming smile.
Would you mind perhaps taking me into the city?' She asked, keeping her voice as level as she could.
'Of course not, shall we take the bus?' He reached out and took her hand, feeling her flinch and asking her, 'are you OK?'
'I'm fine, sorry, you startled me.' She lied, trying not to feel the waves of braille rolling across his skin beneath her touch. 'Let's go shall we? I need to get some wine for tonight, I thought I could apologise to you for my behavior recently.'
'You don't need to do that.' He smiled, leading her out of the building and on to the hectic street. Carefully he guided her to the roads edge, stopping abruptly as his phone began to ring in his pocket.
Sierra felt the vibrations of an approaching bus and swallowed hard, holding her breath and turning her blind eyes in its direction.
Jackson pulled his phone free of the tight fabric of his jeans and lifted it to his ear, pressing the answer call button and smiling broadly. He did not have time to speak before Sierra put her hands against his side and pushed. He flew into the road with a sharp sound of panic, his mobile flying from his hand and striking Sierra's boot clad feet.
'I love you,' she almost whispered, tears streaming freely down her cheeks.
The bus driver stomped down on the brakes but it was too late, and Sierra clearly heard the wet, crunching pop as a wheel rolled over Jackson's head. Tyres screeched as the distraught driver tried to stop before more damage was done, but there was nothing he could do. All around them pedestrians began to scream and cry, children wailed and Sierra clearly heard the thud of someone fainting and the faint but hysterical shouting coming from the phone by her foot. Slowly she bent to pick it up and held it to her with unsteady fingers.
'Hello?! Jackson?' A female voice screamed, her words awkward and lisping.
Sierra instantly knew who it was on the far end of the line.
'Hello?' The word came more shrilly this time as panic really began to set in.
'Ne- Nereida.' Sierra stammered.
The voice went silent, only ragged breathing crackling down the line.
Sierra opened her mouth to speak but the words that bubbled from between her lips were not her own. She coughed and blood splattered onto the window of the bus in front of her.
'Your ancestors needed feeding.' She spluttered in a voice that was not her own, blood beginning to seep from her eyes and ears as her body slowly sank to the ground. By the time she lay beside the ruined body of the man she loved, she was already dead.
In her Cuban home, Nereida threw down her phone and screamed for her maid to take her down to the cellar. She entered the room alone, and the moment the door closed the solitary candle on the altar was snuffed out. In the blackness she heard a deep, echoing laugh. Terrified, she tried to claw the door open, but it would not budge. A pressure began to build in her head and she felt wetness seeping from her eyes and tasted copper on her tongue.
'You forgot to feed us.' A snarling voice hissed into her ear. 'This debt of blood must be paid.'