❦
sɪx
𝑉𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒
❦
Maria blushed, hearing her name echo around the church from the front of it. From his lips the name that she had always hated sounded beautiful, like that of an angel. It had been her grandmother's name, her aunt's and her cousin's too. Maria felt her name was common, sounding like any other word of a normal language. But the name that came to her ears, her name, didn't sound like anything she had ever been called before.
She knew it was wrong to think such a thing, even as innocent as it was. Her brother would have her head as readily as the man she thought about, and yet she couldn't seem to help it. Her ears strained to listen for her name as easily as her eyes had searched for the speaker on Christmas Eve. Maria knew she couldn't stop to show her face to the person who searched for her, but that didn't stop her from looking.
She wondered why he was here, how he had weaselled himself out and away from his family. Perhaps it was different for him than it was for her: maybe he didn't need his brother's permission to leave and go to church. She could see that as being the reality. Though she hadn't heard anything about what had happened on Christmas Day, she knew it couldn't have been good. And so she felt uneasy at the fact that Arthur Shelby had come to church, looking for her, alone.
She lifted herself from the narrow line of the pew, shifting her wait to the side as she slipped easily from behind the stone pillar she had placed herself behind. Sitting closer to the back doors than she ever had before had been a blessing that day, as she stood, what she believed to be unnoticed. But as she tugged at the large handle of the wooden doors, she felt a rough hand encase her wrist, pulling her back gently.
Maria held her breath, already knowing who was behind. Arthur breathed out a harsh breath as his eyes landed on the face that he had thought to be his own guardian angel. He didn't believe that she was real, that the radiant woman who had appeared over him, face only slightly shielded from view, had talked to him out of her own free and saintly will. What he had believed, was that she was a figment of his imagination, a manifestation of what he needed. But if Arthur Shelby knew anything about Maria, it was that she had the most beautiful name that he had ever heard.
"Maria?" He let the name glide from between his parted lips.
As she didn't reply, he wanted to say it again. To let the sweet sound fall from his mouth over and over again, as he knew he would never get tired of it.
Maria wanted to turn away, to extinguish the bright light of hope that shone around him like a beacon. She wanted to shake her head and act as if she had no idea who he spoke of. But she didn't. Instead, she was nodding, letting her eyes flutter delicately to land on the look of relief that spread across his rugged face.
"Yes." She whispered, attempting to knock him from the trance of staring, while only pushing him in deeper.
Arthur was stuck. His shoulders had relaxed, fizzling of the tightness in his muscles that plagued him indefinitely and his eyebrows had calmed, no longer forcing the wrinkles of his forehead to his straight hairline.
"You wanted to say something?" Maria asked, and Arthur nodded, not stopping until he spoke.
"Oh, yes, um." He began, collecting the words eventually. "I'm Arthur."
She waited for him to drop his smile into a smirk, to jump out at her and laugh at the fact that she had been so trusting. However, Arthur did no such thing. The soft beam on his lips never faltered. In that moment, Maria's thoughts of the man remained solid- he had a kind heart and was looking for comfort.
"Hello," she spoke slowly, "Arthur."
Maria sent the man one last smile as she turned away, heading back toward the door which was already held slightly ajar. Arthur Shelby couldn't know who she was: A Changretta, the enemy. He let her hand slide through his fingers as he watched her leave.
❦
"What do you expect me to do Luca?"
He was arguing with her again. Maria could see it becoming more common in the future. She knew that their mother and father would hate them for it, but it seemed that they had too much to get upset over and disagree upon.
"I expect you to work with your family. To do what you can to save us as we do to save you." Luca said, trying to make her see.
"The only man I need saving from is you Luca. How many times did we say that what you're doing is dangerous?"
She had said it before and would say it a million times more if she had to. Maria couldn't understand why he didn't accept the truth. Luca wouldn't see it as his truth, and to him her reality was a lie.
"Vengeance Maria! That is what we are doing." He shouted out, his eyes crazed and wide, his jaw clenched before he spoke again. "They killed father, brother, and almost mother. It seems that you don't care."
Maria staggered on her feet, taken aback by his bold accusation. She scolded herself: why was she so affected by something that was no more than a wild fabrication?
She cared that someone had killed her family. She cared that she couldn't see her fathers face any longer or hear her younger brothers sweet voice. She cared more than anything that they were gone and she couldn't have saved them. But she couldn't find it in herself to care that there had been a reason.
A line had been crossed by her father a long, long time ago. Maria believed it was time to redraw it, and more fairly than it had been.
"You are too busy sympathising with the enemy, with the savages who killed our father!" Luca snapped, his hand on her arm.
The words hadn't ran through her head yet. Maria was too caught up on the bloodshot eyes that stared back at her, rimmed with an irritated red and surrounded by a dark, blue shadow. Luca looked drained from grief and her heart broke. Still, realisation hit and Maria was shaking her head in confusion.
"What is that supposed to mean?" She asked, her voice softening and along with it, Luca's temper.
"You do know the man you speak to in the church is Arthur Shelby?" Luca asked, though more as a threat than a question.
Maria swallowed- it sounded different being said out loud than it had in her head. She had spoke to Arthur Shelby. She nodded her head.
"How did you know?"
She was shaking her head before he could even answer. The men that followed her, they must have seen her. Luca would pray but he would never dare set foot near a church.
"That man pulled the trigger of a gun pointed to our father's head." Luca breathed out. "And you talk to him kindly."
She was shivering, her shoulders twitching. Maria felt cold despite the many layers that were still draped around her. Her room was musty and damp, but never as icy as she felt in that moment. Even her breath was affected by it, shuttering as it brushed past her chipped lips.
She was running in seconds, head twisting to look back at her house as she left through the front door. Luca was leaning from the sitting room window, the whole of his torso sitting against the weak ledge.
"Maria, come back!" He screamed, his voice scratching against the walls of the houses that surrounded them.
She didn't turn around- she couldn't think well enough to do so. Her thoughts had been switched off.
"Don't just stare, bring her back." Luca snapped, looking down to his two cousins who stood by the front door.
Her feet fell in front one after the other as she gradually slowed, nearing to where she had carelessly took herself. Small Heath. Or Watery Lane, more like it. It was the only place that even her brother wouldn't follow after her, and she needed space more than anything. A moment alone.
The street was silent, eerily so. It was perfect, in fact, for Maria to hide through and so she slowed. Her footsteps echoed lightly, suffocated by the sound of tires scraping through the mud of the street. A police car rolled up beside a house in the centre of the street opposite, tailed by two men hidden behind the tall, dark collars of their coats.
Maria slipped passed as the front door was opened, the light of the doorway slipping through the shadows of the evening as a woman appeared, her curled hair slightly messy. She wasn't recognisable, and to her Maria wasn't either, as she glanced past the copper and along the very edge of the street where she walked.
They were talking about something quietly as the two men receded back into the shadows again, trailing her heels as she neared the edge of the road. Maria sighed. It seemed the whole of Birmingham was tense, and she hated nothing more.
❦