CHAPTER TWO
the start of october fifteenth
WILHELMINA BLANCHARD WAS playing Clair de Lune, the gentle hum of the piano keys travelled through every thin wall and swelled the house pleasantly with the soft sound of music. It had been raining, so the patio was still spotted with water, and the gutters were fresh with a new digestion of murky grey sludge. Primrose had locked herself in the bathroom, the switch of the shower was turned on and water splattered like a gushing waterfall. Steam fogged up the mirror she was faced with, and every few minutes she would snatch the sock that she hid her red lipstick in and wipe the surface clean. There was a whole in the wall behind the sink, and out of fear of being appropriated by her mother, she stuffed her cosmetics inside and only brought them out when she was in the ensured safety of privacy from the sound of the running water indicating that the young girl was in the bath. Prim smiled at her reflection, it was barely a statement▬ red lipstick, that was, ▬but living in a household that thrived from the self doubt of its members, loving herself was a rebellion Prim excelled in. A silent revolt behind a locked door, an internal rage that would escalate through the day into a rioting wildfire, setting the Blanchard home alight from the gasoline that had drowning the walls in malaise for years. The match that would set it ablaze would be the final tipping point of tolerance from the sisters, and soon they would all be dead, no longer needing to hide their red lipsticks in the wall, or conceal their rage in fear of being disowned for letting it surface.
The sky was a thick wedge of brutal charcoal grey, and the sun was tucked behind the clouds as if the people below hadn't yet deserved the shine of light. However, Bernadette knew that that was just winters way of announcing its arrival. The heating was jammed, so the air was cold, and other than the small segment of the corridor that was hot from the steam trickling through the gap around the bathroom's door, the house was bitter. Even if it had been under tragic circumstances, Bernadette▬▬ and her sisters ▬▬missed June, fish fly season. Though Philippa had tried to take her own life that month, there was something settling about knowing she had survived, and how the sun peaked out to congratulate the Blanchard sister's safety.
October was cold for many reasons, it was the year that Pippa, Agatha, Constance and Primrose had been pulled from attending school and taught at home by Wilhelmina, but the weather was also cutting. Air whipped at plump cheeks, and the girls could no longer skip on the front porch to allure the attention of the group of boys who spent hours watching them from their treehouse. It wasn't perverted, not even Bernadette thought it was wrong, the boys loved the Blanchards, or maybe it was just powerful infatuation. Nevertheless, they stared besotted at the girls from the house among the leaves, and occasionally called out for them to dance. They were their own Gods, they stood up in the air, watching down, and the Blanchard sisters fed off of the attention, for it was the only focus they were given. There was nothing evil or wicked, no heinous crime was committed, only girlish crushes, and childish admiration.
Constance was in the kitchen, using the oven Primrose would later use to kill herself, to bake a loaf of bread with Philippa's help, though the youngest Blanchard girl did no help. She only watched from the chair in the corner, eyes lifeless and devoid of youth. She watched her sister pound the bread with angry fists, kneading the dough roughly. Constance's anger was polluting her emotions subtly, for years it had been a digestible dose, but on the morning of October 15th, it was starting to reveal itself through the act of decimating a large boulder of dough. Pippa stared lifelessly, the harsh hitting of her sister's knuckles greeting the dough had reached its crescendo, and Clair de Lune gliding through the house was muffled.
"Why are you so angry?" Pippa finally brought herself to ask. She toyed with a single string of hair that slipped before her forehead, her sleeve rolled up and Constance flickered a quick look over before she focused back on the flour.
"I hate this song." Constance said darkly, "and she knows it."
Pippa took a long breath and managed a smile. She skipped up to the counter and nudged her sister to the side. "Look," she muttered, and leant over the edge to face the rolled out stretch of dough. She poked her finger into the softness, making two large circles for eyes, and one long curve for a smile. "Your bread is happy." She leant down, cupping her hand against her ear as if the smiley face she had indented was talking. "Uh huh, yeah . . . OK, I'll tell her now." Pippa looked up to her sister sternly, behind the emotionless gaze that she had perfected for many months now, was childish gleam. "She says you should be happy, too. And to stop punching her, she's ready to rise."
Constance giggled, shoving Pippa back over to her seat. She folded the dough once more, and let it deflate into the bowl where it would soon expand. It was strange hearing Pip talk with humor, because for so many months she had lay awake with passionless eyes, penetrating the ceiling, or walked among the house as if she were a ghost. She always wore ridiculous white dresses, the ones that puffed and ruffled, the ones with sleeves that exploded like balloons along her arms. Pippa, ghostlike in her ungodly pale face, and stoney, unmoving eyes, was translucent and silver, there was no color. Humor was not Pippa's ideal way of communicating, so Constance grinned. She looked over at her sister again, her sleeves were down. She beamed.
