My Anthologie. The Revenge of Feidre Drummond COMPLETED

the Waif and the Killer

I was having a regular morning, my run half finished and my heartbeat thundering madly, when a child appeared in front of me on the path.

I locked my knees and skidded, trying to miss her fragile little body, clad only in a white nightgown, stained with brown splotches and torn at the knees, dark hair reaching past her shoulders.

I couldn't halt my forward progress, and tucked her into my arms as I rolled midway through the fall into the shrubbery.

I landed hard on my back, what was left of my breath driven out of me by the child's sharp elbows, which she was using to try and break my hold on her. I let go, and she scrambled up, whimpering like a small, abandoned animal.

Realizing she was utterly terrified, I lay still on the ground to speak to her. "What's ailing you, child?" It was too early for children to be out, the sun just touching the tops of the trees.

She backed away from me until her feet were firmly back on the path, her eyes fixed on my face. I tried to smile, but her eyes widened further, and I quickly let the effort fail.

"Suh... I.. I.. see you w-wrunning, out heah, evewy mownin'. "

I nodded, confirming that yes, I run every morning and I am paying attention to her, even though the fact she was up early enough to see me every morning baffled me.

I didn't know a lot about children, but I hadn't been allowed out of bed as a child until breakfast was ready to be served, once I'd had a bed.

She shuffled, her eyes still locked onto my face, but they only flicked up to meet my eyes, little stolen flips of her great blue eyes. "I.. I think you ahwe a vewah stwong man?"

Puzzled, I leaned up onto my elbows to see her more clearly, but she stiffened, eyes flaring, and I froze, momentarily befuddled by her reaction. Then I slowly finished leaning up, my mind racing at the child's obvious fear of me.
"I am, comparatively, miss. But I won't hurt ye."

Oddly enough, she seemed to believe me. She relaxed slightly, her spine still ramrod straight in the white nightgown. "Ah'd like you to do me a favah, suh."

I lifted an eyebrow, the strangeness of this small girl's behavior bewildering me. "Anything I can do for a lady, miss."

For she was a lady, the posture perfect, the grammar, if not the slight lisp she had that turned it from proper to piteous, dressed as she was in the torn and stained gown.

"I can pay, suh." Her hands came forward from her waist, and a gold coin gleamed in the early morning light, one in each hand. "It's enough to buy a horse, suh, my uncle said."

"Miss, I don't need payment to do a favor for ye. Just ask me, please."

She swallowed, and her eyes caught mine for the first time. "Suh, could you use youah strength to hurt my uncle, suh?"

White fog seemed to pull over my eyes for a moment, then retreat, and it all fell into order.

Her behavior, her fear of me moving to quickly, and the torn nightgown, the stains... the bloodstains, dried to splotchy brown, where she'd bled and held the cloth to herself in an attempt to staunch a wound irreparable.

I came to my feet, slowly. So slowly, the rage that exploded across my eyes in a red tide had time to bank against my suddenly aching heart. She was so small.

I slowly advanced on her, her eyes still on mine, and folded her fingers over her two palms, the gold winking out of sight.
"Miss, what's your name?"

"Ah am Miss Feidre Drummond, suh."

"Miss Drummond, answer me, and consider that to be your payment for my hurting your uncle. Do you understand? "