𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡

𝟑 | 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥

Our garden looked different at night. Not scary, rather reassuring. I was inhaling the cold night air, trying to push out the rotting feeling out of my lungs. I desperately needed to replace it with something else.

This time I didn't bother to use a shovel, and I had left it leaning against the garage. I put myself into work, trying to make as little noise as possible. It would probably be difficult for the neighbors to explain why I was raking the pit at eleven o'clock in the evening. Then I put the necklace in the hole and covered it with soil.

I stood over a modest grave, staring into the clay as black as my family's soul. So many secrets, so much blood, is it still not enough?

A whisper interrupted my thoughts.

"What is a young lady like you doing here at such a time?" A voice growled in my ear. I pulled away and jumped from the surprise. An old face of the neighbor next door peeked at me from the fence, moonlight illuminating her hawkish eyes, happy to find new evidence that could testify our sins.

"I wish you a nice evening, too, Mrs. Roosevelt," I muttered between my teeth, grinning with a fake smile. A snake, like she was, deserved to be thrown into a tank full of carnivorous fish.

"Polite as always," the old woman said reluctantly. At least I am, when you don't even know how to be nice to people, I thought angrily. "And at the wrong time, at the wrong place, as I see." She nodded and pointed to my hands, dirty with clay. "What were you doing here?"

"I was burying...," old woman's pupils grow larger as I spoke, "... a fish." With the last word of my sentence, the neighbor frowned. She knew I was making fun of her, and she didn't like it. However, she decided to continue sticking her nose where it doesn't belong.

"I thought dead fish were supposed to be flushed down the toilet," she said, scanning me with her eyes suspiciously. Slowly but surely, she was pouring oil into small fires burning inside me. She wasn't even paying attention to the fact that I could explode any time soon.

"And I thought there was a fence to keep you on your own property, letting you know that you should mind your business," I said with a lack of respect. The old lady looked offended, but at the same time, my harsh answer left her in astonishment. It was enough to shut her mouth, making her crawl into her filthy pit again.

I did the same. With a wish to forget everything that has happened today, I snuck in the room, flipping through the pages of school books and trying to learn something. Despite the crazy life I had, my education was both of my parent's number one priority. And for me? Well, I didn't like going to school (like most of my peers), but it gave me a certain escape from the cruel reality. Everything was better than smoothing out the tracks of a criminal's actions.