The house of 76 Rosefield street was plain. The walls lifted smoothly, painted in simple white coverings, and the floorboards stretched out underneath carpet to secure the foundations. Air remained still, slightly carrying the heavenly scent of baked bread and music, photos of girls in white and pink dresses decorated the plain walls, and in every room above the door remained a crucifix as a subtle reminder that God was always watching. From the bathroom gloating clouds of steam, Primrose Blanchard blew a kiss to the cross on the wall, winking gently at Jesus who peered down at her with a silent scream, and his crown woven with thorns. The willow tree▬▬ that spawned dead wood and would soon be cut down ▬▬enveloped the sky, and a lonely branch scratched against Agatha's side window. Often in the night, she would peel off the satin covers and slap her palms on her eyes, terrified of the witch's hand tapping at her glass, and shuffled through the eerily dark corridor until she reached Bernadette's room on the third floor. Bernie slept on the left side of the bed, facing her wall with one leg stuck out of her sheets. Agatha cocooned herself with creased blankets and her sister's love, a warmth that consumed her veins as if her blood had been whisked with kisses.
The morning, despite the dark air and lack of vibrancy in the world's background, had started off mundane. Kind, even, considering the severe set of rulings and firm treating the girls went through every morning like clockwork. Wilhelmina hadn't announced what set the girls ticking time bomb off yet, and Anne hadn't fought with Bernadette. It was a good day.
But every tsunami started with gentle waves kissing the shore with harmless foam.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
"Only twenty two point two percent of murderers are female, and twenty point one percent of women are offenders of an act of violence▬ listen, I'm telling you now, Bernadette didn't kill her sisters, the statistics are too slim considering her personality and behaviour! She couldn't, I▬ I know her, Morgan, she slept next to a stuffed bear until she was seventeen years old▬ she still probably keeps it up on one of her shelves." Spencer Reid said firmly to his friend, placing his hands on his colleague's shoulder. Reid never placed himself before the others, he certainly didn't have the power to, but Morgan scolded his nativity, claiming his judgment was clouded by the attachment he and Bernadette had from growing up together as kids.
"You haven't spoken to her in▬ how long? Since a few years ago? Reid, come on, man, people change. People get violent, it doesn't just happen, it evolves. You know this," Derek Morgan replied, stopping in his tracks and crossing his arms across his chest. "She was a kid when you last talked to her, she's an adult now. You heard what they said on the news, they saw her clutching the damn knife!"
Reid took a long breath and pursed his lips. He rolled his neck slightly and placed his hands out before him, he swallowed unsurely and then placed his hands on the strap that crossed across his front. "We've been doing this for years, the people we deal with have motives, Bernadette doesn't have an MO, she's got nothing. She loved her sisters▬ still, will love her sisters. Believe me, Morgan, if somebody is going to remember something, anything about the Blanchard household, it's going to be me. Bernie took her shoes off before going into the house, she pestered her sisters sunbathing to wear sunscreen, she left daisy chains on my front porch when I got back from a particularly depressing day of school▬ these aren't the likens of a killer, she didn't▬ couldn't have staged anything."
Morgan watched closely, trying to balance the fine line between his job and his friend. He looked around the corridor, it was completely empty apart from the two of them, and the tension was stuffing up into the area until he couldn't move. He shook his head once, and then let it drop in front of him. He shook it again. "She called you already?"
"The second she got to the station. It's not far from here, it's the closest one. If we tell the team now . . . Bernadette won't be under the intense grill of detectives for much longer." Reid concluded. There was a spark in his eyes, a certain hope that Morgan had only ever seen at the end of a successful case. Unconvinced, he pursed his lips once more and remained still. Reid's voice dropped to a small whisper. "She just lost her entire family, and in addition to that, she might've just lost her parents as well. That is if they believe the brutality every news station in Virginia is reciting. They're calling her the Kin Killer. We have the media to thank for that one."
Derek Morgan snorted, rolling his eyes. "If I back you up with this, pretty boy, when we go to interview her, you stay out of it. And don't call her Bernie, come on, man, the team'll think you're blinded by childish affection."
Maybe he was, but he internalised his response and nodded, offering a small, twitchy smile, after which they began walking to the conference room in silence. When they arrived, spread out across the room were the BAU team, either clutching a hot cup of coffee or cradling their foreheads in their hands. Reid's brows arched as the front of them furrowed together. He flicked his hair behind his back, and suddenly his expression ceased to tense as he saw on the TV was already Bernadette's face, and her files were spread out across the room. He exchanged a look with Morgan▬▬ they had already been given the case.
