Angel - by Ivan Peterson

Hi Everyone. Hopefully some of you can read this before tomorrow. Here is the first part of my revision. It kind of sounds like a new story, but I'm really trying to bring some of the original story in, without making it as unbelievable. I'm trying to emphasize Mary's "oddity," through my revision, so the eventual death and torture (I'm really not evil... I promise) is a more realistic, yet still absurd. Do you guys get the sense that something is different with Mary? Should I give more overt clues? This isn't a happy story, but do you think I should encorporate some comical elements to lighten the mood? Also, what do you think of me getting rid of two of the storylines, and condensing/focusing on just Mary? Thanks.



“Take care of yourself Mary. You know that I’ll always love you.” There was nothing else on the paper. The note began and ended with those fateful words. “I’ll always love you,” Mary repeated to herself for the fourth time. The black ink was written neatly on a notepad taken from a roadside motel. Beneath the letters, embedded within the paper was a watermark, barely visible after years of age: “Pasco Deluxe Suites.” Mary glanced up with tears glistening in her eyes. A single lamp illuminated the tiny drops that fell from her cheeks and disappeared into the shadowy carpet below. A weight seemed to fall onto Mary as her shoulders slumped and knees gave way to her shock.

A single officer responded to the call, pulling into the trailer park with his lights beaming through the darkness. It was nearing 1:00 AM, and the street was largely deserted except for the silhouette of a stray dog a couple trailers away. The officer stepped from his cruiser and adjusted his belt around his bloated abdomen. His thighs were tight against the fabric of his well-worn pants, and he walked uncomfortably as he ascended the concrete steps to the dented trailer door.

A single knock later and the door opened. A man stood there in a dirty white tank top. His eyes were tired and drooping. Day-old stubble covered his face. Without a word the man stepped away from the door and walked into the trailer. The officer entered slowly, looking around at the dirty carpet and stained couch. His heavy leather boots made dull thudding noises as he walked across the scratched linoleum.

“She’s over there,” the man uttered without emotion, indicating the kitchen door with his dirty hand. The officer looked toward the closed door. A dark red stain crept across the kitchen floor and underneath the door, gleaming with a dark iridescence. “I found her about an hour ago, when I got home from the station.”

“Have you moved her body?” The officer asked solemnly.

“No. She’s exactly how I found her.”

The officer opened the door slowly, creating slight ripples across the hardened surface of the blood pool. A woman’s body lay across the floor; her face smeared red. A girl stood in the corner of the kitchen near the half-opened fridge. She wrapped her slender arms around her trembling body, never releasing the woman’s lifeless form from her gaze.

The girl was young, barely eleven. She stared intensely at the body with a mixture of fear and misery in her wet eyes.

“Get out Mary,” the man said harshly. Mary didn’t react to her father’s demand, and instead backed farther into the corner. “Get out!” he yelled, reaching for his daughter’s frail form. He stepped over his wife’s body and grabbed Mary’s wrist, savagely wrenching her from the kitchen and into the hallway.

The officer ignored Mary and stepped into the room carefully; avoiding the large pool of blood originating from the woman’s wounded neck. “It looks like suicide, Mr. Irwin,” the officer said, reading the crumpled note that had just fallen from Mary’s ghostly hand.

--- --- --- --- ---

It was early in the misty morning. A nearly full moon illuminated the vast expanse of wilderness that crept its way across the land, cradling pockets of human life and lumber mills in its prickly grasp. A single cry echoed through the landscape, causing a ripple of motion across the forest floor. Birds flapped heavily into the air as the lone animal howled again. At the northernmost point of the forest, near a particularly large hill, the trees had been replaced with houses. A mill churned endlessly near the outskirts of the town, releasing a sooty black smoke into the cold air.

A cloaked form slipped from the shadows between the houses and into the moonlight. The figure walked quickly down the side of the street and out of town quickly. Several hundred yards past the last house, the cloak dropped to the ground, revealing a woman’s slender body. Her hair was blacker than night, even the moonlight seemed to scatter across its glassy surface. She stood there, exposed to the harsh morning air. Her body was opaque against the starry night sky, and she stood unmoving for several minutes as she formed words in her mouth. Sounds escaped her flushed lips only to be caught by the wind and thrown across the town and the neighboring forest in an undulation of echoes and wild screams. Opening her eyes, she noticed a pink glow creeping into the darkness, and she quickly began walking back to the sleeping town of Traehill.

Mary quietly opened the back door of her modest home, stepping carefully across the welcome mat and into the kitchen just as the morning light reached across the vast horizon.

“Where were you?” said a voice as Mary placed her cloak in the closet near the door. She jumped slightly before turning and facing the man standing behind her.

“Clinton. You’re up early. I was just running some errands.”

“At 5:00 in the morning?” Clinton looked at her with anger in his eyes. “You were with him, weren’t you? I know he’s in love with you, and I’ve seen how you look at him in church; your little ‘angel boy.’”

“I was not! I’ve never even spoken to Clarence.”

“You lying whore!” Clinton spat, slapping Mary across her face with the back of his hand. Mary staggered backward and brought her hands up to her face. The skin where Clinton’s hand hit blossomed into a purplish bruise within seconds. A trickle of blood ran down Mary’s pale jaw where Clinton’s ring cut into her.

“Don’t Clinton,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I only love you.”

--- --- --- --- ---

“Don’t Daddy,” Mary said for the third time. “I'm sorry.”

“That’s right you're sorry, and see that you never forget.” The man said with the smell of whiskey and cigarettes on his breath. He released Mary from his grip, letting her fall to the floor limply. She quickly grabbed the torn photo lying on the ground that had caused her father's anger, and huddled in the corner cradling her hurt arm.

Moments later Mr. Irwin left the trailer with a pack of cigarettes and a match booklet. Mary could smell the acrid smoke wafting into the house beneath the door and through the vents. Her eyes began to water as she pieced the photo back together. Three smiling faces illuminated the worn picture. Her mother and father stood holding hands with her in between them. It was taken years ago on a trip to California, when they were all happy. Her mother’s hair was messy from lying in the sand, and her father’s grin was as wide as his face. Mary saw herself in the center of the picture. Her feet were buried in the sand, toes wriggling furiously. Her face and arms were sunburned, and her dark hair gleamed in the dying sunlight.

“Why Mom?” Mary said to the picture quietly. “Why did you leave me? What did I do to make you want to die? Her tears fell onto her lap quietly as she sat waiting for something to happen. “It’s been exactly a year, Mom. I’m twelve today.”

Mary sat on the floor with a stubby pencil and a stray piece of paper. She carefully sketched the form of a woman into the yellowing sheet. The woman’s arms and legs were obscured by two enormous wings on either side of her body. The wings were as black as pitch and folded across the woman’s body in a powerful embrace. Mary finished the Angels hair, leaving it completely white against the dark background. A trail of blood issued from the neck, trailing down across her chest and finally disappearing beneath the folded wings.......