"Bernadette Blanchard." Spencer Reid said aloud, and a few heads tilted his way.
"Convicted of staging the suicides of her five younger sisters▬▬ Philippa, Agatha, Constance, Primrose and Anne. She was discovered holding the knife that had since been stabbed in the second eldest's, Anne's, heart, after their mother Wilhelmina was awoken by Bernadette's scream." Jennifer Jareau explained, switching through the TV as she said the Blanchard sister's names.
The photos that had been chosen were school photos, each of them looking like a younger version of the last. Their hair had been styled the same way, stitched with white ribbon, alarmingly long and straight, with the odd kink of Primrose's curls that she had backcombed, and Anne's fringe that swept slightly to the side. Whilst she hated how the ends jabbed in her eyes, Constance had admired it and shortly afterwards took the kitchen scissors to her own hair and gave herself a choppy new haircut. They all wore white. Round cheeked, brown eyed, a natural gush of pretty pink blush adorned their frames and the aureate crosses hung collectively from their necks. The Blanchard sisters possessed a natural innocence brought on by their cherubic beauty, not quite infantile or aged, they lay in the middle sweetness of between too young and too old. The TV landed back on Bernadette's photo.
"Whilst Bernadette claims she's innocent, there's too many factors to this case that make it difficult to close with just her word." JJ continued, "forensics found her fingerprints on the bottle that is thought to of poisoned Philippa, and around Primrose's wrists are blue nail marks that are currently undergo in a test to see whose DNA is inside. Not to mention the witness of their mother claiming to see Bernadette "stabbing my baby without mercy" . . . as she worded it."
SSA Aaron Hotchner, went on to question if Bernadette had simply gone crazy, noting that the visible crosses across their necks boasted signs of dedicated religion, offering the idea that she had performed a satanic homicide to challenge her parents' beliefs. That she was an antagonist. When Morgan cleared his throat with a careful cough and swallowed, eyes peaked over to him, inciting a sudden stop in the conference as the realisation that he knew something more than the others settled. David Rossi leant back in his chair, frowning before asking what was wrong.
"Seems we've got an upper hand on this case," Morgan began and turned to Reid. Spencer stared at the file in front of him before his eyes lingered on the photo of the girl he knew well in the corner of the TV. Gently, but noticeably, a hushed tint of red embellished his cheeks and eyebrows started to raise. "Boy genius knows the girl."
Emily Prentiss' elbows met the table with a thud and she leant over the edge of the wood. "What? You've met Bernadette Blanchard?" The black strands in her weak ponytail framed her face after how swiftly she had moved in shock, and all eyes fell upon Reid as he repositioned himself to reply.
"I grew up with her when I was younger, at first we lived next to each other in Vegas until my mother and I moved away, and then later on when she saw me in the newspaper for completing my Bachelors degree in psychology at 19, she contacted me to congratulate me, she was ecstatic to see we both somehow wound up in Quantico . . . but she didn't request a reunion. To convene whilst she lived under her mother's, Wilhelmina, roof▬▬" he shook his head "▬▬strict and all that." Reid concluded. "She, uh, also called me when she reached the station."
"Well, what did she say?" Prentiss pushed.
"That she was innocent," he replied, "through her uncontrollable tears brought on by the trauma she had just been subjected to, I heard some of the story of what happened tonight. If she's guilty, the signs of remorse are astronomical and if she's innocent, she's petrified of being claimed guilty. . . Which leaves me to believe the latter. Either way, yeah, Morgan's right. I know Bernadette."
"Know well enough to be kicked off the case for personal ties? Or can you keep your childhood where it belongs in the past?" Hotchner said roughly. JJ blinked silently and placed her hands on the budding baby bump of her stomach.
"N▬▬ No," Reid said quickly, but Morgan caught it. "The past won't get in the way." The way his eyes flickered all around the room before they focused once more, not a common tic, but an easy telltale sign that he was lying. "I'm OK for the case."
Spencer Reid hadn't spoken to Bernadette Blanchard in many years, but it went without saying that he was certain she wasn't culpable, and he would go a long way to prove it.
WALTER WINCHELL.
❛ A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. ❜
( artemis speaks ! )
spencer and bernie sittin in a tree
k i s s i n g
sorry n e wayz
chapter 2!!! i hope it's getting intense
enough for you laid eaze and germs.
this is some background information
on the blanchard family, a lot of the
chapters are gonna start off in italics
which signifies the day that the sisters
did what they did until it leads up to
the true events